Climate Change Considerations

The debate about climate change is far from over. The issues are varied and complex, and there is no clear scientific unanimity on the subject. While we all need to be good stewards of planet earth, this must be based on informed and sober analysis, not mere emotive or political haranguing.

Sorting through the competing claims is of course difficult, especially for those without a scientific background. But we must nonetheless seek to sort out the evidence and the truth behind the controversy. Paul Driessen, writing in the October 21, 2006 townhall.com, tries to provide some backdrop to the current debate.

In his article, “The real climate change catastrophe,” he argues that misguided energy policies will adversely affect the world’s poor. He begins by noting that nature itself has a constant warming and cooling pattern that needs to be taken into account. For example,

“Vikings raised crops and cattle in Greenland 1000 years ago, while Britons grew grapes in England. Four hundred years later, the Vikings were frozen out, Europe was gripped in a Little Ice Age, and priests performed exorcisms on advancing Swiss glaciers. The globe warmed in 1850-1940, cooled for the next 35 years, then warmed slightly again.”

After providing more such detail, he remarks: “Studies by National Academy of Sciences, NOAA, Danish and other scientists continue to raise inconvenient truths that question and contradict catastrophic climate change theories, computer models and assertions. The ‘hockey stick’ temperature graph (which claimed 1990-2000 was the hottest decade in 1000 years) was shown to be invalid; the Southern Hemisphere has not warmed in the past 25 years; the US is yet to be hit by a major hurricane in 2006; interior Greenland and Antarctica are gaining ice mass, not losing it; and Gulf Stream circulation has not slowed, as claimed in 2005.”

Moreover, “Other recent studies conclude the sun’s radiant heat and cosmic ray levels affect planetary warming and cloud formation more strongly than acknowledged by climate alarmists. That’s logical. Why would natural forces that caused climate change and bizarre weather in past centuries suddenly stop working? Why would we assume (as many climate models do) that energy, transportation and pollution control technologies will suddenly stagnate at 2000 levels, after the amazing advances of the previous century? And can we afford the Quixotic attempt to stall or prevent future climate change?”

Often the proposals offered to save our planet have very real negative consequences for the people on planet earth, especially the poor:

“Just the current Kyoto Protocol could cost the world up to $1 trillion per year, in regulatory bills, higher energy costs and lost productivity. That’s several times more than the price tag for providing the world with clean drinking water and sanitation – which would prevent millions of deaths annually from intestinal diseases. Over 2 billion of the Earth’s citizens still do not have electricity, to provide basic necessities like lights, refrigeration and modern hospitals. Instead they breathe polluted smoke from wood and dung fires, and die by the millions from lung diseases. But opposition to fossil fuel power plants, in the name of preventing climate change, ensures that these ‘indigenous’ lifestyles, diseases and deaths will continue.”

Indeed, the save the world proposals tend to favour the rich nations while penalising the poor: “Opposition to hydroelectric projects (damming rivers) and nuclear power (radioactive wastes) likewise perpetuates endemic Third World poverty. So would a new European Union proposal to tax imports from China, India and other poor countries that are exempt from the Kyoto Protocol, because this gives them an ‘unfair trade advantage’ over EU countries that are struggling to meet their Kyoto #1 commitments.”

After providing more figures (extra costs, job losses, etc.), he says this: “Yet, even perfect compliance with Kyoto would result in Earth’s temperature being only 0.2 degrees F less by 2050 than under a business-as-usual scenario. Assuming humans really are the culprits, actually controlling theoretical global temperature increases would require 40 Kyoto treaties – each one more restrictive, each one expanding government control over housing, transportation, heating, cooling and manufacturing decisions. The real danger is that we will handcuff economies and hammer poor families, to promote solutions which won’t solve a problem that the evidence increasingly suggests is moderate, manageable and primarily natural in origin.”

