Download 25 Jun 2005

MODERN TIMES
by Art Hobson
[email protected]
NWA Times 25 June 2005
The Global Warming Story
USA fiddles while Earth burns
Earth now absorbs 0.85 watts per square meter more energy from the sun
than it emits to space--equivalent to an 0.85-watt heater placed over every square
meter on the planet. To put it another way, this energy imbalance is equivalent to
the effect of 400,000 huge 1000-megawatt power plants that put their entire energy
output into heating the planet. This is the amount of energy now going into global
warming.
Hundreds of glaciers are melting all over the Antarctic Peninsula, where
climate has warmed by 3.5 degrees since 1950. The huge West Antarctic ice sheet
is partially disintegrating and sliding seaward. Global temperatures rose by one
degree during the twentieth century, sea levels are rising, there's been a five
percent increase in the frequency of heavy rains in the USA, carbon dioxide
concentrations are at by far their highest level in half a million years, Alaskan
temperatures are up by seven degrees since 1950, the Arctic ice cap has thinned by
40 percent since 1950, the edges of the Greenland ice sheet are melting away,
mountain glaciers are retreating all over the world, spring thaws are occurring
earlier worldwide, upper atmospheric water vapor is increasing, Europe's recent
record-breaking hot and deadly summers have been linked to global warming, and
there are literally thousands of research reports about biological changes caused by
recent global warming. The World Health Organization estimates that global
warming already accounts for more than 160,000 deaths annually.
Nature is speaking to us loud and clear, but President Bush and most
Americans are not listening. Like the (partly fictitious) story of Emperor Nero
fiddling while Rome burned, the USA fiddles while Earth burns.
Not long ago, America was the world's environmental leader instead of its
laggard. Through the Carter and Reagan presidencies, we led the fight against
ozone depletion; you can find my June 11 column on this at
http://physics.uark.edu/hobson/. That fight culminated in 1986 with the signing of
a sweeping treaty that quickly did away with essentially all ozone-destroying
chemicals, including the extremely profitable refrigerating fluid marketed as
freon. Powerful corporations such as Dow and Dupont had the good sense to
support the ozone treaty, and sufficient business acumen to reap big profits by
being first in line to produce non-destructive replacements for the banned
chemicals. The ozone story shows that it's possible to take radical action against
global environmental problems, that U.S. business can play a wise supporting role
even when enormous profits are at stake, and that the USA knows how to lead on
these issues.
The global warming story, on the other hand, is an absurd and tragic
farce. Present harm and future catastrophe stare us in the face, while our president
rejects the Kyoto treaty on global warming as bad for business. Alert consumers
opt for highly efficient automobiles partly in response to global warming, while
General Motors rejects hybrid vehicles and pursues its giant SUVs and thus
continues losing sales to environmentally-aware foreign competitors. British
Prime Minister Tony Blair implores our president to support global warming action
at the coming G8 economic conference, while Bush mumbles platitudes about
conducting further climate research. The news media consider the fate of the
planet to be too abstract to consume the valuable minutes that they could otherwise
devote to pop stars, murders, and Hollywood intrigues. Many people prefer to put
their faith in novels like Michael Chrichton's State of Fear rather than in the
published findings of thousands of serious scientists.
Science itself is partly responsible for our nation's folly, because science
teachers have not educated public school or college students about science-related
social problems such as global warming. On the other hand, scientists have, to
their credit, extensively researched global warming and have tried to warn the
public. An unprecedented joint statement from the leading scientific academies of
the eight nations involved in the G8 summit, plus Brazil, India, and China, warns
that governments must no longer procrastinate on global warming, which the
academies see as humanity's gravest danger.
President Bush's anti-science and pro-fossil fuel ideology have been evident
for years. This administration has repeatedly ignored the findings of the thousands
of scientists participating in the ongoing scientific consensus represented by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. He ignored a 2002 U.S. National
Academy of Sciences report that he himself had requested. When his own
Department of State reported to the United Nations that global warming is caused
by humans and is a danger to the world, he derided it as "a report put out by the
bureaucracy." He removed the section on climate change from a 2002
Environmental Protection Agency report. He tampered with a 2003 EPA report,
specifically demanding deletion of a 1000-year temperature record that
contradicted his own opinions, insertion of a reference to a discredited study
funded by the American Petroleum Institute, and elimination of the report's overall
conclusion. EPA director Christine Whitman says the situation was so "brutal"
that she opted to delete the entire global warming section. Bush pressured the UN
to replace U.S. scientist Robert Watson as head of the IPCC because the oil
industry didn't like Watson's conclusions.
The president and most Americans are following the pseudoscientific fantasy
of determining one's conclusions before considering the evidence. But nature
cannot be fooled. We'd better start listening to her.