ILF DIGEST Conference

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Welcome to our conference on the controversial subject of global warming. To lead us in this discussion are two ILF Fellows who have been following and contributing to this scientific debate for many years and do not find themselves in the mainstream of environmentalists' thinking.

Douglas Strain is well known to many of you, having been a key player in our School of Management and Strategic Studies, and a longtime trustee of WBSI. Educated in science and technology at Caltech, he worked with a number of outstanding scientists before becoming the Founding Chairman of ElectroScientific Industries, a company rated as among the 100 best to work for in America. George Taylor, his colleague in leadership, is the State Climatologist for Oregon, and a faculty member at Oregon State University's College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences. He manages the Oregon Climate Service, the state repository of weather and climate information. The author of more than 200 reports, symposium articles and journal articles, George is past president of the American Association of State Climatologists. Since we have a number of well-educated environmentalists in our fellowship, we can expect a most interesting, illuminating, and possibly uniting dialogue as we examine the facts and possible interpretations of global climate change.

George Taylor
It’s an honor to be asked to lead this forum. I look forward to a lively interchange. Perhaps we can begin by establishing what I consider to be our fundamental intent: to evaluate the degree to which. "Anthropogenic Global Warming" (AGW) is impacting and will impact the Earth’s environment – locally, regionally, and globally. The key questions seem to be (1) is AGW a current or potential problem? Why or why not? (2) If it’s a problem, what should be done about it?

I’ll tell you my own opinion about AGW. After studying this issue for nearly 20 years, I have come to believe that anthropogenic greenhouse gases have and will continue to affect climate, with the greatest impacts being warming over high-latitude continental areas during winter and at night (including Siberia and Canada). In other areas and seasons, impacts will be much smaller. I believe further that natural variations in climate have had and will continue to have much larger influence on climate than human-caused effects. That makes me a "greenhouse skeptic," according to some people. I will make every effort to be evenhanded in this forum and not let my own biases get in the way – a tall order!

A good starting point is the list below -- some commonly-held beliefs regarding AGW, mostly things we read in the media quite a bit. Following are responses to those "myths," in the words of Dr. Reid Bryson, Emeritus Professor in Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences, Geography, and Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin. Dr. Bryson’s statements were provided by Dr. Fred Singer of the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP).

The atmospheric warming of the last century is unprecedented and unique.
The warming of the past century was largely anthropogenic in origin.
The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide.
One cannot argue with the computer models that predict the effect of a doubling of carbon dioxide or other "greenhouse gases".
Those who take issue with the idea that CO2 causes global warming are suggesting that the CO2 measurements are wrong.
It is the consensus of scientists in general that carbon dioxide induced warming of the climate is a fact.

There are literally thousands of papers in the scientific literature with data that shows that the climate has been changing one way or the other for at least a million years.
It is a fact that the warming of the past century was anthropogenic in origin, i.e., man-made and due to carbon dioxide emission. Wrong. That is a theory for which there is no credible proof. There are a number of causes of climatic change, and until all causes other than carbon dioxide increase are ruled out, we cannot attribute the change to carbon dioxide alone.
The most important gas with a "greenhouse" effect is carbon dioxide. Wrong. Water vapor is at least 100 times as effective as carbon dioxide, so small variations in water vapor are more important than large changes in carbon dioxide.
To show that the computer models are correct we must show that they can at least duplicate the present-day climate. This they cannot do with what could be called accuracy by any stretch of the imagination. There are studies that show that the average error in modeling present precipitation is on the order of 100%, and the error in modeling present temperature is about the same size as the predicted change due to a doubling of carbon dioxide. For many areas the precipitation error is 300-400 percent.
The CO2 measurements are well done, but the interpretation of them is often less than acceptably scientific.
I know of no vote having been taken, and know that if such a vote were taken of those who are most vocal about the matter, it would include a significant fraction of people who do not know enough about climate to have a significant opinion. Taking a vote is a risky way to discover scientific truth.

Douglas Strain
I am pleased that we have been able to have George Taylor lead this discussion. I have read a number of his papers and followed his career in the climate area and highly recommend careful attention to his input. I am off for some additional surgery this week so will leave this session largely in his good hands! My warm regards to all of you!

Participant
From today's NY Times, excerpts from an article, "Deciding How Much Global Warming Is Too Much" by Andrew Revkin

"After a decade of cautious circling, some scientists and policy makers are now trying to agree on how much warming is too much.

"One possible step toward clarity comes today, as 200 experts from around the world meet at the invitation of Prime Minister Tony Blair in Exeter for three days of talks on defining "dangerous climate change" and how to avoid it.

"The researcher running the meeting, Dennis A. Tirpak, formerly of the Environmental Protection Agency, said that experts always realized it would take a long time for science's projections to be absorbed by society, but few thought it would take this long.

"I've always been a believer that science and truth will win out in the end,’ he said. ‘But I have a sense we might be running out of time.’

