"If Mr. Pittenger had been in politics a century ago, he would have declared that electricity will never work, and called it a conspiracy to destroy the candle industry," said Dan Besse, Winston-Salem City Council Member and Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor.
Pittenger is a strident opponent of policies requiring increased use of renewable energy and energy efficiency.
"Mr. Pittenger takes his cues from pseudo-scientific 'assessments' by groups funded by the oil industry," said Besse. "He has bought into the most dramatic example in public life today of the strange intersection between corporate greed and wild conspiracy theories."
"If the Republican Party nominates Mr. Pittenger, I will look forward to debating him on these issues," concluded Besse. "It will provide an outstanding opportunity to represent the consensus of the scientific community and responsible Americans in pressing for actions that will help head off environmental disaster in North Carolina."
Pittenger himself has received generous campaign donations from the electric utilities and other industry groups opposed to strong environmental policies. During his three campaigns for State Senate ('02, '04, '06), Pittenger has received at least $13,500 from electric utility PACs, over $5,000 from automotive interests, and over $45,000 from colleagues in the real-estate industry. (See www.followthemoney.org or confirm their research through campaign finance reports available at http://www.sboe.state.nc.us/NCSBE/CF/cf_reports.html)
During meetings of the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change, on which he serves, Pittenger has vocally clashed with recognized scientific experts making background presentations for the commission.
Pittenger told one expert witness before the commission, Dr. Nicholas Schlesinger of Duke University, that there was no scientific consensus on the connection between human activities and global warming. Schlesinger said that there was an overwhelming scientific consensus recognizing that connection—in fact "...as much consensus as cigarettes causing lung cancer, and maybe more."
Schlesinger is an expert in earth and climate studies and former Dean of the Nicholas School for environmental sciences at Duke University. (For details of his background and scientific credentials, see http://www.nicholas.duke.edu/people/faculty/schlesinger.html)
Pittenger is a real estate investor with no training in the physical sciences.
Dan Besse is currently a member of the N.C. Climate Action Plan Advisory Group, formed by the N.C. Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources to help develop recommendations for addressing climate change. He has 20 years of other public service on state-level policy-making boards dealing with the environment (including 12 years by appointment of Gov. Jim Hunt on the N.C. Environmental Management Commission). For full details on Besse's record of leadership on environmental issues, see http://www.danbesse2008.org/AboutDan/LeadershipExperience/tabid/162/Default.aspx
For further details on the Pittenger connection to groups behind the opposition to action on global climate change, see the 11/13/07 article at http://southernstudies.org/facingsouth/labels/energy%20policy.asp