Climate hearings return to US Senate

Science : Until yesterday, it had been three years since the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works last held a hearing on the science behind climate change. Yet the 1 August session showed that little on the political front has changed. The scientists who were invited to speak agreed that climate change is happening, but they split over whether there was enough evidence to tie recent extreme weather events to climate change. The divide was sharper among the senators. James Inhofe (R-OK) referred to the “collapse of the global warming movement,” while Jeff Sessions (R-AL) acknowledged that there was “some warming and it may be human-caused” but wondered if we could afford to do anything about it. In response, Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) said it was incredible that there was still debate over the reality of climate change, and Bernard Sanders (D-VT) said, “We can’t run away from this issue.” However, when Barbara Boxer (D-CA) noted that not much had changed since the last hearings, Sessions disagreed and pointed to bipartisan reforms that curb greenhouse emissions and improve automobile mileage standards and energy efficiency.