Climate debate escalates The Big Chill

European Union President Romano Prodi was right about one thing when he denounced American President George W. Bush for turning a cold shoulder to the Kyoto Protocol, a United Nations initiative designed to combat global warming: there is one partner in the climate change talks with whom we humans cannot negotiate — the climate itself. It will change, as it has continuously since Earth began, without caring a whit about how we fare in the process. As any textbook on historical geology shows, change is climate’s only constant. If this planet isn’t busy warming, it’s busy cooling, even to apocalyptic extremes at times.

While most earth scientists believe that powerful natural forces drive climate change, Prodi and others portray it a man-made “problem” whose only solution is the “vital” Kyoto Protocol. They blame industrialized nations for adversely altering the climate through the production of greenhouse gases (GHGs), particularly carbon dioxide (CO2) produced from fossil fuels. Unless something is done to reduce GHG emissions, they warn, “already hard-hit” poor nations will be rendered “more vulnerable” to further changes, such as droughts, floods and crop failures.

In The Globe and Mail, Prodi’s message was accompanied by aerial photographs showing damage done to a landscape in just three decades. “Your backyard is under water, Mr. Bush: rising sea levels are rapidly destroying the marsh habitat of Blackwater National Wildlife Preserve near Chesapeake Bay, the largest U.S. estuary.” Bad start, and all for the want of a geography textbook. The East Coast is a transgressive shoreline. The waters are encroaching because the land is subsiding, not because sea levels are rising.

United Nations officials gave a similar warning in 1990 at an environmental conference in Vancouver. Shocked delegates were told that they would be fighting back rising seas by 2025. But Vancouver’s 1905 shoreline marker is still several metres above today’s sea level, not below it. And in Port Arthur, Tasmania, a line cut into a rock by Antarctic explorer Captain James Clark Ross, to mark the 1841 mean sea level, sits about 30 cm above the current mean sea level.

Despite the ongoing scientific debate that still rages over the causes of climate change, apocalyptic warnings about a cooking planet are standard fare on the evening news. The heavy artillery in this propaganda war comes from reports prepared by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a U.N.-sponsored organization that, together with other U.N. agencies, provided the “scientific framework” for Kyoto.

Although IPCC has some scientists, is not a scientific body, which means its reports should be viewed as political, rather than scientific, documents. However, its latest report, titled Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis, continues to be cited as “evidence” that the world is getting hotter, faster than was ever imagined! This is no small accomplishment, as the full 1,000-page document — crafted by 123 lead authors, who in turn drew on works by 516 contributing authors — was never publicly released, let alone reviewed by peers. If degrees were handed out under such conditions, McDonald’s would have many doctors of philosophy flipping burgers behind its counters.

What’s more, the projections of an overheating planet found in the report’s 20-page summary come from computer-generated “story lines” and “scenarios” that are based on theoretical assumptions, not hard data. Furthermore, IPCC relies heavily on “proxy data” (tree rings) to reconstruct past climate for which temperature data are not available. Its computer models are rudimentary, and critics aren’t yet convinced that an anthropogenic signal has emerged from the background of natural climate variability.

The sensational projections have galvanized scientists to question IPCC’s science. Several Canadian climate experts are now openly challenging their government’s official position.

Richard Lindzen, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, remains unconvinced that GHGs are causing temperatures to rise. But what really gets his dander up is the outpouring of apocalyptic rhetoric from politicians, including former vice-president Al Gore. “Rarely has such a meagre science provoked such an outpouring of popularization by individuals who do not understand the subject in the first place.”

Global warming has more critics than supporters among the scientific community, yet the myth persists that there is “scientific consensus” on the matter. Media reports continue to cite the IPCC’s panel of more than 2,000 of the world’s top climate scientists, who, in 1995, concluded that the Earth was indeed warming, and that “the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence” on climate.” Not so. That document had only 28 lead authors, who cherry-picked information from scientific papers produced by 400 contributors. The document was reviewed by another 500 scientists, some of whom later complained that the lead authors “failed to reflect dissenting views.”

Compare that with 17,000 scientists who, in 1998, expressed “grave concerns” about the integrity of the IPCC reports. Numerous television meteorologists also signed a protest petition after being urged, by none other than Al Gore, to climb aboard the global-warming bandwagon.

Despite the continued controversy, politicians continue to cite IPCC’s latest report as proof of man-made global warming, with the notable exception of Bush, who remains unconvinced because of “the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change”.

As for Kyoto, Bush believes it is an unworkable, unfair document that forces developed countries to curtail their economies while, at the same time, paying developing nations’ costs associated with climate change. The American Senate voted against it 95 to 0 because it exempts 80% of the world (including India and China) from compliance, because of the economic hardships it would incur, and because of its open-ended financial obligations.

David Anderson, Canada’s minister of the environment, is appalled by such heresy. “Our government is in no doubt about the reality of climate change,” he stated, after reiterating that “implementation of the Kyoto Protocol is Canada’s goal.”

Sure it is, Mr. Anderson, as long as Canada can buy “emission credits” from under-developed countries and negotiate mega-credits for its forests that more than compensate for its inability to reduce GHGs anywhere near target levels. We agree with environmental groups who argue that Canada’s real goal is to look good at home without economic pain, or environmental gain. Throttling back the economy and boosting gas taxes aren’t popular options — not with snow still lying metres high in parts of eastern Canada and a recession looming.

As for climate change, it’s a natural phenomenon we can’t control, unlike man-made pollution, which we can, and must, curtail. We share Bush’s position that the focus ought to shift to reducing emissions of pollutants, such as sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury, which have health, as well as environmental, consequences. This is especially true for developing nations, where polluted water, air and soils are life-threatening problems.

As for man-made global warming, we’d be more supportive if the IPCC could tell us who is responsible for the warmings that melted huge ice-sheets covering much of North America — not once, but 20 times — in the past 1.6 million years (not that we want to blame anyone for blessed events).

More chilling is the real and present danger that our inter-glacial respite is nearing the end of its typical 20,000-year span. The evidence suggests that post-glacial world climates reached a maximum of warmth between 6,000 and 4,000 years ago, and, since then, with minor oscillations, have become cooler and more moist.

We’re talking real geological evidence. Peer-reviewed evidence. And sadly, the kind our politicians ignore.