'Global warming scare-mongering.(Column)

• Author: Stone, John
• Position: 160220525
• Pages: 29(13)

Readers may recall my previously reviewing a highly readable science fiction novel by Michael Crichton, State of Fear, about "global warming" scare-mongering. (1) The book focused both on the massive scientific and political fraud involved and the motivations of those (particularly the media) responsible.

Since then the debate, as they say, has moved on. On the one hand, the global warming crowd has continued to propagate distortions to the point almost of frenzy over what (as Crichton pointed out) they nowadays prefer to call "climate change". (2) On the other hand, a small but devoted, and growing, band of skeptics has gradually built up an ever more convincing case questioning both the science and the economics of the Doomsday scenarios involved.

The climate change push has infinitely greater resources at its disposal with which to pursue its crusade (a term with appropriately religious overtones, as noted below). The skeptics, by contrast, appear to have only their own intellectual integrity and passion for the truth to sustain them.

Even as this is being written, a complicit media is publishing stories about the impending appearance of the fourth Report of the International Panel on Climate Change. (3) The IPCC is a United Nations body arising out of the so-called Rio Earth Summit (1992) that established the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change. We learn also of the impending visit of Sir Nicholas Stern, coming here on a proselytisation tour to "sell" the hysterical conclusions of his report to the United Kingdom Government last November on the economics of climate change. (4)

The (considerably delayed) publication of the IPCC Report is presumptuous enough, given both the scientific and, more recently, the economic axes that have been laid to the roots of that body's flawed foundations. Stern's report, however, has been subjected to utter ridicule--criticism of the most damaging, authoritative and immediate kind, such as I cannot ever recall of any document of such allegedly high level provenance. Given that, for Stern even to show his face here is astonishing. But for the fact that he seems to be without shame, it could even be called shameful.

THE MEDIA

As to the media's role in this matter, consider the following quotes: (5)

* "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production--with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth". (Newsweek magazine).

* "Climate Changes Endanger World's Food Output". (New York Times headline).

* "As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval". (Time magazine).

Sounds familiar? If so, you are betraying your age, because the last of these quotes dates from 1974 and the two preceding ones from 1975. All three were then warning of a coming ice age.

As Michael Crichton pointed out, the media is quite shameless in these matters. Doomsday predictions raise circulations, at least until readers (or viewers/listeners) realise that they are being hoodwinked.

WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT?

A few basic facts may first be in order:

* The "greenhouse effect" is the process whereby Planet Earth, and those who dwell on it, are kept warmer than they would be otherwise by the layer of gases in our surrounding atmosphere. These "greenhouse gases" (GHG), while allowing heat from the Sun to fall upon the Earth's surface, trap (some of) that heat which would otherwise be radiated back into space. As a result, Earth's temperature, which without this greenhouse effect would average around -15[degrees] Centigrade, is maintained on average at around +15[degrees] C. (Averages here refer to the total surface of the globe, day and night and all year around).

* One constituent of our atmosphere is carbon dioxide (C[O.sub.2]), which is produced, among other ways, by burning fossil fuels (coal, oil and, increasingly, natural gas). Since the Industrial Revolution some 200 years ago or so, and particularly since the end of World War II, world standards of living have been rising, all based on the growing use of energy, mainly fossil fuels. As a result, C[O.sub.2] concentrations in the atmosphere have been gradually rising, from about 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv) in 1900 to about 375 ppmv today.

* According to the climate change adherents, this C[O.sub.2] build-up will (with some lag) cause global temperatures to rise dramatically, with adverse consequences whose extent and nature they portray as more and more alarming. These asserted consequences include the swamping of low-lying areas by rising sea levels, causing not only deaths but also huge flights of refugees; the spread of so-called "tropical" diseases such as malaria; huge changes in the nature and location of present world food production; the wiping out of wildlife habitats, particularly those of such photogenic animals as polar bears; increased frequency of natural disasters such as floods and hurricanes; and even the "shutting down" of the Gulf Stream, with incalculable consequences for those areas whose climate it currently affects. Any reader who has viewed former U.S. Vice-President Al Gore's film, An Inconvenient Truth, (6) will get the picture.

* On this basis, then, our only hope to "save the planet" is to stop, and reverse, the build-up of this C[O.sub.2] atmospheric "pollution", through international agreements to that end, of which the much-referred-to-but-rarely-analysed Kyoto Protocol (7) has been the first example.

There is much more, but that may be enough to go on with. However, there is another sense to that question, "What is it all about", and again, some facts may be helpful.

CUI BONO?

When one observes mass hysteria such as "climate change" has recently been generating, it is always wise to ask that old question, Cui bono? (Who benefits?). Here are a few suggested answers:

* On the global political level, the movement--and particularly the push for the Kyoto Protocol--has been led by the European Union, notably by France and Germany. (8) Since we can safely discount high-mindedness where the Europeans are concerned, the most rational explanation for this is that such an international agreement would severely disadvantage the USA (were the latter inveigled into joining it)--tying down Gulliver, so to speak. For decades now, U.S. economic progress has steadily out-distanced that of the economically costive EU economy, particularly that part of it that Mr Donald Rumsfeld once referred to as "old Europe". What better way to "level down" that vibrant economy's performance than to entangle it in leading strings devised by a jealous, and increasingly impotent, rival. (9)

* The United Nations, under whose aegis most of the global warming agenda has been driven forward for the past two decades, is clearly an intensely interested party. Indeed, given the progressive decline of its performance of the functions originally assigned to it, its attraction to the global warming cause might be compared to that of the drowning man clutching at a life-belt. For a body...