Kyoto Negotiations

The fourth Conference of the Parties (COP-4) will meet in Buenos Aires, Argentina on November 2-13 to further discuss greenhouse gas reductions. According to Melinda Kimble, acting assistant secretary of state, there probably will be little progress toward reaching the administrations goals. “Buenos Aires has the potential to be a small step forward,” Kimble testified on October 6 before the House Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

The biggest hurdle is emissions trading. Different countries have different ideas on what an emission trading system would look like under the Kyoto Protocol though views have converged in recent weeks.

Kimble was questioned about the administrations definition of “meaningful participation” by developing countries. She admitted that the administration has “no definition.” But, she said, it will not be a “one-size-fits-all solution.” Targets for poorer countries with low emissions will be different than for richer developing countries with higher emissions (BNA Daily Environment Report, October 7, 1998).

Government Study Contradicts Administrations Cost Estimates

Several studies done by private, econometric modeling firms show the costs of complying with the Kyoto Protocol to be high. Critics argue that these studies cannot be trusted given that they were funded by the fossil fuel industry. A new government study, however, has just been released which validate the findings of the industry-funded studies, and counters claims by the Clinton Administration the costs will be negligible.

The report by the federal Energy Information Agency (EIA) “assumes that the U.S. State Departments assessment of the accounting of carbon-absorbing sinks and offsets from reductions in other greenhouse gases will reduce the binding U.S. emissions target to 3 percent below the 1990 level of emissions,” rather than the stated target of 7 percent below 1990 levels.

The EIA estimates that the Kyoto Protocol will cost the U.S. economy $64 billion per year. Under a carbon tax, energy prices will double by 2010 and then “decline to 79 percent above reference case price levels in 2020.” Gasoline prices could rise by 53 percent and electricity prices could rise by as much as 86 percent by 2010. Overall the EIA study paints a rather gloomy economic picture under the Kyoto Protocol. The study is available on the web at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/kyoto/kyotorpt.html

Energy Conservation May not be Such a Good Deal

One of the solutions to global warming, according to Clinton Administration officials, is the greater use of energy efficient technologies. Weve been told that all of the technologies necessary to cheaply reduce fossil fuel use are already available and its just a matter of using them. One of President Bill Clintons favorite examples of energy saving technology is energy efficient fluorescent lighting.

It is generally argued that investments in energy conservation measures, such as replacing incandescent light bulbs with fluorescent light bulbs or insulation, pays for themselves in a short period of time. Some estimates show very high rates of return to energy conservation investments. Advocates of energy efficiency, however, have been puzzled by the lack of consumer interest in such potentially lucrative investment. This “Energy Paradox,” they believe, can best be explained by invoking consumer ignorance, arguing that they “apply very high discount rates to these investment opportunities.” A solution to this problem is an aggressive public education campaign.

In a paper delivered at a conference sponsored by the American Enterprise Institute on September 14, Gilbert Metcalf, an economist at Tufts University, and Kevin Hassett with the American Enterprise Insitute, give a different explanation. They believe that the “engineering estimates of potential energy savings which are often provided by the manufacturer of the relevant product misrepresent savings because they are based on highly controlled studies that do not perfectly apply to actual realized savings in a representative house.”

The paper, Measuring the Energy Savings from Home Improvement Investments: Evidence from Monthly Billing Data, estimates the return on attic insulation. One study found that the returns “can easily be on the order of 50 percent per year.” Metcalf and Hassett, however, find actual returns to be around 9.9 percent per year.

For a variety of reasons consumers rarely achieve the level of savings theoretically possible. They conclude, “We find that the data which may well be the most comprehensive yet applied to this question provide little evidence of an Energy Paradox.”

The comment in August by Bill Richardson, President Clinton’s pick for U.S. Secretary of Energy, that global warming advocates had been “outgunned” came as a surprise to those of us who have been watching the huge amount of cash being amassed by interest groups focussed on this issue. The U.S. government, of course, has been spending roughly $2 billion a year on global warming and now proposes a new $6.3 billion package, which includes a set-aside for public “education.”

But in addition, Pew Charitable Trust has pledged some $50 million over the next 10 years to promote this issue to the press and the public, largely through the National Environmental Trust and the Pew Center for Global Climate Change. The David and Lucile Packard Foundation just donated $1.5 million to train 60 “scientist-communicators” to work the press on global warming. Millions more have been donated by the W. Alton Jones Foundation and other foundations. The issue has been a major focus of the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and dozens of other green activist organizations. On the industry side, approximately $13 million was spent on a nationwide ad campaign in the fall of 1997. Word is that industry plans a similar ad campaign this fall.

