The View From Here . . .

As President Obama prepares for his trip to the climate change conference in Copenhagen, the time seems ripe for some serious and critical thinking on this topic.

Supporters of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), the theory that global warming caused by human activity (in particular, carbon dioxide emissions) has caused the gradual warming of the planet with enormous negative potential consequences, like to contend that the science underlying AGW is conclusive. Indeed, they tend to regard skeptics as the equivalent of flat earthers or, more perniciously, Holocaust deniers.

Nevertheless, claims of an irrefutable scientific consensus in favor of AGW took a blow in recent days with the release of purloined emails from the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, a British institution whose climate models are a major source of the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the body established by the United Nations that has become the leading exponent of AGW.

The emails are troubling in a number of respects. Some emails indicate a desire to suppress any scientific articles not supportive of AGW, and to compromise the independence of a newly established journal willing to print these articles. As described by New York Times science columnist John Tierney, one email uses the phrase “hide the decline” in reference to the preparation of a graph that was altered to make a global warming trend seem more apparent; information from a different, more favorable (to AGW proponents) data base was grafted onto the graph to represent the later years. Other emails indicate a desire not to release data in accordance with applicable law. Surprisingly, the original climate data gathered at the university has somehow disappeared and cannot be reviewed by other scientists.

None of this, of course, proves that the AGW theory is bogus, nor do apparently stable temperatures in the last few years, which could just be a temporary pause.

On the other hand, AGW proponents at Copenhagen conference will be asking that the United States and the developed world make major changes that will almost certainly have a significant impact on economic growth and standard of living. Even in the United States, the stalled cap and trade bill, which is only a first step in the mind of advanced environmentalists, will impose a significant tax burden. If AGW is so unassailable, why are its proponents so defensive about sharing the data that demonstrates the rightness of the theory?

Maybe we need to take a step back. Before the United States accepts a draconian plan from Copenhagen based on a theory that isn’t completely proven, maybe we should look for common ground between ADW advocates and skeptics. No one, for example, favors waste of energy resources or extreme dependence on foreign energy suppliers. Perhaps a combination of conservation, efficiency standards, increased domestic production of energy where environmentally feasible, encouragement of research, and appropriate use of nuclear power, as well as solar and wind power, would provide significant economic and national security benefits, while also reducing carbon emissions. We also need to think about whether a small level of additional warming (from whatever cause) can be tolerated and if we can engineer means to protect our coasts from the effect of slightly higher ocean levels.

Many serious scientists are convinced that AGW is a real danger in the long run. The solution obviously isn’t complacency. But in light of continuing controversy and the extremely high cost of sweeping carbon emissions restrictions, we also need to see if we can find consensus solutions to address this vexing controversy.