Editing Ted Stevens (section)

====Global warming====
Stevens was long an avowed [[climate change denial|skeptic]] of [[anthropogenic climate change]], instead believing the threat was from natural causes. In 2004, Stevens said "No place is experiencing a more startling change from rising global temperatures than Alaska. Among the consequences are sagging roads, crumbling villages, dead trees, catastrophic fires and possible disruption of marine life. These problems will cause Alaska hundreds of millions of dollars. Alaska is harder hit by global climate change than any place in the world."<ref name="theory">{{Cite news |last=Stolz |first=Kit |date=2007-09-07 |title=Alaskan senator invents new theory of global warming |url=https://grist.org/article/ted-stevens-climatologist/ |access-date=2023-05-19 |website=Grist |language=en-us |archive-date=May 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230515131248/https://grist.org/article/ted-stevens-climatologist/ |url-status=live }}</ref> At a [[Senate Commerce Committee]] hearing in 2005, Stevens warned Congress to approach climate change with caution, stating "Dr. Syun-Ichi Akasofu sent me his most recent assessment earlier this month. I hope you all know that we helped finance three, maybe four icebreaker research vessels now for the third year in the Arctic Ocean to try and really keep track of what is happening there. He noted the amount of {{CO2}} and CH4 now in the air is well above what the earth has experienced during the last 450,000 years and climate change is in progress in full steam in the Arctic. But he emphasized that there is 'no definitive proof' that receding glaciers and shrinking sea ice 'are caused entirely and specifically by the greenhouse effect.'", adding "I have urged my colleagues in the Senate not to substitute casual judgments for sound science. That would only lead to confusion, which Dr. Akasofu has warned me may be more dangerous than global warming itself."<ref>{{Cite web |date=2005-11-15 |title=Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens Addresses U.S. Climate Change Science Program Workshop |url=https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2005/11/commerce-committee-chairman-ted-stevens-addresses-u.s-climate-change-science-program-workshop |access-date=2023-05-19 |website=U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation |language=en |archive-date=May 15, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230515131248/https://www.commerce.senate.gov/2005/11/commerce-committee-chairman-ted-stevens-addresses-u.s-climate-change-science-program-workshop |url-status=live }}</ref>

In early 2007, he acknowledged that humans were changing the climate, and began supporting legislation to [[climate change mitigation|combat climate change]]. "Global climate change is a very serious problem for us, becoming more so every day", he said at a Senate hearing in February 2007, adding that he was "concerned about the human impacts on our climate". He then spoke to the St. Petersburg Times, stating "We've got global climate change, and it's coming about partly naturally and part of it may be, I believe, caused by the accumulation of the activities of man."<ref name="adair">{{cite news|author=Adair, Bill|date=February 24, 2007|title=Senator's new views on climate surprise foes|work=St. Petersburg Times|url=http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/24/Worldandnation/Senator_s_new_views__.shtml|access-date=February 25, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160816174946/http://www.sptimes.com/2007/02/24/Worldandnation/Senator_s_new_views__.shtml|archive-date=16 August 2016}}</ref> But in September 2007, he claimed, "We're at the end of a long term of warming.", adding "700 to 900 years of increased temperature", and then "If we're close to the end of that, that means that we'll starting getting cooler gradually, not very rapidly, but cooler once again and stability might come to this region for a period of another 900 years."<ref name="greenpeace"/><ref name ="theory"/>