World political leaders and environmentalists have worried themselves into a sweat of questionable necessity over what some see as a rise of human origin in world temperatures. Their prescription follows a political and environmentalist pattern that has become much easier to predict than global climate change: less industrial activity.
The global warming issue will reach new heights this June at the international Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. Pressure is building for stiff taxes on carbon-emitting fuels.
DAMAGING IMPULSES
But that's not the worst of it. Global warming hysteria embodies two of the most damaging impulses at work in politics today. One is advocacy science-science calculated to frighten, distorted to serve an activist agenda, and formulated to brand sincere dissent as unrighteous. The other is environmentalist disdain for the inescapable consequences of human activity.
These impulses have turned too much policy making in the industrialized world against the uniquely human pursuit of progress. Contrary to the misanthropic proclamations of extremists, the world is more habitable now than ever before, whatever its imperfections. The reasons: human ingenuity and activity. It is because of industrial and technological development that people can afford the modern luxury of viewing nature as victim rather than antagonist.
Global warming alarmists would move the world backwards. They would force people to spend more for energy and consume less--which can only mean less work and forsaken progress. If there were a probable, severe threat, if industrial activity did seem likely to heat the globe dangerously, sacrifice would be in order. At this point, however, the threat is just a notion.
In general, science documents an increase during the past 100 years in the concentration of gases that trap reflected solar heat in the atmosphere--greenhouse gases. It also records an increase in measured global temperatures during the last 100 years. Science also raises doubts that the greenhouse gas buildup caused the temperature rise or that it will create significant further warming. Indeed, science identifies many ways in which natural processes offset whatever warming human activity might introduce.
Alas, science is as complex as it is inconclusive. By contrast, politics thrives on simplicity. In the global warming issue politics increasingly asserts that if a threat exists a solution will take decades, even centuries, to have effect. It demands an active response now, before science can delineate the nature and extent of the problem. In the recent past, manufactured urgency of this sort has rushed the U.S. into unnecessarily costly and sometimes unnecessary responses to a host of overhyped crises, from asbestos to acid rain. Yet the world now shames President Bush for not wishing to be stampeded into a mistake on global warming.
UNSEEMLY PRESSURE
Such pressure is unseemly and dangerous. It is a measure of the degree to which manufactured urgency has entered the realm of international diplomacy, which is easier to understand than science and far more entertaining. The popular question no longer is whether global warming justifies significant sacrifice of human well-being. The question has become which industrial power will lay most on the altar.
Far from the limelight, serious science continues to ask whether sacrifice is warranted at all. A series of Oil & Gas journal editorials beginning here will highlight some of what has been learned. Premeeting hysterics give the petroleum industry unfortunate reason to doubt that science will receive much attention in Brazil.
Copyright 1992 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
