EDITORIAL Ignoring evidence of global warming a risky gamble
We hear and read a lot of
conflicting reports about global warming. There are clear signs of the effects
of higher temperatures in all parts of the world. Spring is coming earlier. In
the fall, the migratory habits of butterflies and some birds are being
disrupted. Glaciers are melting. Oceans may be rising.
Is all this the result of human intervention or simply a cycle
that has occurred more than once in the past?
Since the start of the Industrial Era in the mid-19th century the
quantity of carbon dioxide spewed into the atmosphere has increased
exponentially. By absorbing the heat of the sun from the earths surface
and retaining it in the lower atmosphere, carbon dioxide raises the global
temperature. When we clear-cut forests, as has occurred at a catastrophic rate
in the Amazon and other areas of the world, the trees are not available to
absorb excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and convert it to biomass.
These are unquestioned facts and they have convinced the
U.N.s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that the current global
warming has resulted from human intervention. The panel believes that, as a
minimum, the average temperature will rise three times more in the next 20
years than it did in the past 140 years.
In the panels worst scenario, the seas would rise 55 inches
-- almost five feet -- by 2020, submerging whole islands as well as vast areas
of low-lying land. Mosquito-borne diseases would proliferate. Seawater would
seep into aquifers near coastlines, further diminishing the worlds
already inadequate supplies of fresh water. To the many millions of political
and economic refugees who today roam the world in search of living space would
be added a new category -- climate refugees from the tropics.
Forty industrialized nations are taking these warnings seriously.
At a meeting in Marrakech, Morocco, last November, they agreed to specific
targets to implement the Kyoto Convention that came into force in 1994 and has
been ratified by 186 members of the United Nations. While the United States
signed the Kyoto Convention, the Senate has never ratified the treaty.
Countries that have ratified the convention are committed to
cutting greenhouse emissions to an average of 5.2 percent below their 1990
levels by the year 2012, with demonstrable progress by the year 2005. Already
industrialized nations are given pollution credits for investing in
emissions-cutting projects in developing countries.
While the United States participated in the deliberations at the
United Nations that resulted in the Kyoto Convention, it did not take part in
the Marrakech meeting. The Bush administration had announced that it was not
going to honor the commitments made by the Clinton administration.
Snubbing the treaty runs contrary to some of the most prestigious
scientific authorities in the United States, including the Union of Concerned
Scientists, the National Resources Defense Council and the U.S. Public Interest
Research Group. All agree on the urgent need for action against a clear and
present danger. The Union of Concerned Scientists, voicing the conclusions of
two thousand scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
other institutes of learning, has formulated a concrete program for immediate
action. It calls for meaningful domestic policies to attack the global
warming threat, including higher fuel economy standards for cars and light
trucks, binding caps on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and
requirements that a steadily increasing share of our electricity come from
renewable energy sources such as wind, biomass and solar energy.
The technology is available today to cut energy use by 20 percent.
We have cars that can get 60-70 miles per gallon of gas. We have light bulbs
that last 10 times longer and use 75 percent less electricity than conventional
bulbs. Mass produced, the price for both high mileage cars and more productive
light bulbs would be competitive.
These simple changes, however, face one enormous hurdle that has
nothing to do with science -- the U.S. political system, where both Democrat
and Republican administrations overwhelmingly subsidize fossil fuels and
nuclear power, the sources of our pollution. It has been amply documented that
the votes of politicians at all levels are bought off in scandalous campaign
funding schemes by interest groups, in this case those involved in fossil fuels
and nuclear power.
We politely avoid the term bribe, which best applies, and keep
wringing our hands through unsuccessful attempts to reform the system.
Meanwhile, serious matters like global warming remain sidelined.
If it were just money and political influence involved, it would
hardly be worth the grousing. But the stakes -- the life of the planet and
humans relationship to it -- go well beyond normal political brokering.
Shutting out debate and the development of cautionary steps on such a
significant matter is a gamble far too risky to be settled by lobbyists
money.
National Catholic Reporter, January 11,
2002
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