Warming to Climate Change

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Warming to Climate Change
by James Hall, Associate Editor

June 19, 2002

"Leaning Left"

James Hall "Having admitted the extent of the problem and identified the cause, a policy of inaction becomes impossible to defend." -- David Hawkins, Natural Resources Defense Council.

The admission came late and at best grudgingly, but it came. To comply with the Rio Treaty signed by President George H. W. Bush in 1992, the Environmental Protection Agency sent a status report to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. The report was notable in that it 1) confirms that global warming exists and has serious consequences for the United States; and 2) blames a considerable part of warming on the greenhouse gases produced by human beings.

Throw in the fact that the US is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases and it would seem that action is called for. But this administration, heavily dependent on support from the oil, coal, and automobile industries, has been burned by global warming before. Once in a stump speech when candidate Bush put CO2 on a list of greenhouse gases to be regulated. Again at the beginning of the new administration when new EPA Administrator Christine Whitman put CO2 on the EPA's list of greenhouse gases to be regulated. Both times Big Oil and Big Coal screamed bloody murder and the Bush people did an abrupt about-face. "The science isn't there," they intoned to critics.

This time a repudiation looks more difficult. The 268 page EPA report included input from the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the Energy Department, the National Academy of Science and the State Department. The report's scientific foundation is solid, the conclusions inescapable. As another recent collection of studies by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "Climate Change 2001: The Scientific Basis," concludes: "In the light of new evidence and taking into account the remaining uncertainties, most of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations." (E.8 Synopsis).

Despite its scientific credentials, no major Bush administration official would publicly touch the report with a ten foot pole. The report was placed on the EPA's website without an official press release. EPA Administrator Whitman said she hadn't seen it before it was published. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said he was out of the country and hadn't read it. President Bush called it "a product of the bureaucracy," but didn't repudiate it, either.

Conservatives who have long listened to people who told them that global warming didn't exist are puzzled and angry. But the current science on global climate change is so strong that it's now impossible for any reputable scientist to argue that the climate isn't changing, or that greenhouse gases don't play a significant role in that change. There's no longer any scientific cover to hide behind. The only real questions that remain are how much the climate will warm and what we can do stop or slow the warming trend.

The report clearly predicts a variety of poor outcomes for the United States -- the loss of barrier islands and coastal lowlands under rising seas, the end to mountain alpine meadow environments, a dryer, more drought-prone west, and lower water levels in the Great Lakes. Internationally, the changes bring about the bleaching and eventual loss of coral reefs, the reduction of polar ice, and changes in ocean current circulation patterns which will make El Nino look tame in comparison.

So how do we put the brakes on this warming trend? Joining the Kyoto Treaty is the first logical step. Kyoto has already been ratified by 73 nations, including Japan and the 15-nation European Union last week. When Russia (which has announced its intention to join) follows, nations responsible for some 55 percent of emissions will have joined the treaty.

Here in the United States, not everyone is waiting for the Bush people to act. A number of states and cities have declared their intention to meet the Kyoto standard of around 7% reduction in greenhouse gases. New Hampshire and Massachusetts have announced plans to cut emissions from power plants, and California is considering a cut in emissions from automobiles. They are joined by over 100 US cities pledging to reduce their emissions to Kyoto levels or lower.

US companies who do business abroad are also being pressured to reduce their emissions -- here at home as well as abroad. It begins to look as if the Bush administration will be dragged kicking and screaming towards Kyoto whether they like it or not. Somewhere, Al Gore must be smiling. ***

Photo of the author courtesy of staff files