Thanks to Hartford Courant columnist Rick Green's blog, I see that the state representative whose district includes Burlington, Republican John Piscopo, has introduced a measure "to repeal global warming legislation that was passed based on the assumption that global warming is caused by human action."I have a call in to Piscopo to find out why he's seeking the legislation.
But here is something from a 2006 transcript of the House proceedings that provides a revealing glimpse:
Mr. Speaker, I didn't want to make this into a big global warming debate, but I guess it's been introduced, and I just kind of want to summarize.
Yes, there is some warming on the planet in the last few years. A lot of it can be measured by the activity on the sun. The sun is just more active. We go through periods of warming. We'll go through periods of cooling.
Mark my words, in ten years, we're all going to be worried about late spring frosts, and early fall frosts, and crops dying and we're going to be in some huge climate cooling hysteria. That's just the way it is with this globe. It warms and it cools.
There is nothing the little State of Connecticut, in rolling back its economy to 1990 standards, or over-regulating its manufacturing industry or anything like that, is going to do to stop this huge planet from having fluctuations in its climate.
And I can introduce a lot of different science to this. A lot of it gets squashed by our mainstream media, but I hope that you will all keep an open mind on this debate, in the future, and I will keep trying.
And here is a press release he put out about it awhile back that I wish I'd seen before today.
Here's what state Rep. Bill Hamzy, the Plymouth Republican whose district includes northwestern Bristol had to say during the same 2006 floor debate where Piscopo spoke:
I also rise to speak on the issue of global warming, which was introduced by one of my fellow Representatives, and also state that I believe you can have, in this Chamber, a difference of opinion without resorting to code words like right-wing think tank, or left-wing think tank, or liberal or conservative.
And you can have an honest difference of opinion in a conversation about issues that we take up in this Chamber. And because of differences of opinion, I'm not sure that it's credible to be throwing out those types of words.
If you go back over the course of the history of this world, more than just 15 or 20 years, but go back 1,000 years, you'll see the pattern of global warming and global cooling and recognize that while, I also believe that it's incumbent upon us to reduce emissions.
But I do not believe that the emissions that are released in the State of Connecticut affect the global warming as an entire universe.
And last February, with this measure, Hamzy and Piscopo sought to use money allocated to combat global warming to reduce electrical rates instead.
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Contact Steve Collins at scollins@bristolpress.com
