Global warming could mean the potential for flooding and droughts in Syracuse — the kinds of disasters environmentalists like Cornelius Murphy work to prevent.

‘Climate change is real. It speaks to 250 million climate refugees by 2100. That’s not enjoying a warmer-than-usual day. That’s a tragedy,’ said Murphy, president of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

But with the official victory of Republican and self-proclaimed ‘global warming skeptic’ Ann Marie Buerkle for New York’s 25th Congressional District, Murphy said the future of climate change legislation seems more uncertain now than ever before. With a divided government, the chance of passing serious climate legislation fades from the hopes of even the most optimistic scientists, he said.

A worried president

Murphy said he fears the worst of climate change. He talks of abandoning low-lying cities, housing millions of climate refugees, fighting floods and turning the planet into an electric-heating blanket. Though Murphy sees Buerkle’s victory as a setback, Murphy said he’ll continue fighting what he called ignorance in politics.

Buerkle’s view of global warming is not isolated. Newly elected Speaker of the House John Boehner said the Environmental Protection Agency’s declaration earlier this year that carbon dioxide is harmful is ‘almost comical.’

Scientists like Murphy have worked to make gains in Congress throughout the past several decades, celebrating successes and suffering losses with each new administration.

This summer, environmental activists were close to a major success. A week away from passing legislation against carbon dioxide emissions last summer, President Barack Obama permitted offshore drilling, and climate took a back seat again to the economy, said Brent Olson, a graduate student in the geography department.

‘It’s sad how far we came, just to be shut down by midterm elections,’ Olson said. ‘It goes to show you how climate takes a backseat to special interest groups.’

David Driesen, a Syracuse University professor of law and expert on climate change policy, said he believes it is very unlikely the House of Representatives could pass serious climate change legislation with a Democratic minority.

Buerkle told The Post-Standard on Nov. 28 that she plans to make health care the focus of her service in Washington, adding that climate change has ‘yet to be proven.’

‘I think global warming politically has probably been decided, but scientifically I don’t think it has,’ Buerkle said.

The local effect

Central New York has become the new frontier in the battle against climate change and energy reform. At the top of the list of environmental controversies facing New York is high-pressure hydraulic fracturing, also known as hydrofracking.

New York rests on one of the nation’s most abundant sources of natural gas, called the Marcellus Shale, said Susan Christopherson, a city and regional planning professor at Cornell University. And Republicans and Tea Partiers looking to prove their success in strengthening rural communities have their sights set on the Marcellus Shale, she said.

Because residents in the Northeast consume the majority of the natural gas, companies lose less money in transporting it. The short-term economic benefits go to the companies, while the state’s benefits prove to be little more than null, Christopherson said.

‘The way the question has been posed is economics versus environment, and the economics just don’t support that argument,’ Christopherson said.

But the opportunity for energy independence resonates with locals, and some professors said they see hydrofracking as a necessity in burning cleaner fossil fuels.

‘The leaders of opposition groups to hydrofracking have disseminated scientifically incorrect analogies, sometimes outright falsehoods and exaggerations of rare accidents to generate fear of hydrofracking and the gas industry,’ said Don Siegel in reference to the Sundance Jury Prize-winning documentary ‘Gasland,’ which showed the extreme affects of hydrofracking in the Midwest and Northeast.

Natural gas burns cleaner than crude or coal, said Siegel, an earth sciences professor at SU, and scientists cannot discuss alternative energies without considering natural gas’ future in the United States.

A moratorium banning hydrofracking passed the state Senate in August but could meet its demise this coming May when lawmakers will sit down with the EPA, a pool of gas companies, special interest groups and concerned citizens to hash out the future of hydrofracking in New York. Siegel said the meeting will hopefully develop a compromise that enables New York to benefit from natural gas extraction while also helping deter global warming.

Several of the environmental scientists and activists agreed banning together was most important, even among disagreement about when, where and how climate change will affect the global environment and economy.

‘Climate change is something that we have to deal with now or pay for later,’ Siegel said. ‘How we deal with it will come down to economics. It’s a consequence of an industrialized society.’

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Published on December 5, 2010 at 12:00 pm