Patrick J. Michaels (Author at The Cato Institute)

Patrick J. Michaels takes on climate change alarmists. (Weekly Video)

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EST

Cato Institute Senior Fellow Patrick J. Michaels discusses climate change on various television programs. Michaels is a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and visiting scientist with the Marshall Institute in Washington, D.C. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society.

Global Warming Fantasies Meet Financial Contraction (Commentary)

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Whoever is elected president, global warming legislation is going to be passed in Washington next year. Legislation proposed by both John McCain and Barack Obama will require that the cost of energy to become so high that people will avoid using it. The serious question is: why would we do this ...

Record Low For Climate Science (Commentary)

Tue, 02 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Ever since Soviet and Western climate scientists published the first international compendium on global warming, back in 1985, we have known that scaring people to death is very good for the environmentalist business. Such documents appear once or twice a year under the aegis of sundry governmental ...

Voodoo Climatology (Daily Podcast)

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

The Grand Exaggerator (Commentary)

Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

What is it with Al Gore? Why is he compelled to exaggerate climate change (excuse me, "the climate crisis"), and then to propose impossible policy responses? It's like he's inventing the Internet all over again! OK, it's pretty much standard rhetoric in Washington to say that if you don't do as I...

Cato Scholar Comments on the EPA Extending the Period for Public Comment on Emissions (Scholar Comments)

Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EDT

In a response to the recent Supreme Court case on global warming, the Environmental Protection Agency is now calling for an extended period of public comments on the need for regulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide. This will not be popular with environmental activists who will claim EPA should call for specific emissions reductions immediately. But that's not the real concern on the part of those in favor of stringent cuts. Their major concern is that the truth about global warming will emerge in the comment period: That warming is likely to be modest, that human beings have been, and will continue to adapt to it, and that no one knows how to reduce global emissions enough to have any detectable effect whatsoever on the planet's surface temperature.

Hansen Unhinged (Commentary)

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Having the wrong opinions on climate science constitutes a crime against humanity? This week marks 20 years since NASA's James E. Hansen testified before a joint Congressional hearing that there was a strong "cause and effect" relationship between "current" climate conditions and emissions of car...

Commission Does Little About Climate Change (Commentary)

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

For months, I have had lures in the waters of Gov. Tim Kaine's Commission on Climate Change. The bobber hasn't jiggled. I guess they don't want to hear from the guy who was state climatologist from 1980 through last summer. That's too bad, because I support the idea that climate change is an obje...

Cato Scholars Comment on President Bush's Push to End the Ban on Offshore Drilling (Scholar Comments)

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

President Bush's call for offshore drilling to fight high oil prices is yet another sign that legislation dramatically limiting our carbon dioxide emissions -- the main cause of global warming -- will never fly. $4.00 a gallon gasoline has resulted in a drop in consumption of a few percent, and a rush to exploit new oil sources. How expensive does gasoline have to get to reduce consumption by 70% -- the target of the Lieberman-Warner bill recently debated on the Senate floor? This bill enjoyed the enthusiastic support of Presidential candidate John McCain, who was one of the original authors.

It will be very interesting to see how President Bush defends this decision when the subject of global warming comes up at the G-8 summit in Japan next month.