The
Climate Change Climate Change
The
number of skeptics is swelling everywhere.
ยท By
KIMBERLEY A. STRASSEL
Steve
Fielding recently asked the Obama administration to reassure him on
the science of man-made global warming. When the administration proved
unhelpful, Mr. Fielding decided to vote against climate-change
legislation.
If
you haven't heard of this politician, it's because he's a member of
the Australian Senate. As
the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change
bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country's
carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian
politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of
human-caused global warming.
Among
the many reasons President Barack Obama and the Democratic majority
are so intent on quickly jamming a cap-and-trade system through
Congress is because the global warming tide is again shifting. It
turns out Al Gore and the United Nations (with an assist from the
media), did a little too vociferous a job smearing anyone who
disagreed with them as "deniers." The backlash has brought the
scientific debate roaring back to life in Australia , Europe, Japan
and even, if less reported, the U.S.
In April,
the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document
challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic , where President Vaclav
Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population
believes humans play a role. In France , President Nicolas Sarkozy
wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country's new ministry of
industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the
first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist
has since recanted. New
Zealand last year elected a new
government, which immediately suspended the country's weeks-old
cap-and-trade program.
The number
of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling. Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe
now counts more than 700
scientists who disagree with the U.N. -- 13 times the number who
authored the U.N.'s 2007 climate summary for policymakers.
Joanne Simpson, the world's first woman to receive a Ph.D. in
meteorology, expressed relief upon her retirement last year that she
was finally free to speak "frankly" of her nonbelief. Dr. Kiminori
Itoh, a Japanese environmental physical chemist who contributed to a
U.N. climate report, dubs man-made warming "the worst scientific
scandal in history." Norway 's Ivar Giaever, Nobel Prize winner for
physics, decries it as the "new religion." A group of 54 noted
physicists, led by Princeton 's Will Happer, is demanding the American
Physical Society revise its position that the science is settled.
(Both Nature and Science magazines have refused to run the physicists'
open letter.)
The
collapse of the "consensus" has been driven by
reality.
The inconvenient truth is that the earth's temperatures have
flat-lined since 2001, despite growing concentrations of C02.
Peer-reviewed research has debunked doomsday scenarios about the polar
ice caps, hurricanes, malaria, extinctions, rising oceans. A global
financial crisis has politicians taking a harder look at the science
that would require them to hamstring their economies to rein in
carbon.
Credit for
Australia 's own era of renewed enlightenment goes to Dr. Ian Plimer,
a well-known Australian geologist. Earlier this year he published
"Heaven
and Earth," a damning critique of the "evidence" underpinning
man-made global warming. The book is already in its fifth printing. So
compelling is it that Paul Sheehan, a noted Australian columnist --
and ardent global warming believer -- in April humbly pronounced
it "an
evidence-based attack on conformity and orthodoxy, including my own,
and a reminder to respect informed dissent and beware of ideology
subverting evidence." Australian polls have shown a
sharp uptick in public skepticism; the press is back to questioning
scientific dogma; blogs are having a field day.
The rise
in skepticism also came as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, elected like Mr.
Obama on promises to combat global warming, was attempting his own
emissions-reduction scheme. His administration was forced to delay the
implementation of the program until at least 2011, just to get the
legislation through Australia 's House. The Senate was not so easily
swayed.
Mr.
Fielding, a crucial vote on the bill, was so alarmed by the renewed
science debate that he made a fact-finding trip to the U.S. ,
attending the Heartland Institute's annual conference for climate
skeptics. He also visited with Joseph Aldy, Mr. Obama's special
assistant on energy and the environment, where he challenged the Obama
team to address his doubts. They apparently didn't.
This week
Mr. Fielding issued a statement: He would not be voting for the bill.
He would not risk job losses on "unconvincing green science." The bill
is set to founder as the Australian parliament breaks for the
winter.
Republicans
in the U.S. have, in recent years, turned ever more to the cost
arguments against climate legislation. That's made sense in light of
the economic crisis. If Speaker Nancy Pelosi fails to push through her
bill, it will be because rural and Blue Dog Democrats fret about the
economic ramifications. Yet if
the rest of the world is any indication, now might be the time for
U.S. politicians to re-engage on the science. One thing for
sure: They won't be alone.
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Printed in
The Wall Street Journal, page A15