Concludes Driessen, “The real catastrophe is that we are already using overwrought claims about a climate cataclysm to justify depriving Earth’s most impoverished citizens of electricity and other modern technologies that would make their lives infinitely better. Real ethics and social responsibility would weigh these costs and benefits, foster robust debate about every aspect of climate change, ensure continued technological advancement, and give a seat at the decision table to the real stakeholders: not climate alarmists – but those who have to live with the consequences of decisions that affect their access to energy, health, hope, opportunity and prosperity.”

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2006/10/21/the_real_climate_change_catastrophe

[808 words]

5 Replies to “Climate Change Considerations”

  1. I heard a scientist recently on BBC world news say that human induced global warming was as certain as the “fact of evolution”. Enough said really.

    Ewan McDonald, Victoria

  2. ‘Paul Driessen is Senior Fellow, Atlas Economic Research Foundation Senior Fellow, Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT) Senior Fellow, Frontiers of Freedom Institute Senior Fellow, Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise

    The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow is a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization whose stated mission is to promote free market solutions to environmental problems. According to its Web site, CFACT provides “a positive alternative to major environmental groups like Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and Friends of the Earth” [1]. CFACT produces online articles and radio segments on environmental and consumer subjects. In addition, CFACT coordinates the work of affiliate chapters on college campuses across the United States.

    A large proportion of CFACT’s funding comes from corporations in the energy and automobile industries, as well as conservative foundations. Its financial backers include:

    * The Exxon Mobil Corporation, which has given $257,000 to the organization since 1998 [2]. In 2003, Exxon gave $25,000 specifically to support research on “Climate Change Issues” [3].
    * The Chevron Corporation: $60,500 between 1994 and 1998 [4].
    * The DaimlerChrysler Corporation Fund: $25,000 in 1997 [5].
    * The U.S. Council on Energy Awareness, which is funded by nuclear power and uranium companies [6].
    * The conservative Carthage Foundation ($200,000 in 2002) and Sarah Scaife Foundation ($75,000 in 2001), which are both controlled by Richard Mellon Scaife. The Sarah Scaife Foundation is financed by the Mellon industrial, oil and banking fortune’
    Wikipedia

    David Sturdy, Launceston

  3. Thanks David

    But you commit a common logical fallacy here, known as the genetic fallacy. You reject an argument because of its source. The facts presented by Driessen, and the arguments that he makes, still need to be dealt with. Simply wishing they will go away because you do not like their origin is hardly refuting a position.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

  4. Hi Bill,
    I am not rejecting the argument because of its source, in fact quite the opposite. Both the National Academy of Sciences and the NOAA uphold the idea of man made climate change and I can’t find any evidence on either of their websites that support the view of Driessen.

    ‘In 2005 the national science academies of the G8 nations (including the U.S. National Academy of Sciences) – and Brazil, China and India, three of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases in the developing world, signed a statement on the global response to climate change. The statement stresses that the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action [1], and explicitly endorsed the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change consensus.’
    Wikipedia

    ‘GLOBAL TEMPERATURES ARE UP 0.7 – 1.4 degF OVER PAST 100 YEARS
    MOST OF THE WARMING OVER THE PAST 50 YEARS IS LIKELY TO BE DUE TO GREENHOUSE-GAS INCREASES Confidence Index=8/10
    BOTTOM LINES – THE VAST MAJORITY SCIENTIFIC VIEWPOINT

    * The issue is a real one
    * The first signs of human-caused climate change have likely occurred
    * Some degree of further changes appears inevitable
    * Exactly where (regions), when (rate of change), how much (magnitude) is hard to predict
    * Human-caused climate change would be slow to reverse’
    NOAA

    David Sturdy, Launceston

  5. Thanks David
    But you still have not countered the facts and arguments in question. The scientific community is agreed that slight climate change (warming) has occurred over the past century. Unanimity stops there. There is disagreement about how much of this is man made, how much is just normal weather variation, and what predictions can be made about it all. Even your last quote from the NOAA looks very tentative and cautious indeed.

    Bill Muehlenberg, CultureWatch

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