In the run-up to the next round of global warming talks, in Buenos Aires in early November, we thought it would be useful to try to gauge how the global warming debate is faring here in the United States. We did a Lexis-Nexis search of editorials and commentary in major publications, using June 1, 1998 as the starting point. We figured that beginning at this date would be a better measure of global warming’s sustainibility as an issue, and would also reflect any concerns raised by the Vice President’s many press briefings over the summer.

Our search, of course, did not include television, which has been largely pro-warming, nor radio, which has been largely against it. Both radio and television reach tens of millions of listeners. Very small newspapers were deliberately excluded, in part because they tend to be strongly conservative and would likely skew the results in the “No” column. News articles would have been too numerous to count, but we figured that editorials and commentary should reflect their impact.

A few of these commentary articles are clearly meant to be self-serving, i.e. industry representatives, Green activists, nuclear engineers promoting nuclear power. Only the editorials reflect the official position of the publications themselves, though all of the articles reveal what their readership has been seeing. We plan to keep a running tally through the end of the year, so if we’ve missed items, please bring them to our attention.

In reviewing this list, several things jumped out at us. First, 41 of the 66 articles appeared in August, a reflection of the Clinton administration’s–and particularly Mr. Gore’s–promotion of the issue. Second, there was a curious dearth of support on either the editorial or commentary pages at two major newspapers that strongly promote global warming on the news side: the New York Times and the Washington Post. Finally, there was a general failure of representatives of either industry or green activist organizations to attack this issue on the commentary pages. Of the industry-based articles that did appear, several were middle-of-the-roadish. The one Green group commentary piece, from Ozone Action, presented a shrill argument for an industry plot. Both industry and activists are working directly with the U.S. government. But it would be arrogant if either thinks that deals can be struck without convincing the American people that such policies are needed or in any way useful.

Over the next two months, perhaps we shall get a clearer picture of what Bill Richardson meant when he said the U.S. government is being “outgunned.”

For now, if it means losing the debate on the pages of major newspapers and magazines, Richardson appears to be right.

Editorials Opposing Kyoto Treaty: 25 publications — 13 editorials, 26 commentary articles

Charleston (SC) Post and Courier: Former government scientist Joseph McDowell in a column “Why is this debate still alive when no credible evidence has been found to support global warming theory?” (8/5/98)

Chattanooga (TN) Free Press: Free Press Editor and Publisher Lee Anderson in a column “there is still no proof of the wild global warming claims of the alarmists who ignore natural climate cycles (8/4/98)

Chicago (IL) Sun Times: Heritage Foundation President Ed Feulner in a column says “global warming paranoia just a lot of hot air” (6/19/98)

Chicago (IL) Tribune: Column by Joan Beck says “global warming verdict still up in the air.” 7/9/98)

Detroit (MI) News: Editorial “It is regrettable that the National Council of Churches has embraced Mr. Gore’s line (on global warming).

Freelance writer Daniel Hager in a column “Many of us, taking a longer view of climate history, remain skeptics” (7/20/98)

Duluth (MN) News Tribune: Citizens Research Council President Clyde Nelson in a column “Must we rush into the unknown abyss of treaties that supersede our own Constitution in a mad rush to avert a disaster when even today large numbers of learned scientists cannot seem to agree on the cause, or the impact (of global warming) on the world’s population?” (8/1/98)

Electricity Daily: Editorial critical of “Hansen’s Global Warming Index” (7/27/98)

Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram: Knight-Ridder columnist John Carlisle asks “Is the sun to blame for global warming? Biggest factor on earth’s temperature is 93 million miles away” (7/6/98)

Investor’s Business Daily: Editorial “(The U.S. EPA) is committed to spending your money to persuade you to tell your senator to get on the global warming bandwagon…The EPA calls this educational outreach. It smells like lobbying” (8/4/98)

Junk Science Home Page Publisher Steve Milloy and Michael Gough of the Cato Institute in a column say scientist Frederick Seitz is the “prime target of a government smear campaign” as part of the “broader effort to squelch scientific debate on global warming” (8/7/98)

Journal of Commerce: Editorial notes evidence that the Earth’s climate from 1000-1200 A.D. was about 1 degree Celsius warmer than today, with no input from cars or power plants. (7/6/98)

