“Climate is what we expect, weather is what we get.“
– Mark Twain
 Photo released by the Canadian Ice Service Friday Feb. 2, 2007 |
A DrudgeReport headline this fall read, “SUMMER 2006 TEMPS FAIL TO BREAK RECORD SET IN 1936.” Conservative blogs, like this one and this one practically fell over themselves trying to play up this fact. Take that Treehuggers!
However anyone who actually read the NOAA’s blurb found this:
The persistence of the anomalous warmth in 2006 made this January-August period the warmest on record for the continental U.S., eclipsing the previous record of 1934.
Then the recent headline came out: 2006 Is Hottest Year on Record in U.S., meaning Eight of the 11 warmest years since 1860 have occurred since 1996 and 2005 was the hottest yet. The other three hottest years were 1990, 1991, and 1995.
In August 2006, a record-breaking heat wave swept across the United States, killing 164 people in California. Previously, the 2003 heat wave in Europe killed 35,000 people. Droughts have become a yearly event in Darfur, heavily influencing the resource wars that have erupted there.
Climatologists were relieved when the 2005 Atlantic Hurricane Season ended with the storm system “Zeta” still spinning in the Atlantic. In another record year for hurricanes, they had run out of names for the storms, leaving some to joke about resorting to the Klingon dictionary for additional names.
The ice at the North Pole has disintegrated to the point that for the first time in history you can sail to it. Polar Bears have been added to the endangered species list, as the ice shelves supporting their ecological niche vanish from the planet. Map-makers are struggling to keep up with Greenland’s changing geography as its glaciers rapidly recede. A 3,000 year old Canadian ice shelf 66 square kilometers in size has broken free of the Canadian Arctic.
The formerly inhabited tropical island, Lohachara, has vanished beneath rising sea levels. NASA has revealed that the Earth’s temperatures are the hottest in 12,000 years, and a “hair’s breadth of a million years.”
LiveScience has published their Top 10 Surprising Results of Global Warming, which includes aggravated allergies, animal migrations, 125 Arctic Lakes disappearing, thawing permafrost causing rockslides, sinkholes and structural damage to buildings and railroad tracks, changing seasonal timing screwing up animal hibernation cycles, mountains growing taller without the weight of glacier ice, and dryer forests combined with warmer weather increases wildfire activity.
Then the IPCC Working Group I Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was released, summarizing the consensus of 2,500 scientists, 800 authors, and 130 countries. They predict higher temperatures than their previous reports, call warming of the global climate system “unequivocal,” and conclude a 90% certainty that global warming is anthropogenic (caused by humans) in nature.
With this mountain of evidence in front of me, like Bryan Walsh, a reporter for Time, I thought, “The debate on global warming is over.”
Despite all of this already overwhelming evidence and the continuing mounting evidence, I still get e-mails from conservatives like this one:
For those of you who still believe in man-made global warming (and other
assorted myths, such as the tooth fairy), the following short news blurb
appeared on the Drudge Report website this morning: HOUSE HEARING ON ‘WARMING OF THE PLANET’ CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM HEARING NOTICE
Incredible scientific consensus, a mountain of physical evidence, ever-improving climate modeling software, and the negative effects of global warming being witnessed across the globe, but all of that means nothing because it snowed in Washington DC in the middle of February.
In 2002, the chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality edited reports by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) to remove its conclusions that anthropogenic global warming was reality. He now works for ExxonMobil.
In 2006, NASA, the agency responsible for producing much of the data we have in support of global warming, quietly removed “to understand and protect our home planet” from its mission statement (emphasis mine). The director for the Goddard Institute for Space Studies believes this is part of Conservative’s continuing efforts to suppress evidence of anthropogenic global warming.
Whitehouse e-mails show a concerted effort to suppress global warming scientists. Recently, lobby groups funded by ExxonMobil offered $10,000 to scientists to dispute climate change.
These corporate and political institutions have everything to lose if the world switches to alternative fuels, implements carbon caps, and curbs energy demands with conservation practices. So they censor, bribe, and preach controversy to perpetuate inaction… and they have legions of mindless dittoheads to point out the fact that it still gets cold in Winter.
Are we doomed?
