Another reason to love Paul Ryan

From Professor S. Fred Singer writing at American Thinker:

Paul Ryan, the Perfect Anti-Gore
Vice-president hopeful Paul D. Ryan is the polar opposite to former VP Al Gore. Instead of promoting fears, the candidate is a pretty solid skeptic when it comes to catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW). Romney is obviously comfortable with that stance and is using Ryan to reposition himself on the issue of global warming and energy.

If Romney-Ryan are elected, the global warming problems may suddenly disappear. As a start, the new Congress will likely pass legislation that specifically instructs the EPA not to control any of the greenhouse gases that have a global distribution -- and, like CO2, are certainly not pollution in any normal, ordinary sense.

In an otherwise critical NYT op-ed (Aug 13), Reagan's former WH budget chief David Stockman calls Ryan "the most articulate and intellectually imposing Republican of the moment." (That was exactly my opinion of the David Stockman I knew some 30 years ago.) It speaks well for Romney that he would select a VP who may overshadow him in many areas. By contrast, Obama's selection of Biden suggests intellectual insecurity.

Paul Ryan's position on climate science
Ryan has accused climate scientists of "intentionally misleading the public on climate change." (See full article.) This may be true for perhaps a dozen or so -- and we know who they are; their names appear prominently in the Climategate e-mails. But many hundreds of others are simply willing to go along and collect research grants from the government, having convinced themselves somehow that their contributions may moderate the climate and "save the Earth."

Here's what Ryan wrote three years ago in The Journal-Times (Racine, WI):

To the detriment of the American people, environmental issues have fallen victim to the hyper-politicization of science. ... [P]ublished e-mail exchanges from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit (CRU) from leading climatologists make clear efforts to use statistical tricks to distort their findings and intentionally mislead the public on the issue of climate change. The CRU e-mail scandal ["Climategate"] reveals a perversion of the scientific method, where data were manipulated to support a predetermined conclusion. The e-mail scandal has not only forced the resignation of a number of discredited scientists, but it also marks a major step back on the need to preserve the integrity of the scientific community. While interests on both sides of the issue will debate the relevance of the manipulated or otherwise omitted data, these revelations undermine confidence in the scientific data driving the climate change debates.

Professor Singer has the credibility to comment on this subject. From the site:

S. Fred Singer is professor emeritus at the University of Virginia and director of the Science & Environmental Policy Project. His specialty is atmospheric and space physics.