Small Business Survival Committee chief economist Raymond Keating in a column blasts White House economist Janet Yellen’s view that the costs of Kyoto will be small (7/16/98)

Dennis Avery of the Hudson Institute “For farmers of the world, the Kyoto treaty could mean a 75 percent surge in energy prices, leading to radically higher prices for such energy-expensive inputs as machinery, pesticides, and fertilizer.” (9/1/98)

Las Vegas (NV) Review-Journal: Wharton Econometric Forecasting Associates VP Mary Novak, in a column “Instead of hobbling our economy with costly new regulations, we should pursue alternatives to the Kyoto Accord” (8/14/98)

Little Rock (AK) Democrat-Gazette: Editorial “No wonder (Gore) always seems so uncomfortable…He’s not a statesman. He’s a weatherman…The man really missed his calling” (7/13/98

Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal: Kentucky Farm Bureau President William Sprague “America’s most potent agricultural trading competitors…won’t have to shoulder the same cost increases that our producers have to bear (under Kyoto)” (8/29/98)

Montgomery (AL) Advertiser: Editorial “There remains much legitimate dispute about the extent of global warming and its impact on humankind.” (8/13/98)

Omaha World-Herald: Editorial “(Gore) seems to be seeking votes by crying out that the sky is falling” (8/14/98)

National Review: Cover story by Jonathan Adler of the Competitive Enterprise Institute says “global warming is not a threat to health or the economy. Plans to address it are” (8/17/98)

The Patriot-Ledger (Quincy, MA): Columnist D.A. Mittell, Jr. writes “let’s cut the alarmist claptrap on warm Earth.” (9/5/98)

Philadelphia Inquirer: Columnist David Boldt “We’d be idiots to lash ourselves to growth-slowing policies based on a very dubious, very long-range weather forecast.” (8/25/98)

Providence (RI) Journal-Bulletin: Mackubin Thomas Owens in a column complains about the ramifications of “global warming vs. U.S. security” (7/31/98)

Richmond Times-Dispatch: Editorial “Science is mostly irrelevant to Gore…What Gore is trying to do is drum up support for the Kyoto treaty” (7/21/98)

Editorial “Nothing in the natural world is static…Won’t someone please tell Al Gore?” (8/25/98)

UVA Prof Patrick Michaels in a column “(Americans) know when someone is yelling fire in a crowded greenhouse” (8/18/98)

Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO): Center for the New West President Philip Burgess in a column “Nearly every publicly available study estimating the true costs of Kyoto ends up with dramatically higher cost estimates than those used by Clinton-Gore true believers” (8/4/98)

Salt Lake (UT) Tribune: National Center for Public Policy Research VP David Ridenour in a column “The unusually hot air blowing this summer has come from the White House, not from global warming” (8/16/98)

Spokane (WA) Spokesman-Review: Columnist John Webster “on the basis of this uncertainty and exaggeration, the United States would be crazy to don a regulatory straitjacket”: (8/14/98)

Tampa (FL) Tribune: Editorial says “Gore’s attempt to link Florida fires to global warming is pseudo-science” (7/12/98)

Washington (DC) Times: Editorial “Al Gore Warms Up: Is there any misfortune, disaster or otherwise unwelcome phenomenon out there that (Gore) can’t blame on alleged global warming?” (7/16/98)

Syndicated columnist Oliver North writes “…no matter what Kyoto says, businesses aren’t going to stop using fossil fuels. They will simply stop using them in the United States. And…that means fewer jobs” (7/18/98)

UVA Prof. Patrick Michaels writes about “false alarms in the greenhouse” (7/20/98)

Senate Republican Policy Committee Chief Economist J.T. Young in a column writes that the Administration has virtually no blueprint for action behind its proposal to spend $6.3 billion on actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (8/4/98)

Cato Institute foreign policy analyst Gary Dempsey in a column says ratifying the Kyoto Protocol is “courting global disaster.” (8/4/98)

National Center for Public Policy Research VP David Ridenour writes about “cooler readings of the heatwave hype” (8/19/98)

Editorial “The Clinton Administration has created an industry of its own to sow fear of climate change worldwide.” (8/31/98);

UVA Prof. Patrick Michaels “Mr. Gore is not talking about the globe’s temperatures after all, and the science he’s peddling hasn’t even been peer reviewed” (8/31/98)

Editorial talks about foundation funding to promote global warming in “deep pockets, hot air.” (8/31/98)