Notes: Between the time I wrote this and posted it, the 2006 – 2007 Winter became the warmest on record, trees began appearing in the Arctic, and Arctic Biologists were Told Not to Discuss Polar Bears or Sea Ice.
When reality becomes satire, we are doomed. It reminded me of Richard Reeves’ classic column “The Way People Really Talk About Politics.” People believe from their gut, not their rationality. Many people in America are prohibited from believing anthropogenic global warming because their politics will not allow it. Others are prohibited from believing anthropogenic global warming because their profits would suffer from regulations to prevent it. Others believe it is the end times and global warming is simply part of the apocalypse.
 Temperature and CO2 Correlation over the Past 400,000 Years (from the Vostok ice core) |
Gathered here are collected the many arguments against global warming and anthropogenic global warming that I have regularly encountered online and in conversation. There are some very important debates in scientific circles over global warming, which I will get to in another article. These aren’t those.
“How do you know global warming isn’t some variation in the Earth’s orbit?”
In fact, Milankovitch Cycles, variations in the Earth’s position in relation to the Sun, may have an effect on the amount of radiation the Earth receives from the Sun and dramatically influence the Earth’s climate; however, we are talking about 100,000 year cycles. We have seen a global mean temperature increase of 0.74 ± 0.18 °Celsius (1.3 ± 0.32 °Fahrenheit) in the last century, or 0.001 percent of the time required for one Milankovitch cycle. That’s too dramatic a change in too short a time period for natural variations in the Earth’s orbit to be the culprit.
This extremely long period of time between ice ages is why the “we’re going into an ice age” argument doesn’t work (A quick fact-check on Alan Caruba’s high-profile commentary and the wikipedia article he claims to be referencing reveal he didn’t read the article very closely or is purposefully misinforming his readers).
“How do you know the sun isn’t getting hotter?”
High school physics lesson: Thermal energy does not travel across a vacuum. The space between the Sun and Earth is a vacuum. Please put on the dunce cap and go sit in the corner. Thpppt!
“How do you know the sun isn’t getting brighter?”
In fact “the planet’s surface has brightened by about 4% in the last 10 years,” this comes after scientists uncovered a 4 to 6 percent decline in sunlight reaching the Earth’s surface between 1960 and 1990 due to atmospheric pollution. Thanks to environmental regulations, our atmosphere is clearing up and that’s a good thing.
Unfortunately, clearer skies also means we will now start seeing the full effects of global warming. One legitimate criticism of global warming estimates is that they always seem overblown and the predictions don’t manifest in the expected timeframe. With this data, we know that atmospheric pollution was just one variable scientists were not figuring into their models.
Even more unfortunate, the U.S. Government is pressuring the United Nations to investigate pumping particulate matter into the atmosphere and giant space mirrors as a last-ditch way to combat global warming. If global warming is the unintended consequence of human activities, then isn’t it an equally bad idea to try and geoengineer the planet we live on and learn whatever other unintended consequences we can bring about?
Remember the Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly?
“Antarctica is Getting Colder”
This idea is the result of misguided pundits like Ann Coulter and Michael Crichton spinning the fact that parts of Antarctica have cooled rather than warmed (although the pundits just say “Antarctica,” not the more acurate “parts of Antarctica”).
Peter Doran, the scientist credited with discovering this fact has asked that global warming skeptics please stop abusing his findings:
I mistakenly thought that over time, the misuse of our results would slowly fade, but it seems this practice has instead grown. Our results have now been used as “evidence” against global warming by Ann Coulter in her latest book, “Godless: The Church of Liberalism”, which followed closely Michael Crichton’s misuse of our results in his novel/congressional testimony, “State of Fear”. If you search my name on the web, you will find pages of examples of misuse of our results in everything from climate discussion groups to Senate policy committee documents. Not only has this abuse grown, it has evolved. Someone recently sent me a link to a web column where I was quoted as saying “the unexpected colder climate in Antarctica may possibly be signaling a lessening of the current global warming cycle”… Not only have I never thought such a thing, I’ve definitely never said it!
– Peter Doran, Antarctic Cooling?
The correct conclusion to draw from what we are observing in Antarctica is that the hole in the ozone layer there is complicating things, creating unexpected environmental affects.
