Climate Change

The Intersection of Science and Politics

To the average person, “science” is synonymous with “truth.” To the scientist, however, science is a process of searching for truth.  A scientist will be the first to admit that behind every “scientific fact” there lies more subtlety, more complexity, more elegance and more search for truth.  Even the most well-settled scientific principle is subject to new findings.  One only needs to look at the effect of Einstein’s theory of special relativity on Newtonian physics.  Scientists are also human beings, however, subject to human passions and imperfections.  It is difficult for a scientist to be truly dispassionate about what she/he believes to be the “best science,” and thus will often exhibit the very human propensity to ignore, trivialize or demonize a viewpoint that is different, especially when huge amounts of money, high professional standings, and large egos are at stake.

Cap-and-Trade Arrives in the West: Western Climate Initiative Releases its Initial Design Recommendations for Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Reductions

By Giji John
September 25, 2008

On September 23, 2008, the Western Climate Initiative (WCI) issued its “Design Recommendations for the WCI Regional Cap-and-Trade Program” (available at www.westernclimateinitiative.org). WCI’s Design Recommendations are intended to effect its stated goal of reducing WCI partner states’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions levels to 15% below 2005 levels by the year 2020.

The Silent Elephant

In his book The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations, eminent anthropologist  Brian Fagan describes the period from about 800 to 1200 AD, in which a small increase in average global temperatures resulted in a warmer, greener and wetter Europe and generations-long droughts in the Americas and parts of Asia.  The more hospitable growing seasons in Europe helped spark the early Viking settlements in Greenland and Vinland (northeast North America).  Erratic and lengthy droughts were instrumental in the collapse of the Maya civilization, the disappearance of Anasazi communities, and the abandonment of the great Ankgor Wat complex.

Beware of People With Agendas

Last week a major world leader outlined a series of policy steps to stop the increase in the emissions of greenhouse gases in his country and then to reduce those emissions.  He suggested a timetable for doing so, and proposed the adoption of incentives, subsidies and requirements to increase renewable fuels, implement greater energy efficiency, generate more renewable electricity, develop carbon-free energy from coal, and foster nuclear power development.  One would think that his policy proposals would be the subject of serious consideration and substantive discussion, if not outright agreement in some quarters.  But, for the most part, the reaction has consisted of scoffing, derision and dismissal.  The problem, of course, is that the world leader in question was George W. Bush, and the messenger very much got in the way of the message he delivered in his speech in the Rose Garden on Wednesday, April 16, 2008.  The reactions to the President’s remarks say more about the state of climate change policy than does the speech itself and provide an instructive glimpse into the multi-layered agendas of the stakeholders in the climate change policy arena.