Climate Change: Credible Science or Pure Politics?

ICIE once again tackled a contentious topic, this time at its 2009 Annual Meeting, November 24th, in Boise, presenting Climate Change: Credible Science or Pure Politics?

In opening the meeting, ICIE President Trent Clark reminded the group of ICIE’s 2007 workshop on the potential impacts of climate change on the Pacific Northwest, which outlined changes, opportunities and threats. Rather than expanding upon the subject of that conference, today’s speakers would examine the science and the politics of the current climate change debate.

The Science:
Jim Sims is President and CEO of the Western Business Roundtable, a group of 60 members he says represents 60 different opinions on climate change issues and how to resolve them.

Sims said that when you talk about climate science, consensus is “not in the room.”

“The idea of consensus is foreign to the principles of science,” Sims said. “The concept of consensus belongs in the realm of political science.”

Sims outlined points upon which he says climate scientists can agree:
- CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and we are adding more of it to the atmosphere.
- More greenhouse gasses will cause a weak direct warming tendency in the lower atmosphere.
- There is no consensus on the magnitude of these warming trends. The positive feedback loops that are going to supposedly magnify the climate impacts are automatically built into climate models.
- The debate on climate change is starting to shift to the impact of natural climate cycles driving the change more than anthropogenic factors. There is strong, consistent agreement on this.
- Natural changes in cloud cover of only 1% to 2% could explain all periods of warming and cooling for the last 2,000 years.

Sims presented a graph of temperature data showing warming and cooling trends since the turn of the century. The graphs showed a cooling trend in the mid 1940’s, with a shift to a warming trend in 1977 - about the same time we started measuring temperatures by satellite

Sims outlined data he says shows that we are currently in a cooling trend that may last for the next ten to 20 years, and pointed out that NASA satellite measurements over the last nine years reveal natural cloud cover changes exert at least 5 times as much forcing as increasing CO2 does.

So, why is this science being ignored, he asked?

The UN International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Sims said, is made up of politicians and government bureaucrats, not climate scientists. Their charge is to make a scientific case for human-caused global warming. Billions of dollars have been spent on that effort so far.

“They (the IPCC) are not there to look at alternative explanations,” Sims said.

Sims said that peer reviewed studies show Mother Nature is causing more of an impact to the climate than humans and guessed that calling for more inquiry into that question would be embarrassing to this group.

Sims pointed to a recent analysis that used the scientific assumptions, science and formulas of the IPCC to calculate the reduction of average global temperature resulting from shutting off all fossil fuel power generation – coal, natural gas and diesel – and keeping these plants off for the next 100 years.

The “benefit,” he said, would be a change only .07 degrees Celsius.

This is not to say we shouldn’t do anything, Sims said, “but the benefit of only seven hundredths of one degree needs to be factored into policy discussions.”

After lining up the number of reasons to question IPCC findings and methodology, Sims pointed out that there is human caused global warming, and we should be doing something to mitigate that.

Perhaps, Sims said, it is time for applied science, or “taking the “Popular Mechanics” approach to climate change,” predicated on the following assumptions:

1. The public cares about fewer emissions
2. Cap and trade will take 8 to 10 years for final implementation because it goes through the regulatory process, including litigation
3. The public appetite for more tax and spend policies is dropping rapidly
4. This is a technology challenge, not a regulatory challenge

Sims said the question of the day is what can we do to encourage climate change technology development now, and outlined an applied science approach, including the following criteria:

1. Do no harm to economy
2. Ensure consumers buy into cost-benefit
3. Ensure a broad portfolio of fuels
4. Recognize that government micromanagement is highly inefficient
5. Let climate science continue to evolve as we progress down path to lower emissions of all kinds
6. Provide massive tax incentives for investment
7. Provide aggressive loan guarantees
8. Streamline regulations for deployment of alternative energy sources
9. Guarantee that credit is given in future regulatory regimes for work done now
10. Limit legal liability
11. Protect intellectual property, and
12. Keep the lights on in the meantime

“Newt Gingrich said ‘the morning you provide incentives for technology innovation, you’ll have 50,000 entrepreneurs figuring out how to get the money,’” Sims said, “but ‘the morning you try to do it by regulation there’ll be 50,000 hiring a lawyer to fight you. It’s a fundamentally different model,’”

The Politics
Senator Larry E. Craig (ret.) began the discussion of the political aspects of the climate debate pointing out that during the week prior to the annual meeting, on what he said was a pure partisan vote, the U.S. Senate voted on a bill that had not been reviewed and contains a massive shift of wealth.

“This was an anti-coal bill,” he said, “in a country where 60% of the energy is produced by coal.”

Craig says he has been following the science as well as the politics on the climate change issue, and has attended all the climate change conferences except the 2008 conference in Toronto. He says the debate has fostered a cottage industry.

“Billions of dollars have been poured into the science,” Craig said “as the level of politics continues to grow.”

Congress refused to accept the Kyoto Accords Craig said, because it felt the science was not there. The Bush administration, he said, chose to move more aggressively on the technology front.

According the Craig, the Waxman-Markey legislation in the U.S. House of Representatives is based on taxing and redistributing wealth, not on technology.

“It would tax your utility bill and use the money to save the rainforest in Brazil,” he said.

“Under the Senate version (of the legislation), cap and trade would allow some utilities and high-tech companies to make a fortune by playing the market, not by improving technology to limit emissions.”

Craig said he is working to stall these pieces of legislation to give us more time to think and debate their effectiveness in reducing emissions, giving us time to allow the science to mature.
His goal, he said, is to keep this cap and trade legislation from a vote.

“If you haven’t voted on it by February, 2010, you won’t,” he said, “because by then a third of the Senate and all the House members face re-election.”

In pushing climate change legislation and health care policy, Craig said the majority in Congress is moving away from what the public wants.

“There are indications of a reorientation of the American public to the center/right,” he said, “away from the center /left in Congress.”

Craig noted that Congress has prioritized the climate change issue over the national debt.

“(As of) a year ago, the world economy is in a free-fall,” He said. “Unemployment is over 10%, people are losing homes, retirement funds have tanked, but Congress seems focused on adding to the national debt. The $202 billion interest on today’s national debt will exceed the national defense budget by 2019.”

Craig noted that America produces about 25% of the world’s greenhouse gases, and is also 25% of the world economy. He also conceded that most Americans want to be environmentally responsible.

“But if we don’t approach it right,” he said, “we have a great capacity to make our country a secondary economic power.”

Craig cautioned against letting Congress legislate measures to impact climate change, citing what he considered an unacceptable tax implication. He said that the Obama administration is experiencing push back and is starting to step back from its environmental stance and the idea that they can push climate change legislation through.

“Local politics is going to make a difference this year as people look at getting reelected more than they look at Copenhagen,” he said.