“What about the fossil evidence that Antarctica was once a rain forest?”
This is true, but what the pundits aren’t telling you is that Antarctica was also located in a more Northern Latitude at this time. Through a process known as plate tectonics (PDF Warning), the continent moved to its present location, where it was covered in ice. Penguins and sea lions were among the few species on the continent that were able to adapt to the new environment.
Now, that being said, the Earth has seen long periods of global warming and cooling, but again, we are talking about periods of hundreds of thousands of years. What we are witnessing with global warming is occurring on a scale of decades.
 Upsala Glacier in 1928 and 2004 |
“Newspapers reported in the 70s that we were going into an Ice Age and they were wrong. How do you know they aren’t wrong now?”
They are wrong now, I guarantee you they are wrong about all sorts of things in this great big insanely-complex Gaia model of Earth. All we can do is research and more research. Each new version of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s report on climate change has different findings than the previous report.
The difference between then and now is that over the last half-century we have been seeing a trend to today’s overwhelming consensus on climate change. That’s how science works. Scientists throw out all sorts of hypotheses and the one that fits reality the best wins until a better one comes along. This isn’t a flaw, this is a strength, and it’s why we need to take anthropogenic climate change seriously.
“Doesn’t Al Gore fly around in a private jet and live in a mansion? If he was really worried about global warming, wouldn’t he give these things up?”
Al Gore has sufficiently responded to these charges, but the charges themselves seem like grasping at straws for retorts to what has become overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming. I myself have acted on some of the 50 Things individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint; however, personal responsibility is also a red herring. Fighting the human causes of global warming is not a matter of individual responsibility so much as it is a matter of civilization’s responsibility. Our entire world community has to work together to reverse these effects, picking on individuals just wastes time and energy.
“Couldn’t cyclical sunspot activity be influencing global warming?”
So the argument is that sunspot activity is cyclical and this is therefore a natural warming trend because… ummmm… something. They just cite this vague correlation between sunspot activity and storm frequency. How sunspots could be warming the Earth constantly over the last century they can’t say. In other words, they have no cause and effect hypothesis to propose.
That’s right NO CAUSE AND EFFECT HYPOTHESIS, only a specter of doubt they wish to propagate in the public minds. Without any sort of cause and effect relationship to propose between sunspot activity and global warming, this idea is no different than the decline of pirates correlation to global warming.
Luckily, we can put this hypothesis aside thanks to researchers who “checked telescope observations of sunspots against temperature records going back to the 17th century” and then “checked more ancient evidence of rare isotopes and temperatures trapped in sea sediments and Greenland and Antarctic ice and also found no dramatic shifts in solar energy output for at least the past millennium,” concluding that “the sun’s brightness varied by only 0.07 per cent over 11-year sunspot cycles, far too little to account for the rise in temperatures since the Industrial Revolution(source).”
“What about volcanoes? Rush Limbaugh says that volcanoes produce more greenhouse gases than humans ever could.”
This is a really weird one that keeps coming up in my conversations with global warming skeptics. As far as I can figure out, Rush Limbaugh has never said this. Here’s Limbaugh’s very misleading statement on volcanoes and the ozone layer:
Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines spewed forth more than a thousand times the amount of ozone-depleting chemicals in one eruption than all the fluorocarbons manufactured by wicked, diabolical and insensitive corporations in history…. Mankind can’t possibly equal the output of even one eruption from Pinatubo, much less 4 billion years’ worth of them, so how can we destroy ozone?
-Rush Limbaugh, The Way Things Ought to Be (paperback edition pp. 155-157)
Ozone layer, not global warming. In fact, anthropogenic CO2 emission overwhelm Volcanic emissions by 150 times, and volcanic erruptions are closely linked to global cooling.
“How do you know scientists and Al Gore aren’t pushing Global Warming on us for personal gain?”
Here’s a good elaboration on this argument:
Simply put, scientists know where the grants will come from to pay their salaries. Dr. Patrick Michaels, a leading opponent to the global warming scaremongers, calls it the federal/science paradigm. He describes it this way: Tax $ = Grants = Positive Feedback Loop to Get more Grants. (source)
So the only reason the overwhellming consensus of scientists are pushing the anthropogenic global warming meme on us is so they can get more federal funding and sell books.