"It has taken this long not just because the "dangerous" question is complicated, but because it holds dangers in and of itself. If scientists offer answers, as some have in recent days, they can be criticized for playing down uncertainties and intruding into the policy arena. If a politician answers, that creates a yardstick for measuring later progress or failure.

"But some experts now say that by the time clear evidence is at hand, calamity later in the century will be unavoidable. They say fresh findings show that potentially enormous environmental changes lie ahead.

"I think that the scientific evidence now warrants a new sense of urgency," said Dr. James E. Hansen, a climate scientist and director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"A particular concern is the Arctic. An eight-nation, four-year study concluded in November that accumulating carbon dioxide and other emissions from human activities were contributing to the thawing of tundra and the retreat of sea ice. Recent studies of accelerating flows of ice to the sea in some parts of Antarctica also point to the prospect of a quickening rise in sea levels in a warming world. Other scientists point to the prospect of intensified droughts and floods.

"With pressure building for resolution and fresh action, some countries and groups of experts have tried to define a specific rise in earth's average temperature that presents unacceptable risks.

"The European Union has set this threshold at 2.5 degrees of additional warming from current conditions. That was also the danger level chosen last week by an international task force of scientists, policy experts, business leaders and elected officials led by Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and Stephen Byers, a Labor Party member of the British Parliament.

"Some scientists have criticized this approach, saying understanding of the impact of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere remains far too primitive to manage emissions and thus avoid a particular temperature target.

"Others say the most logical response to the problem is to make societies more resilient to inherent extremes of climate. "If we just significantly minimize our vulnerabilities to the extremes which occurred during the last 250 years, we'll be O.K. for the next 100," said Dr. John Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama who has long opposed cuts in emissions. As for rising seas, he said, ‘You've got 100 years to move inland.’"

Participant
Simple denial is obviously motivated by fear of undertaking the necessary changes in policy and tech. From my own side, I think the sheer interest of trying is itself not only worthwhile, but would lead to competitive new technologies.

One thing that holds back many of us from fully embracing the problem is the fuzziness in our knowledge—in particular, feeling a need to know but feeling ignorant about the range of expected climate changes that might occur without the anthropogenic effects, a background, against which to overlap the human causes, and consequences of actions. For example, it feels stupid to slow down global warming if we might be in for a major global cooling anyway.

And so, my question: Is there a good graphic or verbal summary of the range of what might happen without humans, and comparisons to what is actually happening (best guess) through human activity?

Participant
It was about 30 years ago that I saw some published data indicating that long-term cycles suggest we are near the end of a 10,0000-year window of mild temperatures after which we will be back to a few thousand years of ice. This is independent of human activity either helping or hurting the situation. Can someone update this long-term outlook?

Participant
Don Straus just entered a message into our ILF steering committee site, reminding me of a comment that the distinguished climatologist Walter Orr Roberts, founding director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, made to us in the early eighties when he was on the faculty of our School of Management and Strategic Studies, which I'll copy here, in the words that Don remembers:

"We may not be scientifically accurate about the extent and harm of warming, but I can't think of any efforts to stop it that wouldn't also be helpful to our society even if warming itself is not in the immediate future."

I wonder if he would still say that. It's more or less the point that Doug just made. Certainly there are plenty of people who would say that emission control is harmful to the world economy.

George Taylor
Doug and Dick bring up good points, which are worth addressing. Dick's last sentence begs a question: do emission controls bring significant harm to the world economy? Where is the balance point between a clean environment on the one hand (which everyone would agree is a good thing) and an economy that can allow people not only to survive, but to prosper?

From what I can tell, a lot depends on the type of emissions being controlled. The "criteria" air pollutants (CO, NOx, Hydrocarbons, etc.) covered by the Clean Air Act have raised the price of vehicles, but not enough to hurt sales, and they have been a boon to the air quality in the US. Automakers and others say CO2 is much harder to control; in addition, natural emissions of CO2 are much greater than human emissions, so it's a very complicated issue. And it has been estimated that the Kyoto Accord would cost $200 Billion in the US ($1 Trillion worldwide) yet would reduce global temperatures less than 0.1 degrees C.

Given that we don't have unlimited money, we need to ask ourselves how best to spend what we have. Emission controls or adaptation? Clean water or lower CO2? Cleaner internal combustion engines or alternative fuels? Or some combination?

I'll close by relating a story told by John Christy, State Climatologist for Alabama. For several years he was a missionary in Africa. He lived with poor African tribes who cut down virgin tracts of hardwood forest and used the wood for heating and fuel. They also burned animal dung. The low-temperature burning caused the smoke and gases to stay low, near the ground. Many people suffered from respiratory problems. It occurred to John that an elegant solution existed: provide the people with electric power and microwave ovens. This would save the forest and improve the health of the residents. Agree or not, you have to admit that's an interesting suggestion!

This conference is available in its entirety as a downloadable MS Word document. CLICK HERE to transfer the entire transcript to your own system.