EDITORIAL — Climate change beyond human control — Exercise in folly

If geological time were divided into a 12-hour clock, humans would show up at midnight. Yet these two-legged creatures are so puffed up with self-importance that groups of them are plotting ways to curb global warming and climate change. In Canada, a roundtable funded by the federal government believes that buying and selling greenhouse gas emissions is a solution that will save us from the global warming apocalypse. As a bonus, they point out, it has “the potential to be a multi-billion-dollar activity.”

It’s all hot air, of course. The notion that trading emission credits can affect climate change is the epitome of human folly. We say that not because we are against initiatives to curb pollution. Quite the contrary. We strongly support efforts to limit pollution at its source and are staunch advocates of high environmental standards for resource development.

However, before government bureaucrats get over-excited about the notion of controlling climate change, they ought to familiarize themselves with the tumultuous geological history of this planet. That 12-hour clock is a veritable roller-coaster ride of climate change, including the most recent geological era, which began about 65 million years ago (when the continents began to achieve their modern shape). Some 50 million years ago, huge stands of redwood trees grew in what is now the Northwest Territories, and as recently as 20,000 years ago, most of Canada was covered by thick ice sheets. While glaciers cover about 10% of the earth’s land surface today, during their maximum extent, in the Pleistocene Epoch, which began 2 million years ago, they covered more than 30% of the earth, and the sea level was about 120 metres metres lower than it is now.

Scientists agree that the causes of the repeated glaciations go beyond the basic requirements of sufficient precipitation and cold temperatures. Past coolings are believed to have been aided by the worldwide uplift of continents and the resulting withdrawal of the seas from the continents.

Many believe the glaciations were triggered by changes in the amount of solar radiation, as well as cyclic changes in the shape of the earth’s orbit and in the inclination of the earth’s axis. Another factor is variations in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere, which might result at first in warmer, and then in colder, worldwide temperatures. Put bluntly, dramatic changes in climate are the norm, with or without human intervention; they are not an aberration warranting the intervention of government. As much as global warming has been portrayed as the doomsday scenario du jour, it is far less serious a threat to human life than the creeping, crawling 3-km-thick ice sheets, which are bound to come our way again.

If the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica melt away, the rising seas would drown the major seaports of the world. However, scientists believe warming might bring about a return to more humid conditions in Australia, the western United States, Central Asia and northern Africa, and expand useful land (none of these regions has been as arid as now). But if the ice should return again to cover most of North America and northern Europe, it would force mass migrations on a scale unparallelled in recorded history.

While we can’t do much about climate change, we can do a lot to prevent and mitigate pollution. That’s precisely why we believe efforts should be directed away from climate change and toward solving the less glamorous problems of how to dispose of nuclear, industrial and toxic wastes, and how to handle garbage, treat sewage and clean up polluted air and waterways. We believe a carrot, rather than a stick, should be used to encourage companies to be more energy-efficient, reduce emissions, and develop cleaner factories, technologies and transportation systems.

The buying and selling of emission credits will not stop climate change any more than it would have affected the repeated ice ages of the past. It’s about as silly as pretending that an Endangered Species Act would have prevented the extinction of 90% of the species that have ever existed on this planet since the 12-hour clock began ticking.

What we have here is a tax grab cloaked in an uncertain science, and the raison d’etre for the government to impose a new tax on businesses, and perhaps even citizens, for energy consumption.