This logic cuts both ways.
What do oil companies gain from inaction on global warming? Exxon made quarterly profits of $10 Billion in 2006, a record formerly held by… Exxon Mobil in 2005. Alternative energy sources, fuel efficient cars, and carbon emissions caps all threaten these record-breaking profits. Maybe that’s why ExxonMobil has put more than $8 million into more than 40 think tanks disputing global warming.
In fact, scientists who criticize global warming and can produce research supporting their criticism can earn much more money than other scientists. Global Warming researchers get grants to spend on their research and their meager salaries, scientists who dispute climate change can get $10,000 for publishing articles that dispute the IPCC, plus travel expenses and other payments.
“Steve Milloy says there are too many unknowns in regards to global warming to justify taking any action.”
Steve Milloy’s position on manmade global warming can be summed up in the statement “We just don’t know.” Maybe, he thinks, global warming will be a good thing. Maybe we shouldn’t want to stop it. After all, it will open new shipping lanes, improve agricultural output for Russia and North America. So, because global warming might have beneficial effects that might outweigh the detrimental and we have no way of predicting with certainty what will happen, we should just wait and see.
Milloy employs the trifecta of global warming skepticism: We don’t know if Global Warming is happening. If it is happening, then we don’t know if human beings are causing it. Even if human beings are causing it, we don’t know if there’s anything we can do about it. Then Milloy collects $90,000 from Exxon/Mobil for bestowing this wisdom. Cha-ching! But we already covered the profit-motive angle.
Instead we need to look at why the “we just don’t know” argument is the most important rhetorical strategy used by global warming skeptics in this debate. Convincing people that we lack sufficient data or by pushing disinformation prevents action. Companies that profit off carbon emissions and politicians who receive campaign contributions from those companies can continue to profit so long as people do not act.
Republican pollster Frank Luntz put it in a memo to party activists during George Bush Junior’s first midterms:
Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.
“We don’t know” may not win the debate, but the strategy fosters inaction, a result that is the same as winning the debate.
“Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created?”
Firstly, this is reminiscent of the belief held by some that George Bush was appointed President by god. I asked a Christian friend of mine what she thought about this idea, and her response was classic: “Of course god appointed Bush. If you’ve read the Old Testament, you know god often appointed bad leaders to punish the Israelites for their hubris.” So the whole “god’s plan” argument doesn’t work because god doesn’t work in any sort of rational way no matter what your religion.
Secondly, Global Warming isn’t going to destroy the Earth, despite the Apocalypse Fantasies held by the religious. It isn’t even going to drive the human race into extinction. Global Warming is simply going to cost billions of dollars in property damage. It’s going to cause large numbers of refuges to move inland with all of the problems that go with that, just as we saw with hurricane Katrina and New Orleans. It’s going to cause mosquitoes, lots of mosquitoes, and I hate mosquitoes. Preventing global warming is about preventing a whole lot of social and economic problems. The Earth will be fine, modern society won’t be.
How do you know global warming might not be a good thing?
Russia will be the big winner in Global warming, as Siberia becomes fertile for agriculture and shipping lanes open in the North that Russia will control.
“From 3,000 years ago to the start of the 19th century sea level was almost constant, rising at 0.1 to 0.2 mm/yr. Since 1900 the level has risen at 1 to 3 mm/yr;[1] since 1992 satellite altimetry from TOPEX/Poseidon indicates a rate of rise about 3 mm/yr (source).” This EPA collection of Reports on the effects of rising sea levels details the deleterious effects such a development would have on civilization, and they are broad in impact and expensive to accommodate. If you’re one of the more than half of all Americans who now live on or near a coast, then you might want to take a moment to check out how a conservatively predicted 18cm to 1 meter sea level rise could affect your neighborhood with this interactive demo, which allows users to see how various sea level rises will submerge land masses.