Supporting Kyoto Treaty: 19 publications — 11 editorials, 8 commentary articles

Atlanta Constitution: Editorial “We can ignore these warnings if we choose. But our children and grandchildren may find it hard to ignore the legacy of our greed and selfishness” (8/19/98)

Baltimore Sun: Penn State Prof. of nuclear engineering Anthony J. Baratta promotes “using nuclear power to cool the planet” (6/17/98)

Boston Globe: Editorial “…stop heeding a few powerful but shortsighted interests and take the global threat seriously” (8/14/98)

Chicago Tribune: Editorial “prudence and common sense–and mounting scientific evidence–(suggest) that global warming must be taken seriously” (8/9/98)

Des Moines Register: Editorial “The environment we’re comfortable with simply can’t handle all the greenhouse gases” (8/17/98)

Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel: Editorial “global warming is too serious to be used for partisan advantage” (8/12/98)

Fort Worth (TX) Star-Telegram: Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins “we continue to report global warming as though it were a debate among scientists. It is not.” (8/13/98)

Las Vegas Review-Journal: UNLV geology Prof. Stephen Rowland in a column writes “…our children and grandchildren will pay a far higher price and suffer serious consequences if we ignore the overwhelming scientific evidence” (7/26/98)

Los Angeles Times: Syndicated columnist Molly Ivins writes “debate dries up on global warming” (8/16/98)

Louisville (KY) Courier-Journal: Editorial “…the warming trend is going to impose big costs on governments and business enterprises all over the world” (8/13/98)

Minneapolis Star Tribune: Editorial “This summer might be a harbinger of the calamity to come” (8/12/98)

Newark (NJ) Star-Ledger: Editorial “The long-range threat is going to continue–no matter what the forecast shows.” (8/24/98)

North Carolina News & Observer: NCSU nuclear engineering Prof. Donald Dudziak in a column “Mounting evidence that the planet may be warming…require(s) a larger role for nuclear power” (7/17/98)

Palm Beach Post: Editorial “these fluctuations are not normal…” (8/24/98)

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Editorial “Americans are going to have to face the fact that fighting global warming and its consequences will cost some money” (8/12/98)

Salt Lake (UT) Tribune: Ozone Action Executive Director John Passacantando in a column “Go ahead and listen to the fossil fuel lobbyists bad-mouth the president and vice president for talking about what is increasingly the most obvious global threat we have ever faced” (8/16/98)

Spokane (WA) Spokesman-Review: Columnist Carol MacPherson “global warming is a fact” (8/14/98)

Vancouver (WA) Columbian: Columnist Michael Zuzel writes “Taking action carries a cost, but as recent weather strongly suggests, so does not taking action” (7/19/98)

Washington Post: Editorial calls on Congress to remove riders to the EPA’s funding bill that would bar “contemplation of implementation” of the Kyoto Protocol” (7/21/98)

GLOBAL WARMING/KYOTO–MAYBE: 7 publications — 2 editorials, 6 commentary articles.

Boston Globe: Massachusetts Petroleum Council Executive Director Frank Tivan, in a column “No thoughtful observer would dismiss warming out of hand. But given the scientific debate over the problem, the economic pain is skewed way out of proportion.” (8/11/98)

The Economist: Editorial “…at the very least it seems sensible to invest in better thermometers” (8/15/98)

Insight magazine: Former Defense Secretary Frank Carlucci in a column writes “By agreeing to restrict greenhouse-gas emissions and leaving the accord’s impact on military operations ambiguous, the administration effectively has hamstrung the Defense Department’s ability to protect U.S. national security…The Senate must demand a blanket exemption for all military operations” (6/15/98)

Journal of Commerce: American Petroleum Institute Executive VP William O’Keefe in a column writes that there are “sensible steps” that can be taken to address climate change: energy efficient technology, voluntary emissions reductions, including developing nations in any emissions reduction campaign (7/6/98)

Harvard Prof. Robert Stavins in a column “contrary to overly optimistic claims…it could cost the U.S. economy between 0.3 percent and 3 percent of the annual gross national product to meet the U.S. targets under the Kyoto Protocol….Such costs are not trivial, but neither do they represent national economic catastrophe.” 8/7/98)

Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch: Media General News Service White House Correspondent Marsha Mercer in a column “Gore evidently believes people may be ready for an environmentally aware president who can save us from climate doom” (8/16/98)

Tampa (FL) Tribune: Editorial “Gore’s half answer to global warming” (8/30/98)

Washington (DC) Times: NASA scientist Roy Spencer in a column writes “were it not for the standoff between the White House and Congress over the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, and the concern over recent high temperatures, this would be just another technical debate hashed out on the pages of scientific journals” (9/3/98)

Vice President Al Gore has not yet presented the Senate with the global-warming treaty he negotiated last December in Kyoto, Japan, but it’s a ticking time bomb for farmers in the United States and the rest of the First World.

