Climate change superstitions put human well being at risk

Christopher Lingle ,  Ubud ,  Bali   |  Tue, 03/03/2009 1:47 PM  |  Opinion

For evidence of bureaucratic inertia, look no further than the recently concluded UN climate conference in Poznan . Like a meeting on Bali last year and another meeting in Copenhagen next December, the aim is to go beyond the Kyoto Protocol to try to halt global warming. This is serious stuff since implementing the Kyoto Protocol could cost to $180 billion annually.

These meetings and Kyoto reflect an underlying premise promoted by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC). For its part, the IPCC lives and dies by the hypothesis that human contributions to greenhouse gases are the primary cause of climate change.

Manmade global warming has become what scientists call an "ex cathedra" doctrine that, like a superstition. Challenging such positions puts reputations or financial support at risk.

While the authority of the IPCC report comes from its scientific aspects, its policy conclusions are less reliable. This is because the "Summary for Policymakers", the most commonly-cited aspect of the report, presents a consensus of government representatives and not scientists. In the end, it supports granting more power and revenues to governments, a view welcomed by eager plutocrats and spendthrift politicians.

But widespread public acceptance and a dogmatic belief structure has lulled alarmists and government officials into denial concerning climate. For example, data from the Global Carbon Project show that the global growth rate of carbon emissions was 3.2 percent in the five years to 2005 compared with 0.8 percent from 1990 to 1999. And it is likely that high average global economic growth rates after that period pushed that trend up.

Even though greenhouse gas emissions increased four times as fast as in the 1990s, average global temperatures moderated or fell from the beginning of this Millennium. And so, despite higher atmospheric CO2 levels, average global temperatures stopped rising in 1998 and the planetary average in 2008 was the lowest for a decade.

Indeed, some scientists find evidence of a cooling episode, possibly a mini-ice age. As it is, there have been many, very long climate cycles with globally cooling the most recurrent and most dangerous problem.

The fact is that IPCC models do not comport with reality. But this should not be surprising since in striving for simplicity to set policy objectives, the IPCC overlooked its own admonition. In its own wording, climate is "a complex, non-linear, chaotic object" whereby predictions about long-term evolution are highly unreliable.

With so much of gloom expressed about the future environmental conditions based upon computer modeling, it worthwhile to ponder what such models involve. First, scientific inferences behind the construction of any model, whether of an economy or the climate, reflect inclinations and biases of the person constructing the model.

Second, they inevitably leave out imponderables that simply cannot be modeled, like unpredictable acts of nature. For example, volcanic eruptions or a flurry of sunspot activity can impact more on mankind immediately than mankind can have on the environment over many decades.

For its part, the insistence of the IPCC to focus blame for climate change on human actions that affect CO2 levels weakens the motivation to find natural explanations.

As it is, IPCC models do not consider the impact of variability in solar activity on climate sensitivity. Nor do they consider aerosol effects or how reported solar dimming and brightening of the sun over the past 30 years impact upon absorption and reflection.

Being wedded to the notion that human contributions to greenhouse gases primarily cause climate change may lead to costly policies that may be unnecessary or ineffective. Indeed, current economic problems may be worsened by costly eco-inspired burdens being imposed on industries.

All the talk about "balanced" ecosystems or "environmental tipping points" implies that current or recent conditions are optimal or preferred arrangements for the earth. Consider the complaint that global warming will lead to higher sea levels and shrinking coastlines. But sea levels have risen or fallen at varying rates since the end of the last ice age recorded more than 10,000 years ago.

Claims have been made that global warming could lead to a meltdown of Greenland *s glaciers leading to a calamitous rise in the sea level by 2100. But these warnings were an extrapolation of data from a few years used to depict a trend assumed to continue for a century into the future. In the end, images of accelerated glacier calving so that the Maldives and Bangladesh are submerged were based on temporary phenomena unlikely to persist.

As it is, attempts to alter human behavior to avert climate change reflect a primitive mindset whereby a vast, misunderstood force is appeased through contrition or sacrifices. But it also ignores the simple fact that global climate has always and will always change independent of what humans do.

In all events, a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science removed any sense of urgency to take action to reduce greenhouse gases.

Indeed, it suggests that whatever curtailments of CO2 we undertake now will have almost no impact on future warming.

The lead author in the study, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said that even if CO2 emissions ended, released heat from oceans will keep temperatures "almost constant" for nearly 1,000 years. Since reducing global CO2 levels cannot alter the climate change already triggered, it does not matter if we curtail greenhouse gases now or later or at all.

The writer is Research Scholar at the Centre for Civil Society in New Delhi and Visiting Professor of Economics at Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala.

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