 Climate Zone Changes Between 1990 and 2006 in America |
Animal and plant species have successfully adapted to a wide variety of past climate changes, but those changes took place over hundreds of thousands of years. It can take thousands of years to form a coral reef, with it’s wealth of biodiversity. When we have dramatic climate change on a timeframe of decades, species lack sufficient time to migrate and adapt:
In a paper published in 2003, Professor Parmesan concluded that half of all species were already altering their behavior or shifting their range in response to global warming. Others have found that some 26% of coral reefs have already died as a result of warming waters, and that the remainder will probably disappear if average water temperatures rise by another degree—along with the fisheries and tourism they sustain. In a synthesis of such studies, the report concluded that 30% of species face an increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise by 2ºC (3.6ºF). (source)
Then there are the species that will have nowhere to migrate to because their entire climate zone has vanished from the Earth, such as those now melting away from the polar regions. Additionally, without freezing winter temperatures, pests like fire ants, killer bees, fleas, ticks, and mosquitoes will thrive, and with them so will Lyme disease, malaria, and West Nile Virus. As Dr Paul Epstein put it, “The winter is the most wonderful thing that was ever invented for public health, and we’re losing it.”
A scientist to saying that drastic unpredictable changes to our climate might be a good thing is like an economist saying that an unstable market might be a good thing.
 Level of CO2 in the atmosphere, 1958-2004 Levels are Currently 37.77% Above the Pre-Industrial Average |
“What about the scientists who signed the Leipzig Declaration?”
This declaration has changed over time, in a manner very similar to the way Creationism has evolved to become Intelligent Design. The original 1995 declaration disputed global warming altogether:
There does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from rising levels of carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever.
The 1997 Declaration was modified to focus on the Kyoto Protocol, deemphasizing, but maintaining, the disputation with the scientific consensus. The 2005 Revised Declaration continues to refine the signatories disputation, focusing on the Kyoto Protocol and catastrophic predictions concerning global warming. The number of signatures for the statement has declined from 140 in December 1997 to less than 100 today, with 33 pending verification.
I admire the evolution of this statement. Revising and refining the articulation of one’s position in light of new evidence is an admirable quality, and the declaration raises some legitimate concerns about the catastrophic predictions and viability of solutions to global warming. Solutions and future predictions are where our current debates should focus.
But the declaration continues to assert that “most climate specialists now agree that actual observations from both weather satellites and balloon-borne radiosondes show no current warming whatsoever.” This contradicts the reality of evidence for global warming, which comes from observation posts all over the world, including satellite data. How do the scientists who have signed this statement support their claim? We don’t know, they didn’t bother to support it with any references.
The other problem with this statement is its lack of signatures: Less than 100. That’s less than 4% of the scientists who collaborated on the IPCC report alone. When 25 times the number of scientists agree with anthropogenic global warming as disagree with it, the consensus is in support of Anthropogenic Global Warming.
“What about the 17,000 scientists’ signatures collected by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine’s (OISM) petition?”
The Global Warming Petition Project states:
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate.
There is no other way to describe this petition except as a great hoax. Its signatures were solicited in a mass-mailing that used deceptive wording and a phony journal article to obtain support:
Early in the spring of 1998, thousands of scientists around the country received a mass mailing urging them to sign a petition calling on the government to reject the Kyoto Protocol. The petition was accompanied by other pieces including an article formatted to mimic the journal of the National Academy of Sciences. Subsequent research revealed that the article had not been peer-reviewed, nor published, nor even accepted for publication in that journal and the Academy released a strong statement disclaiming any connection to this effort and reaffirming the reality of climate change. The Petition resurfaced in 2001.(source)
Scientific American also investigated the veracity of the signatures:
Scientific American took a random sample of 30 of the 1,400 signatories claiming to hold a Ph.D. in a climate-related science. Of the 26 we were able to identify in various databases, 11 said they still agreed with the petition, one was an active climate researcher, two others had relevant expertise, and eight signed based on an informal evaluation. Six said they would not sign the petition today, three did not remember any such petition, one had died, and five did not answer repeated messages. Crudely extrapolating, the petition supporters include a core of about 200 climate researchers–a respectable number, though rather a small fraction of the climatological community.
There are further questions about the veracity of these signatures, which appear to include fictional lawyer Perry Mason, the actor Michael J. Fox, and Spice Girl Geraldine Halliwell.
