Debate over global warming is shifting
Some skeptics resolute, others revisiting views
By John Donnelly, Globe Staff | February 15, 2007
WASHINGTON -- With Democrats controlling the environmental agenda in
Congress, a panel of international scientists saying there's a
greater-than-90 percent chance that humans contribute to global warming,
and former vice president Al Gore calling climate change a moral issue,
many besieged global warming skeptics are starting to tone down their
rhetoric.
Some, though, are sticking to aggressive tactics, even contending they
are gaining momentum. And they have influential allies: some scientists,
conservative think-tank pundits, a minority of Republicans in Congress,
and a sympathetic White House that has rejected attempts to force
companies to curb carbon dioxide emissions -- even though the vast
majority of scientists say those emissions are heating up the earth.
Still, both sides acknowledge that the global warming debate has changed
significantly in recent weeks. The biggest factor is the Feb. 2 report
by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC -- a review of
scientific literature by hundreds of scientists who determined that it
is more than 90 percent certain humans contribute to global warming.
That seemingly irrefutable conclusion helped shift the position of
ExxonMobil, which had taken the strongest stance among oil companies
against global warming policy.
Last week, Rex W. Tillerson , ExxonMobil's chief executive, acknowledged
that greenhouse gases from car and industrial exhausts are factors in
global warming, a stark reversal in the company's long-held position.
For years, ExxonMobil has funded several Washington think tanks that
have questioned the science -- and whether national policies would be
effective.
Scott Barrett , a global warming believer and director of the
International Policy Program at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced
International Studies , said ExxonMobil's about-face is significant.
"They accepted the responsibility to do something, and that could change
the debate" from uncertainty about climate change to finding solutions
to a fast-approaching crisis, he said.
Other oil giants, including BP and Shell, had made the shift much
earlier; both are aggressively promoting fossil-fuel alternatives such
as solar and wind power.
"A lot of the focus is going to shift into how much effort you should
put into reducing emissions versus adapting to climate change," Barrett
said. Adapting to a warmer global climate, he said, could include
anything from building farther inland to guard against rises in sea
level to investing in a malaria vaccine, anticipating that
disease-carrying mosquitoes could spread northward from the tropics.
The debate shift has been felt elsewhere as well. The American
Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington think tank that had
offered $10,000 last year to scientists to challenge the IPCC report, is
rethinking the project, said Kenneth Green , who is overseeing the
effort.
"There is a backlash growing against skeptics, a kind of climate
inquisition," said Green. "What do people do if they have alternative
ideas and they don't have independent institutions to back them up? They
will be attacked."
Global warming skeptics say they believe the media and Congress aren't
interested in hearing their side of the debate.
"The size of the megaphones for the other side is very large," said
Myron Ebell , director of energy and global warming policy at
Competitive Enterprise Institute, one of the leading doubters of the
issue. "On our side we are using bare voices without amplification."
But those who don't believe humans contribute to global warming have
some scientists, and an influential lawmaker, on their side.
Senator James M. Inhofe , the Oklahoma Republican who famously declared
global warming a "hoax," said this week that the skeptics were gaining
momentum. He said President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic and
scientists from France and Israel, among others, are now among the
doubters.
Writing in the Sunday Times of London this week, Nigel Calder, former
editor of New Scientist magazine, suggested that the IPCC's main
conclusion -- that there is more than a 90 percent certainty humans are
contributing to global warming -- means there's a 10 percent chance that
man is blameless, "a wide-open breach for any latter-day Galileo or
Einstein to storm through with a better idea. That is how science really
works."
Dr. Willie Soon , a scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics who believes that variations in the sun's energy might be
the chief reason for a warming planet, agrees. Speaking for himself and
not the center, Soon accused mainstream scientists of "attacking me. But
as a scientist, you just ignore them."
Meanwhile, Christopher C. Horner , published a book this week called
"The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and
Environmentalism," a primer for doubters that yesterday was ranked 33 d
on Amazon.com's best-sellers' list. Horner, a fellow at Competitive
Enterprise Institute, has denounced Democrats in Congress, alleging that
they are delaying action on global warming to preserve it as a
presidential campaign issue in 2008.
But Representative Henry A. Waxman , a California Democrat, has said he
doubts any comprehensive global warming legislation will emerge until
2009 for a different reason: Though Democrats control Congress, they
don't have the votes to override a likely veto by President Bush.
Bill McKibben , the author of "The End of Nature," which in 1989 warned
about global warming, said skeptics "at best are taking pot shots around
the edges" of the debate. Still, McKibben sees a great irony as he
listens to their arguments: "There is nothing I would rather see than
these guys be right."
John Donnelly can be reached at
donnelly@globe.com.
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