Cool on global warming

Since the Third Conference of the Parties in Kyoto, Japan, in December 1997, I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about global warming, and your trenchant editorial (T.N.M., April 16-22) certainly set it abuzz.

Thermometer readings going back to 1861 show that the global-average temperature at ground or sea-level has risen 0.6C, which makes European Union President Romano Prodi fret about melting ice and rising sea levels. He will be comforted to learn that a line engraved on a rock in Port Arthur, Tasmania, by Antarctic Explorer Captain Ross, to mark the mean sea level in 1841, is still 30 cm above today’s levels, despite 140 years of thaw and thermal expansion of the melted ice.

As for president George W. Bush’s turning a cold shoulder to the Kyoto Protocol, thank goodness he had the gumption to do so. Let’s pray that Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson does the same and that he can persuade his cabinet colleagues to abandon the impossible mission that foolhardy delegates took on in Kyoto. According to the agreement, Canada must reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to 6% below 1990 levels by sometime between 2008 and 2012.

At this point, it gets very confusing. Natural Resources Canada admits that the country emitted 601 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 1990. However, the United Nations statistical office has published a figure of only 409 million tonnes — or 32% less. Furthermore, the deadline falls on any one of 1,827 days between Dec. 31, 2007, and Dec. 31, 2012.

Given this vague time frame, how can Ottawa bureaucrats be expected to work out a plan of action? By claiming that Canada’s trees act as carbon sinks?

Tony Downs

Verdun, Que.

In the editorial of April 16-22, you note that the “Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change relies heavily on ‘proxy data’ (tree rings) to reconstruct past climate for which temperature data are not available.”

Although temperature is certainly an important factor in tree growth, others, such as the availability of water and nutrition, are also important. In nutrition, trace elements can make a considerable difference in the rate of growth. Tree rings can only be used if there is some other data to help support past temperatures.

U.S. President George W. Bush and the U.S. senate did the right thing in stopping the Kyoto Protocol. They may have done so for the wrong reasons, but that’s much better than doing the wrong thing for the wrong reason.

Frank Haidlauf

Keremeos, B.C.