Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/325356
level is dropping," citing testimony given to the U.S. Senate by Daniel Botkin. Beneke, who only recently left a position with the Senate after 20 years, said the body likes to hear from a "diverse set of views" and that Botkin is "standing out there" against the sci- entific consensus on climate change. Swier tried to rebut Beneke's response, but he was rebuffed in a contentious moment by Mote President and CEO Michael Crosby, who urged Swier to let her finish her answer. "Sea level rise is a fact," Beneke said, "and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has concluded there is scientific evidence that human influence, in particular greenhouse gas emissions, is a dominant factor." Sarasota County School Board candi- date Randy McLendon, who founded the Englewood tea party group Taking Our Country Back, was also on hand, with a white paper issued by the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that spreads doubt about the human role in climate change. The release called the Mote panel participants "alarmists" who are trying to "put power in their hands and, in some cases, money in their pockets." The organization specifically accused the U.S. Green Building Council — which was repre- sented on the panel — of being made up of "self-dealers who feather their nests under the guise of protecting the environment." (I found the flyer stuffed in the door handle of my car when I left the event, along with a sheet warning about the UN's Agenda 21. The lat- ter, according to the flyer, turns Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong and Che Guevara into "heroes" while working "to indoctrinate and prepare your children to live under global rule.") A 2012 photo shows how much the polar ice cap has shrunk. Image from NASA Sarasota News Leader June 6, 2014 Page 9