The Kyoto treaty would require ratifying countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 45 percent per capita by the year 2012. Such a drastic emissions reduction would probably cut First World economic output by at least 3 percent, eliminate millions of jobs and throw the affluent nations into a steep recession. (The treaty would put no constraints on the Third World.)

For farmers in the First World, the Kyoto treaty could mean a 75 percent surge in energy prices, leading to radically higher prices for such energy- expensive inputs as machinery, pesticides and fertilizer. Natural gas, for example, is about 75 percent of the cost of anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer.

In addition, the treaty would mean ceilings on crop yields, to further discourage the use of fertilizer. It would mean limits on livestock production, especially cattle, to reduce the production of methane. And it would mean restrictions on food processing and transport, forcing food to be grown closer to the consumer, often at lower yields and often with more soil erosion.

Terry Francl, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, estimates that the higher cash costs for an acre of corn would cut net profit by 25 percent to 50 percent. Wheat and dairy profits would also fall by about 25 percent to 50 percent, and hog profits by 40 percent to 80 percent. Soybeans might end up being the only crop U.S. farmers could profitably grow. Because soybeans don’t take as many off-farm inputs, soybean profits would fall only about 20 percent.

The first world’s farm incomes would fall even as its food prices rose. Feed costs would increase, and bids for feeder pigs and cattle would drop. Farmland rents and land values would plummet all over the First World. Countries like Argentina and Brazil, not bound by the treaty, would expand their farm output and see their farmland prices rise.

Environmentalists would be thrilled. Modern farmers would be forced out of their tractor cabs and dragooned into low-input, low-yield farming. Meanwhile, the world’s farm-export demand would shrink. Instead of importing food, Asia would try to produce four times as much food at home. There would be no Kyoto-treaty restrictions on its farmers.

Unfortunately, expanding farm output in Asia is exactly what the environment doesn’t need. Compared with the First World, Asia has six times as many people per acre of arable land, and its farmers already use perhaps six times as much nitrogen fertilizer per acre.

The only land on which Asian farming can logically expand is currently tropical forest, home to millions of wild species. The Kyoto treaty seems wonderfully designed to trigger the massive loss in wildlife that biologists fear. In other words, Mr. Gore is volunteering his own farmers for bankruptcy and a major percentage of the world’s wildlife for destruction.

The excuse is that he’s doing it to avoid the disaster of a parboiled planet – which drives us back to the key question: Is global warming real, and how bad will it be?

The vice president has been holding press conferences all summer long at which he declaims that our temperatures in the aftermath of El Nino have been “”the highest on record.” But the records only go back 100 years, and the 19th century was the coldest in 10 centuries.

Equally important, the big computer models of global weather patterns have cut their projections of warming from about 5 degrees Celsius to less than 2 degrees Celsius.

The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine recently circulated a petition among scientists that says: “There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere.” More than 15,000 scientists have signed the institute’s petition.

Signers include more than 6,000 climatologists, geophysicists, meteorologists, experts on plant life and animal life and others qualified to speak on global warming. The institute is independent and receives no funding from industry.

A competing petition circulated by Washington-based Ozone Action has gathered 2,600 signatures, and only about 250 of the signers are qualified to speak on global warming.

When global-warming activists are confronted with their lack of evidence and the weight of scientific opinion, their fallback position is: “”What if we’re right? What if catastrophic global warming is on the way, and you prevent us from stopping it?”

The mild global warming now projected by computer models that the environmentalists say we should believe would simply return us to the best weather in history. The projected warming of 2 degrees Celsius would recreate the Medieval Climate Optimum of A.D. 950-1300.

Farmers would get milder winters, fewer storms, only a slight increase in daytime summer temperatures and more carbon dioxide to fertilize crops and pastures.

The alternative laid out by the Kyoto treaty is so awful, for both people and the environment, that we should require a very high degree of proof from Mr. Gore and his global-warming activists.

