Public Comment

On July 27, California Watch reported that Senator Wannabe Carly Fiorina accepted $25,000 in donations from Murray Energy Corporation of Cleveland, a major coal producer, whose CEO Robert Murray called global warming "hysterical global goofiness." Murray has an economic interest in the global warming debate because global warming legislation will probably restrict the burning of coal and thus, effect his economic interests. 

Murray also donated $30,000 to Proposition 23, which would suspend AB 32's anti-global warming measure until the economy rebounds from the recession. 

Fiorina even had the audacity to suggest that the science of global warming needs to be examined. What's to examine when the overwhelming scientific consensus has concluded that global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity? 

By association, Fiorina has aligned herself with the global warming deniers joining that eminent scientist Sarah Palin -- one of her endorsers -- who called global warming studies "snake oil science." By using her prominent position as a Republican Senatorial candidate, she helps feed the public's skepticism over global warming, which in turn provides cover for our politicians to avoid the difficult task of addressing global warming. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only 40 percent of likely U.S. voters now say global warming is caused primarily by human activity, while slightly more (44 percent) say long term planetary trends are to blame. 

There is no quick fix for global warming and by doing nothing we risk great harm to our planet and its inhabitants. It has long been known that humans impact our atmosphere severely and our unrelenting production of carbon dioxide (and other greenhouse gases) increase the effects of the naturally occurring "greenhouse effect" that keeps our planet habitable. The more CO2 we pump into our atmosphere, the warmer the atmosphere gets. This is a scientific fact based on decades of scientific study. The main cause of the increase in global average temperatures in recent history is not because of any natural cycle -- although natural cycles do exist -- it is because of man. 

Global warming and its causes threatens all of humanity with slow, painful, untimely deaths. Scientists overwhelmingly agree that increasing global temperatures will cause sea levels to rise and will produce more intense weather and changes in precipitation patterns, changes in crop yields, glacier melting, extinction of species and the spread of disease. Putting our heads in the sand is not going to make global warming go away. 

Is Ms. Fiorina confused by these scientific facts? Or has she joined the dark side for $25,000, just small change for a millionaires like her?