Global warming debate: ignoramuses vs hypocrites

Some weeks ago, American presidential aspirant John Edwards, one of the Democratic Party’s rising stars and a man who has called global warming “an emergency,” was interviewed on CNN. With footage of his sprawling new 28,000-square-foot mansion and country estate in North Carolina as a backdrop, he pitched his aggressive plan to cap the amount of carbon dioxide U.S. industry can emit.

But when confronted with a simple question about the monthly energy bill at his home, Edwards visibly squirmed. “It’s actually not that bad ... well, I’m not going to tell you ... it’s several hundred dollars a month,” he said. Edwards then qualified and shifted the conversation — the house will be operated in a “carbon-neutral way.”

This is an idea very much in vogue these days among left-of-center politicians and celebrities in search of a cause and, increasingly, the upper-middle classes. Buying carbon credits or investing in so-called “green” charities will, theoretically, somewhere thousands of miles away, offset pesky CO2 emissions from one’s home.

In a similarly revealing development, the European Union recently announced that its member nations were not uniformly meeting the CO2 emission reduction targets established in the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Ah, yes. Remember Kyoto? The EU has been quick to condemn nations like the U.S. and Australia for refusing to ratify the treaty, but how are other countries living up to their commitments?

Let’s see. As of 2005, Ireland’s emissions have risen by 23%; in Spain it’s 49%, Greece 27%. Canada has admitted it cannot meet its obligations, and China will surpass the U.S. in 2007 as the world’s biggest emitter of CO2.

The fallback position for the Europeans, though, just as for John Edwards, is delineated in the Kyoto Protocol itself, which allows nations that fail to meet their emission obligations to offset the imbalance by purchasing carbon credits. Indeed, the carbon credits market scheme is a burgeoning business these days.There is a pattern here. For rich individuals and nations, carbon-belching habits die hard. But no worries. A little guilt money thrown back into the system will do the trick. Edwards and Al Gore emit lots more CO2 (and plain hot air) than you or I, but that is a luxury that comes with being exceedingly wealthy.

It must be said that the science of global warming is not a hoax — that is no longer a satisfactory position to take. Those who remain in complete denial are willfully choosing ignorance. It is undeniable that a growing consensus within the field of climatology and at places like the National Academy of Sciences has emerged, and that consensus concludes global warming is happening and is being sped along by human activities.

At the same time, the fact is that the consensus ends here. No matter what message the media is churning out this week (or how many Oscars Al Gore receives), the questions of policy, economic pros and cons — even the basic question of whether we can do anything at all to affect short-term climate change — are not resolved. In fact, informed observers know that the most appropriate word to describe policy prescriptions related to global warming is “uncertainty.” But media coverage of the issue has become increasingly alarmist over the last two years. For the propagandists, “the debate is over.”

What rubbish. The Industrial Revolution and 140 years of technological progress cannot be erased, and we should not be in the business of trying to reverse it. The use of fossil fuels may have consequences, but they have made our lives easier, more comfortable and more prosperous. Zero emissions and zero growth scenarios are pure fantasy, and Kyoto was really just a timid version of such a scenario.

More importantly, it is hypocritical for wealthy Western nations to beat their chests and order poorer countries to take draconian measures to cut CO2 emissions “for the planet’s sake.” These are the very Western nations that have reaped the rewards of industrialization and induced much of the climate effects that are apparently occurring. Asking the developing world, in essence, to slow down development is a crowning act of arrogance.

Uncertainty. It is not a word that sits well with the climate change propagandists, but it is a fact that we must place ahead of pride and, especially, politics. Green technology and proper government initiatives do hold promise, and they should not be demeaned. Nor should the people who run oil companies, or those who drive cars to work — they are simply providing services and products that we all demand and expect.

It would be nice if the hotheads in the debate stand back for awhile, take a healthy dose of realism, and recognize that adapting to a changing climate offers a more rational path to the future than what the media and environmental ideologues are currently offering. As someone has said, we must let cooler heads prevail.

Andrew Oplas is a freelance writer and Tokyo-based advertising professional.