Vice President Al Gore has not yet presented the Senate with the global-warming treaty he negotiated last December in Kyoto, Japan, but it’s a ticking time bomb for farmers in the United States and the rest of the First World. The Kyoto treaty would require ratifying countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions by 45 percent per capita by the year 2012! Such a drastic emissions reduction would probably cut First World economic output by at least 3 percent, eliminate millions of jobs and throw the affluent nations into a steep recession. (The treaty would put no constraints on the Third World.)

For farmers in the First World, the Kyoto treaty could mean a 75 percent surge in energy prices, leading to radically higher prices for such energy-expensive inputs as machinery, pesticides and fertilizer. Natural gas, for example, is about 75 percent of the cost of anhydrous ammonia, a fertilizer. In addition, the treaty would mean ceilings on crop yields, to further discourage the use of fertilizer. It would mean limits on livestock production, especially cattle, to reduce the production of methane. And it would mean restrictions on food processing and transport, forcing food to be grown closer to the consumer, often at lower yields and often with more soil erosion.

Terry Francl, an economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, estimates that the higher cash costs for an acre of corn would cut net profit by 25 percent to 50 percent. Wheat and dairy profits would also fall by about 25 percent to 50 percent, and hog profits by 40 percent to 80 percent. Soybeans might end up being the only crop U.S. farmers could profitably grow. Because soybeans don’t take as many off-farm inputs, soybean profits would fall only about 20 percent.

The First World’s farm incomes would fall even as its food prices rose. Feed costs would increase, and bids for feeder pigs and cattle would drop. Farmland rents and land values would plummet all over the First World. Countries like Argentina and Brazil, not bound by the treaty, would expand their farm output and see their farmland prices rise. Environmentalists would be thrilled. Modern farmers would be forced out of their tractor cabs and dragooned into low-input, low-yield farming.

Meanwhile, the world’s farm-export demand would shrink. Instead of importing food, Asia would try to produce four times as much food at home. There would be no Kyoto-treaty restrictions on its farmers. Unfortunately, expanding farm output in Asia is exactly what the environment doesn’t need. Compared with the First World, Asia has six times as many people per acre of arable land, and its farmers already use perhaps six times as much nitrogen fertilizer per acre. The only land on which Asian farming can logically expand is currently tropical forest, home to millions of wild species.

The Kyoto Treaty seems wonderfully designed to trigger the massive loss in wildlife that biologists fear! In other words, Gore is volunteering his own farmers for bankruptcy and a major percentage of the world’s wildlife for destruction. The excuse is that he’s doing it to avoid the disaster of a parboiled planet-which drives us back to the key question: Is global warming real, and how bad will it be?

The vice president has been holding press conferences all summer long at which he declaims that our temperatures in the aftermath of El Nino have been “the highest on record.” But the records only go back 100 years, and the 19th century was the coldest in 10 centuries. Equally important, the big computer models of global weather patterns have cut their projections of warming from about 5 degrees Celsius to less than 2 degrees Celsius. The Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine recently circulated a petition among scientists that says: “There is no convincing evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will in the foreseeable future cause catastrophic heating of the earth’s atmosphere.” More than 15,000 scientists have signed the institute’s petition. Signers include more than 6,000 climatologists, geophysicists, meteorologists, experts on plant life and animal life and others qualified to speak on global warming. The institute is independent and receives no funding from industry. A competing petition circulated by Washington-based Ozone Action has gathered 2,600 signatures, and only about 250 of the signers are qualified to speak on global warming.

When global-warming activists are confronted with their lack of evidence and the weight of scientific opinion, their fallback position is: “What if we’re right? What if catastrophic global warming is on the way, and you prevent us from stopping it?” The mild global warming now projected by computer models that the environmentalists say we should believe would simply return us to the best weather in history. The projected warming of 2 degrees Celsius would recreate the Medieval Climate Optimum of A.D. 950-1300. Farmers would get milder winters, fewer storms, only a slight increase in daytime summer temperatures and more carbon dioxide to fertilize crops and pastures.

The alternative laid out by the Kyoto treaty is so awful, for both people and the environment, that we should require a very high degree of proof from Gore and his global-warming activists. So far, it looks as though the Kyoto treaty would cause economic recession, rural disaster and widespread wildland destruction-while trying to prevent what would be better weather!

DENNIS T. AVERY, who is based in Churchville, Va., is director of global food issues for the Hudson Institute of Indianapolis. His views are not necessarily those of Bridge News.