So we have one declaration with less than 100 signatures that appear to hold validity, but lacks consensus. Then we have another declaration that makes the unsupportable claim to 17,000 scientists, and gloats about debunking the “enviro’s” and equates scientists with “anti-technologists and population reduction advocates (from the website).”
“Yeah, but Penn and Teller said on their show Bullshit that there’s a big disputation concerning Global Warming.”
I’ve got the signatures of 2000 economists, 110 Nobel Laureates, and 300,000 people petitioning Congress. I’ve got
Carl Sagan,
Nobel Laureate Dr. Henry Kendal,
Dr. E.O. Wilson,
Dr. Norman Myers,
Dr. Steven Hawking,
Dr. Richard Dawkins,
all the scientists at the UCS, and the 2,500 scientists behind the IPCC Report. I have 928 peer-reviewed papers on the subject, none of which disagree with the consensus position.
What do you have?
Stage Magicians.
See that? That was my last shred of faith in the human race fluttering away in the wind. We are officially undeserving of survival as a species when people who make their living as charlatan entertainers can hold the same persuasive weight as people who have slaved away in academia for decades. Penn and Teller have placed Global Warming in the same sphere as healing crystals, Ouija boards, religious cults, lunar landing deniers, magnet wearers, and flat earth proponents. They do this with obvious camera-cuts, selective presentation of the facts, and name-calling… In other words, they are the very nutjobs they claim to be debunking.
If I could find some mimes that believe in anthropogenic global warming would that convince you? How about if I acted it out with hand puppets?
In summary, Anthropogenic Global Warming skeptics have three levels of denial:
- Global Warming isn’t happening.
- Even if Global Warming is happening, humans aren’t causing it.
- Even if humans are causing Global Warming, there’s nothing we can do about it.
The debate on Anthropogenic Global Warming has moved into the third stage, whether the individual skeptics have moved to this stage or not. Number three is where the debate on global warming needs to be, and, luckily, we are seeing it finally get there.
 Al Gore Testifies before the House Committee on Environment and Public Works. |
Al Gore recently gave testimony before Congress (PDF Warning), bringing with him the signatures of 516,000 petitioners. In his testimony, he recommended simple governmental solutions like mileage standards for new cars, requiring carbon capture and sequestration systems on new coal power plants, allowing private citizens to profit from putting electricity into the power grid using solar and wind generators, as well as a myriad of tax-incentives for companies and individuals to reduce their carbon footprints.
Gore’s talks on Anthropogenic Global Warming have evolved over the years as our understanding of the facts has evolved. Gore has stayed on top of the emerging developments in Climate Change research, perpetually educating himself to the point of clearly becoming an expert on the subject, and a noble proponent of taking action on this threat. In this sense, Gore’s speeches are always new and stronger with each telling; however, what’s striking, is that the former Vice President is now finally being brought before America’s political power to present the evidence.
Even more surprising was the response of those on the Committee on Environment and Public Works. Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho), had glowing praise for Al Gore’s tireless efforts to educate the public concerning the Global Warming threat, and then took issue with Gore’s history of opposition to Nuclear Power. Citing his own state’s successful implementation of numerous Nuclear Power plants, which do not contribute to CO2 emissions.
Congressman Nick Lampson (D, Texas) agreed with Gore, and took a moment to stress the many health and other secondary benefits of reducing world wide carbon emissions.
Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) disputed that CO2 caused global warming, but rather global warming caused CO2, to which Gore responded by reestablishing the overwhelming consensus and evidence for Global Warming, clarifying the data Representative Barton was referencing.
Joe Barton’s surprising statements came when he acknowledged that Al Gore’s policies were simply good policies. Energy efficiency and independency have benefits we should be pursing regardless of whether you accept Anthropogenic Global Warming theory. Where he disagreed with Gore, was in the former Vice President’s suggestions for how to get there. Barton took issue with the proposed Carbon Taxes as detrimental to economic progress and the Kyoto Treaty for not applying to India and China.
In fact, only Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) seemed to try and dismiss Al Gore completely. He used the silly rhetorical red-herring of trying to have Al Gore sign a pledge to reduce his Carbon Footprint to zero and then tried to cut short Gore’s response to the challenge he had just issued. When Inhofe went so far as to ask Gore a question and then state that the former Vice President could submit his answer in writing rather than give him the time to respond, the Chairman of the Committee on Environment and Public Works, Barbara Boxer, declared that Gore would have time to respond and Inhofe would have time to respond to Gore as well.
Then she raised her gavel and noted, “Elections have consequences.”
“It’s very important to recognize how adaptable humans are. Los Angeles is theoretically impossible.”
– Newt Gingrich
 Left to Right: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., former Indiana Rep. John Brademas, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. |
Even more heartening than Al Gore’s testimony, was the recent John Kerry and Newt Gingrich debate on solutions global warming, primarily achieving carbon neutrality. Gingrich put aside the debate over whether or not Anthropogenic Global Warming was reality by conceding the point:
Gingrich: The evidence is sufficient that we should move towards the most effective possible steps to reduce carbon loading of the atmosphere.
Kerry: And do it urgently, now.
Gingrich: And do it urgently, yes.
With this basis of agreement out of the way, the two debaters were able to move their discussion into the much more productive realm of what to do about it. Here Kerry and Gingrich split along traditional party lines of using Governmental or Market solutions. Gingrich proposed tax incentives as the best means to spur the Market into action:
The morning you provide the incentives, there will be 50,000 entrepreneurs figuring out how to get the money. The morning you try to do it by regulation, there will be 50,000 entrepreneurs hiring a lawyer to fight you. It is a fundamentally different model.
In counterpoint, Kerry cited the environmental movement that developed in the U.S. in the late 1960s and early 1970s through Government programs:
That is when we passed the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Coastal Zone Management Act and that is when Richard Nixon signed the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] into existence because people rose up and said we want something different, not because the marketplace was doing it voluntarily.
Eloquently articulated differences of opinion delivered by two intellectuals who have much respect and admiration between them; and, yet, when I take these quotes taken out of the context of their discussion I unfairly dumb-down the debate.
The real meat of their arguments had to do with their contrasting interpretations of one another’s solutions. Kerry made the point that tax incentives are big government, because America is paying for the solution. Gingrich made the point that Carbon Trades are ultimately restrictions, and rewards will garner a much faster response than punishments. With a situation this urgent, quick solutions should be favored, and both proponents argued that their personal solution would have the faster response.
Kerry also made a very important point about the commons, one that many people seem to ignore, and it is that damage to our shared environment is a cost we all pay, but one that is not marked against corporate profits:
The market will set the price. The market will decide what the cost of carbon is, and right now what’s happening is we’re all living in a world where we’re not paying for the cost of what we’re doing. Because we don’t pay for the cost for the loss of those fish. We don’t pay for the cost of the cancer that may come with the pollution that comes into your lungs. We don’t pay for the cost for what happens in the diminution of quality of our environment, the loss of these species. None of that is priced into the goods today.
Gingrich gave a thoughtful explanation for why there is so much resistance by Conservatives for action on Carbon emissions:
Let me explain partly why this is very a challenging thing to do if you’re a conservative. For most of the last thirty years the environment has been a powerful emotional tool for bigger government and higher taxes; and, therefore, if you’re a conservative, the minute you start hearing these arguments, you know what’s coming next, which is bigger government and higher taxes. So even though it might be the right thing to do, you end up fighting it, because you don’t want the bigger government and higher taxes, and so you end up in these kinds of cycles… I think there has to be, if you will, a Green Conservativism. There has to be a willingness to stand up and say, “All right. Here’s the right way to solve these as seen by our value system.”
For many academic liberals like myself, the conservative resistance to the evidence on Global Warming has seemed like an irrational knee-jerk reaction to environmentalism. Gingrich’s explanation was a welcome one.
Both debaters agreed that the Earth cannot support populations the size of China’s or India’s living at the same standards as the United States, but we cannot prevent them from doing so either. Instead, the solution is for the United States to do what it has always done, set the new standards for excellence in the World. Both Gingrich and Kerry agree on these principles, where they disagree is on how to get there, and that makes this a constructive and positive debate.
We have certainly come a long way since Senator Inhofe brought a science-fiction author before the U.S. Senate to advise the committee of Environment and Public Works of the science facts behind climate change.
Further Reading: