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Global Warming / Greenhouse 2/5/90 [OA 8312] [2]
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Global Warming / Greenhouse 2/5/90 [OA 8312] [2]
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Speech Backup Chronological Files
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This is not a textual record. This is used as an
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Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
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Speechwriting, White House Office of
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Speech File Backup Files
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Chron File, 1989-1993
OA/ID Number:
13704
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13704-006
Folder Title:
Global Warming / Greenhouse 2/5/90 [OA 8312] [2]
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G
26
19
6
3
all think its impropropriate- -
want
White House Sci /econ cont. Vacanty
re-injute nego. ression
Watkins Deilly Browby Zoellich will meet
ervico cold was - No.
77 nations there
in
ANY-POYENTIAL POSSIBLE CHANATE CHANGE
Boomby
look understanding
major the prob.
our babrobip
# spent research. Monitory systems.
- our support of IPCC
seiterate to Baker date
(stress continuity)
'91 budget- adding itall if
71 bit severb alone
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falamed
1st
Besain up front - vital prior: infort. aggressibelly the get scurice
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and
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V
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with the # were smerting
up the commits were walking
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that the IPCC will continue
to fore bodeship
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low-proble, high cost exat
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- action their
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we policia whore leas excerd conty,
don't concele on disapter person
old an enviro, of uncertainty, do that which you how
has posting effects the no
We Can go as for an Tratcher on policy, but don't
frame, f u/ assump. of warming.
- get Lipt of countries [G7, [G 7, China Brayil Austalia,
to attend corpreace
EC, OECD, Algeria cladri USE
April 18, 19th here
Mexico
dto Agrida? selond, Boslon, Browly:
Tom Supr-
econ. & surro. aren't distinct
1
a false distraction
On global
anyothe envire issue, too much
put an end to enviro. collower
waltet effort
of lost time.
State: strong statement reattiving
Posting
it
Aon't refer to trading emispions formits
@3PM
IPCC -we need to address :
P
-
Reaffirm leadership on int'l env. issues
- commitment to lead efforts
we want
past:
orlyloak
Future:
Holinwire sound
Malta Phoposal
- -World Bank
projects
- -AID; Peacecorps
, "Env. President's
Jackson after
CAA.
Pending:
Clean Air legis.
Su
HallGrady
CONTACTS FOR IPCC SPEECH
State Department:
Dan Reifsnyder
647-4069
Chris Dawson
647-3638
Granville Sewell
647-9832
ROD Fairweather
Domestic Policy Council:
OMB -Enviro.
X 6827
Dr. Bromley
Dr. Maynard
X 6202
EPA if Int'l Div:
Dr. Hecht 382-4870
Barry McBee X6437
Robert DOE mathicr kins Exec asot
cabinet Affairs
THE
Barrie Braddewis
Steve Olson
WH Science office
(717) 397 3768
(Browleys) X
final rpt = 1ˢᵗ Assessment rpt.
not final
fall wf for fr. H.
0
on Climate Control
Georgetown University
OFFICE OF PRESIDENTIAL ADVANCE
IN-TOWN EVENT CONTACT SHEET
Name
Office
Phone Number
Presidential Advance
456-7565
Presidential Advance Office Fax Number
456-2820
Lucy muckerman
W.H. advance
456-7565
LISA waller
WH Advance head
523-8271 wonk
Carolyn Cawley
WH Speechwriting
456-7750
800
BARRY MCBEE
WH - (ABIHES AFFAIRS
456.2
Willie Cheatham
USSS/TSD
395-6396
BRUCE E. CAUGHMAN
W.H. MILITARY OFFICE
456-2150
Bill Hilton
WH Comm unications
395-6310
MIKE BARTHOLF
Gu TRANPORTATION DEPT
687-3952
Thomas Snead
State Dept
6471561
MARY Shomon
WAlcoff Assoc.
684-5588
OES
Janet Gale I' "Heevren Project Mgr WalerHy Dept Assoc. of State
647-3508
684.5588
Jane Daly Seaberg
Georgetown PK
687-4327
ENdre L. WILSOM
Georgetacy Publicipty
687-4343
CARL VANDONEN
HIBLT Cont.Cra. 687-3275
Paul Davies
Hotel idonference Ctr,
Sales' Catering 687-3241
Bharles Briscoe
Secnet Service Lead Adv.
395 4112
Mike Muscrave Mike Musgrave
Daylas Bunmingham Secret Service
395-6340
11
11 NW70
6345100
ANDREW GARLIKOV
W.H. Adance
456-7565
only for Venue for "fr.cow. on climate
1stneg. session toward
)
who
-
the unga ? least pref.
like montreal
UNEP &WMO = vehicle
exp. mandate of IPRC from study
form
2
MAN.1 8 1990
MEMORANDUM
TO:
Dr. D. Allan Bromley
DR. MAUNAED
Assistant to the President
FROM:
Admiral James D. Watkins D. wark.
Secretary of Energy
William K. Reilly
Administrator, Environmental Protection Agency
SUBJECT: Presidential Speech to the IPCC
The meeting of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change during the first
week of February offers the President an important opportunity to reaffirm his
leadership on international environmental issues. Attached is the outline of a speech
that he might give (Tab A).
We believe that it is a positive statement of: (1) his concern for the
environment in general and about global warming in particular, (2) his commitment to
lead international efforts in these areas, (3) the significant U.S. efforts to fulfill this
commitment and (4) U.S. support for the IPCC as the proper forum for addressing the
climate change issue. We also believe that the statement is fully consistent with
existing Administration policy.
Also attached is an issue paper outlining options for carrying forward and
expanding in the IPCC the cost and economic impact analysis of measures to limit
greenhouse gas emissions (TAB B). Although not linked to the speech, the issue needs
to be carefully considered. Such work must be continued in the IPCC or the
international debate will continue to be based more on bold rhetoric than solid
information.
We have shared this outline with the State Department and believe it is, in
essence, supported by them. We would like to explore these ideas with you and our
colleagues in the rest of the Administration. To this end, we would appreciate your
circulating these documents in preparation for a discussion which you might lead. We
would welcome your advice on how to move the inter-agency review process forward
expeditiously given that the date of the speech is fast approaching.
Attachments
cc: Frederick M. Bernthal, Assistant Secretary,
Oceans & International Environmental & Scientific Affairs Bureau,
Department of State
TAB A
3
Proposal for Presidential Speech
before the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Control (IPCC)
1.
General statement of commitment to and concern for the
global environment and economic development.
-- Reiterate determination that the President will take
active role in addressing concern about global climate
change.
Reiterate Secretary Baker's approach (spelled out
in
January 1989).
--
Reiterate Noordwijk commitment to greenhouse gas
stabilization as soon as possible, consistent with the
requirement for global economic growth that can enhance
the quality of life for people everywhere.
-- Stress strong U.S. commitment to environment; e.g.,
domestic programs, leadership in forging international
agreements on environment, assistance to and
cooperative efforts with developing countries and
current or former centrally planned economies.
2.
U.S. Supports the IPCC Process
--
Stress need for international cooperation.
Congratulations to IPCC sponsors, the United Nations
Environment Program (UNEP), the World Meteorological
Organization (WMO) and to Dr. Bolin of Sweden, IPCC
Chairman.
--
Establishment of the IPCC has filled the need for an
orderly, intergovernmental process to assess scientific
understanding, evaluate potential impacts and develop
appropriate response options.
Welcome IPCC reports due in August.
U.S. is committed to playing a leadership role through
our chairmanship of the Response Strategies Working
Group (RWSG) and supporting IPCC as best forum for
global climate change policy development.
--
Support for UK proposal at UN to continue IPCC.
?
0
4
3.
Past and Ongoing U.S. Contributions and Views on Key Issues
of Convention and EmissionseLimiting Agreements
Science
o
U.S. budget is the largest in the world and is
rising, nearly $500 million in FY 1990 and to
increase to almost $1 billion in FY 1991.
o
Importance of all countries, no matter what their
level of development or economic system,
contributing to understanding of the science.
This cooperation needs to take several forms:
-
cooperation in assessment of state of the
science; and
-
cooperation in monitoring and analysis of
climate change.
o
Periodic international reassessment of the science
at fixed intervals to aid in our decision making.
--
Technology Development
o
U.S. has active technology development programs to
improve the efficiency of both supply and demand
side technologies, and reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.
-
More efficient fossil fuel generation
technologies.
-
Renewable and energy efficiency technology
initiative.
-
Conservation technology: end-use efficiency
-
Nuclear: new generation with enhanced safety
features under development.
o
Any framework convention should provide for
regular assessments of the state of technology
development to determine the availability and
des
of technologies.
2
--
U.S. is sensitive to the need for technology transfer
to other countries.
Clean coal, renewable, conservation, end-use
services for technology transfer, and nuclear.
0
A.I.D. appropriation bill.
*
EPA/Peace Corps agreement.
X
Change in World Bank policy.
to
EPA's IETTAB and DOE's CORECT program to examine
X
technology transfer.
o
Policy aid package.
Economics
Follow-up on Administration commitment to develop
real data on costs of various response strategies
and assess new response measures.
Challenge others to do the same.
Offer technical support to those who need it.
--
Policy
President should encourage consideration of truly
innovative responses including:
-
comprehensive approach:
all major greenhouse
gases are included; and
trading of emission permits.
President should define general criteria for
future agreements to limit greenhouse gas
emissions:
market mechanisms such as "integrated
resource" planning and consistency with
economic growth in all countries; and
3
1
need to work with industry to ensure that
response actions do not adversely affect
economic growth around the world.
-- U.S. Clean Air Act Legislation
Encourages emissions trading.
Use of efficiency energy supplies; e.g., new clean
coal technology and conservation technologies.
--
National Energy Strategy
Comprehensive blueprint for addressing future
energy needs with consideration to climate change
and other environmental issues.
As first step, take those steps which contribute
to other goals, but also reduce greenhouse gas
emissions; e.g., clean coal technology, DOE
conservation programs.
My
Energy efficiency programs: lighting, appliance
efficiency standards, model building codes, industrial
process improvement, encouraging utilities to provide
the service of electricity demand reduction,
transportation research and development, etc.
--
Alternative energy sources are being developed.
Renewables: hydro, solar, biomass, geothermal.
Nuclear: new reactor design.
Reforestation: Trees for U.S.
--
Phase-out of CFCs by 2000 providing safe substitutes
are available.
o
U.S. contribution to: development of safe
substitutes, assessments of needs by other
countries.
4.
Reiterate Malta Offer to Host Convention Negotiations when
IPCC is Ready
--- Express commitment to finding global solutions.
4
7
Demonstrate U.S. williagness to facilitate the process.
To further the debate, U.S. will host international
environmental meeting composed of senior science,
economics and environmental officials from all nations.
Happening
on
5
TAB B
Issue: How to carry forward and expand in the IPCC the cost and
emissions? economic impact analysis of measures to limit greenhouse gas
Discussion: The IPCC's Response Strategies Working Group (RSWG)
must conclude its work in the next couple of months for its
report to be written on schedule. Consequently much of the cost
and economic analysis that is beginning to emerge will not be
included in the report. Without an ongoing analytical effort,
the international discussion of emission targets and timetables
will be dominated by the countries who are prepared to make
substantial political commitments without much information on how
they will fulfill those commitments.
To move the debate over commitments to limit greenhouse gas
emissions away from bold rhetoric to a realistic assessment of
what is possible over different timeframes, the IPCC's work on
cost and economic impact analysis must be continued and expanded.
Furthermore, because targets and timetables, especially for co₂
are likely to be a major focus of attention at the fourth IPCC
plenary next August and at the Second World Climate Conference
(SWCC) next October-November, a means must be found for an
ongoing effort over the next 5-7 months.
There are three major options for proceeding. The first is
to request individual countries such as the U.S., Japan and the
FRG to conduct studies and continue to provide results to the
IPCC even after the conclusion of the RSWG's report. A second is
to instruct the RSWG's Energy and Industry Subgroup (EIS) led by
Japan to continue its analyses beyond the Spring and prepare a
supplemental report. The third is for the U.S. to offer to lead,
under the auspices of the RSWG and perhaps in collaboration with
EIS, a special effort and produce a supplemental report in time
for the fourth IPCC plenary. The latter option might entail a
significant commitment of resources but may be most likely to
result in substantive output. The latter option also offers the
possibility of bringing a number of developing countries more
fully into the process, because of a cooperative project already
underway in ten developing countries.
Position: The U.S. should promote an ongoing effort to analyze
the costs and economic impacts of & variety of targets and
timetables for limiting greenhouse gas emissions. This should
include the production of a supplemental report for consideration
by the fourth IPCC plenary. The U.S. should favor a leadership
role for EIS but be prepared to offer to lead the effort if
discussions at the February IPCC meeting suggest it would be
necessary to ensure meaningful output.
1
United States Department of State
Washington, D.C. 20520
POLICY PLANNING STAFF
FACSIMILE COVER SHEET
Date Sent: 1/23/90
Number of Pages:
10
(Excluding Cover Sheet)
Time Sent: 9:35am
S/P FAX #: 202-647-0753
Verification #: 202-647-1965
TO:
NAME
AGENCY
PHONE #
FAX. #
Carolyn Cawley
WH
456-7750
456-6218
FROM: Chris Dawson
PHONE #: 647-3638
SUBJECT: President's Speech Before IPCC
COMMENTS:
United States Department of State
Policy Planning Staff
Carolyn,
EPA has included all the comments I
gave them. I know Secretary Baker believes
it is particularly important to reiterate
explicitly the points he made in his
January, 1989, speech (I've attached a
copy for your use).
J. look forward to working with you
on this.
Chais Dansan
647 * 3638
P.3
BRITISH INFORMATION SERVICES
POLICY STATEMENT
FRIDAY 10 NOVEMBER, 1989
57/89
THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
The Prime Minister, The Rt. Hon. Margaret Thatcher, FRS,
MP, addressed the 44th Session of the United Nations General
Assembly on 8 November, 1989. The full text is attached.
The main points of the Prime Minister's address are as
follows:
Britain is to establish a Centre for Climate Change
Prediction. The Centre's objective will be to produce
the best possible predictions of future climate change
as a basis for developing policies to control the green-
house effect, building on the established base of
modelling and scientific expertise in the United Kingdom.
The most pressing task facing the international community
is the negotiation of a framework Convention on climate
change - a "good conduct guide" for all nations. Such a
convention would be modelled in the Vienna Convention of
1985 and the Montreal Protocol of 1987 and should be
ready in time for the World Conference on Environment and
Development in 1992.
A further global convention on the conservation of animal
and plant life is urgently needed. Between 3 and 50
species are being lost each day and the international
community must act together to conserve this precious
heritage.
The British Government is to commit a further £100
million ($160 million) in bilateral aid to tropical
forestry activity over the next three years. The
funds will be used to support projects aimed at reducing
deforestation, promoting afforestation and better manage-
ment of existing tropical forests.
MJH:1h
A1/3/6; B5; EEC; F3/13; G3/1/6/7; G7/1/2/3/4/5;
P1/3/9/10/11/13/18; PSp2; PSp9.
845 Third Avenue, New York, N.Y., 10022, Telephone: (212) 752-8400
This material is prepared, edited, issued or circulated by British Information Services, 845 Third Avenue, New York, New York
10022, which is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as an agent of the British Government. This material is filed
with the Department of Justice where the required registration statement is available for public inspection. Registration does
not indicate approval of the contents of this material by the United States Government.
THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT
Mr President, it gives me great pleasure to return to the podium
of this assembly. When I last spoke here four years ago, on the 40th
anniversary of the United Nations, the message that I and others like
me gave was one of encouragement to the organisation to play the
great role allotted to it. Of all the challenges faced by the world
community in those four years, one has grown clearer than any other
in both urgency and importance; I refer to the threat to our global
environment. I shall take the opportunity of addressing the General
Assembly to speak on that subject alone.
INTRODUCTION
During his historic voyage through the South Seas on the Beagle,
Charles Darwin landed one November morning in 1835 on the shore of
Western Tahiti. After breakfast he climbed a nearby hill to find a
vantage point to survey the surrounding Pacific. The sight seemed to
him like "a framed engraving", with blue sky, blue lagoon, and white
breakers crashing against the encircling coral reef. As he looked out
from that hillside, he began to form his theory of the evolution of
coral. One hundred and fifty four years after Darwin's visit to
Tahiti we have added little to what he discovered then.
What if Charles Darwin had been able, not just to climb a
foothill, but to soar through the heavens in one of the orbiting
space shuttles? What would he have learned as he surveyed our planet
from that altitude? From a moon's eye view of that strange and
beautiful anomaly in our solar system that is the earth? Of course,
we have learned much detail about our environment as we have looked
back at it from space, but nothing has made a more profound impact on
us than these two facts.
First, as the British scientist Fred Hoyle wrote long before
space travel was a reality, he said: "Once a photograph of the Earth
taken from the outside is available
a new idea as powerful as any
other in history will be let loose". That powerful idea is the
recognition of our shared inheritance on this planet. We know more
clearly than ever before that we carry common burdens, face common
problems, and must respond with common action.
Second, as we travel through space, as we pass one dead planet
after another, we look back on our Earth, a speck of life in an
infinite void. It is life itself, incomparably precious, that
distinguishes us from the other planets. It is life itself - human
life, the innumerable species of our planet - that we wantonly
destroy. It is life itself that we must battle to preserve.
For over 40 years, that has been the main task of this United
Nations. To bring peace where there was war; comfort where there was
misery; life where there was death. The struggle has not always been
successful. There have been years of failure. But recent events have
brought the promise of a new dawn, of new hope. Relations between the
Western nations and the Soviet Union and her allies, long frozen in
suspicion and hostility, have begun to thaw. In Europe, this year,
- 2 -
freedom has been on the march. In Southern Africa, Namibia and
Angola, the United Nations has succeeded in holding out better
prospects for an end to war and for the beginning of prosperity.
And in South East Asia, too, we can dare to hope for the restoration
of peace after decades of fighting.
While the conventional, political dangers - the threat of global
annihilation, the fact of regional war - appear to be receding, we
have all recently become aware of another insidious danger. It is as
menacing in its way as those more accustomed perils with which
international diplomacy has concerned itself for centuries. It is the
prospect of irretrievable damage to the atmosphere, to the oceans, to
earth itself.
of course major changes in the earth's climate and the
environment have taken place in earlier centuries when the world's
population was a fraction of its present size. The causes are to be
found in nature itself: changes in the earth's orbit, changes in the
amount of radiation given off by the sun, the consequential effects
on the plankton in the ocean, and in volcanic processes. All these we
can observe and some we may be able to predict. But we do not have
the power to prevent or control them.
What we are now doing to the world, by degrading the land
surfaces, by polluting the waters and by adding greenhouse gases to
the air at an unprecedented rate - all this is new in the experience
of the earth. It is mankind and his activities which are changing the
environment of our planet in damaging and dangerous ways. We can find
examples in the past. Indeed we may well conclude that it was the
silting up of the river Euphrates which drove man out of the Garden
of Eden. We also have the example of the tragedy of Easter Island,
where people arrived by boat to find a primeval forest. In time the
population increased to over 9,000 souls and the demand placed upon
the environment resulted in its eventual destruction as people cut
down the trees. This in turn led to warfare over the scarce remaining
resources and the population crashed to a few hundred people without
even enough wood to make boats to escape.
The difference now is in the scale of the damage we are doing.
mhofus
We are seeing a vast increase in the amount of carbon dioxide
reaching the atmosphere. The annual increase is three billion tonnes
and half the carbon emitted since the industrial revolution still
remains in the atmosphere. At the same time as this is happening, we
are seeing the destruction on a vast scale of tropical forests which
onle
are uniquely able to remove carbon dioxide from the air. Every year
an area of forest equal to the whole surface of the United Kingdom is
destroyed. At present rates of clearance we shall, by the year 2000,
have removed 65 per cent of forest in the humid tropical zones.
The consequences of this become clearer when one remembers that
tropical forests fix more than ten times as much carbon as do forests
in the temperate zones.
We now know, too, that great damage is being done to the ozone
layer by the production of halogens and chlorofluoro-carbons. But at
- 3 -
least we have recognised that reducing and eventually stopping the
emission of CFCs is one positive thing we can do about the menacing
accumulation of greenhouse gases.
It is of course true that none of us would be here but for the
greenhouse effect. It gives us the moist atmosphere which sustains
life on earth. We need the greenhouse effect - but only in the right
proportions. More than anything, our environment is threatened by
the sheer numbers of people and the plants and animals which go with
them. When I was born the world's population was some 2 billion
people. My grandson will grow up in a world of more than 6 billion
people. Put in its bluntest form: the main threat to our environment
is more and more people, and their activities: the land they
cultivate ever more intensively; the forests they cut down and burn;
the mountain sides they lay bare; the fossil fuels they burn; the
rivers and seas they pollute. The result is that the change in future
is likely to be more fundamental and more widespread than anything we
have known hitherto. Change to the sea around us, change to the
atmosphere above, leading in turn to change in the world's climate,
which could alter the way we live in the most fundamental way of
all.
That prospect is a new factor in human affairs. It is comparable
in its implications to the discovery of how to split the atom.
Indeed, its results could be even more far-reaching.
THE LATEST SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE.
We are constantly learning more about these changes affecting
our environment, and scientists from the Polar Institute in Cambridge
and the British Antarctic Survey have been at the leading edge of
research in both the Arctic and the Antarctic, warning us of the
greater dangers that lie ahead. Let me quote from a letter that I
received only two weeks ago, from a British scientist* on board a
ship in the Antarctic Ocean. He wrote: "In the polar regions today,
we are seeing what may be early signs of man-induced climatic change.
Data coming in from Halley Bay and from instruments aboard the ship
on which I am sailing show that we are entering a spring ozone
depletion which is as deep as, if not deeper, than the depletion in
the worst year to date. It completely reverses the recovery observed
in 1988. The lowest recording aboard this ship is only 150 Dobson
units for ozone total content during September, compared with 300 for
the same season in a normal year". That of course is a very severe
depletion. He also reports on a significant thinning of the sea ice.
He writes that, in the Antarctic, "our data confirm that the
first-year ice, which forms the bulk of sea ice cover, is remarkably
thin and so is probably unable to sustain significant atmospheric
warming without melting. Sea ice", he continues, "separates the ocean
from the atmosphere over an area of more then 30 million square
kilometres. It reflects most of the solar radiation falling on it,
*
Dr. Peter Wadhams.
- 4 -
helping to cool the earth's surface. If this area were reduced, the
warming of earth would be accelerated due to the extra absorption of
radiation by the ocean. The lesson of these Polar processes", he goes
on, "is that an environmental or climatic change produced by man may
take on a self-sustaining or 'runaway' quality ...
and
may
be
irreversible". That is from the scientists who are doing work on the
ship that is at present considering these matters.
These are sobering indications of what may happen and they led
my correspondent to put forward the interesting idea of a World Polar
Watch, amongst other initiatives which will observe the world's
climate system and allow us to understand how it works.
We also have new scientific evidence from an entirely different
area, the Tropical Forests. Through their capacity to evaporate vast
volumes of water vapour, and of gases and particles which assist the
formation of clouds, the forests serve to keep their regions cool and
moist by weaving a sunshade of white reflecting clouds and by
bringing the rain that sustains them. A recent study by our British
Meteorological Office on The Amazon Rainforest shows that large-scale
deforestation may reduce rainfall and thus affect the climate
directly. Past experience shows us that without trees there is no
rain, and without rain there are no trees.
The Scope for International Action.
Mr President, the evidence is there. The damage is being done.
What do we, the international community, do about it? In some areas,
the action required is primarily for individual nations or groups of
nations to take. I am thinking of action to deal with the pollution
of rivers and many of us now see the fish back in rivers from which
they had disappeared. I am thinking of action to improve agriculture
methods good husbandry which ploughs back nourishment to the soil
rather than the cut-and-burn which has damaged and degraded so much
land in some parts of the world. I am thinking of the use of nuclear
power which despite the attitude of so-called greens - is the most
environmentally safe form of energy.
But the problem of global climate change is one that affects us
all and action will only be effective if it is taken at the
international level. It is no good squabbling over who is responsible
or who should pay. Whole areas of our planet could be subject to
drought and starvation if the pattern of rains and monsoons were to
change as a result of the destruction of forests and the accumulation
of greenhouse gases. We have to look forward not backward. We shall
only succeed in dealing with the problems through a vast
international, co-operative effort.
Before we act, we need the best possible scientific assessment,
otherwise we risk making matters worse. We must use science to cast a
light ahead, so that we can move step by step in the right direction.
The United Kingdom has agreed to take on the task of co-ordinating
such an assessment within the inter-government panel on climate
change, an assessment which will be available to everyone by the time
- 5 -
of the second world climate conference next year. But that will take
us only so far. The report will not be able to tell us where the
hurricanes will be striking, who will be flooded, or how often and
severe the droughts will be. Yet we will need to know these things if
we are to adapt to future climate change. That means we must expand
our capacity to model and predict climate change. We can test our
skills and methods by seeing whether they would have successfully
predicted past climate change for which historical records
exist.
Britain has some of the leading experts in this field and I am
pleased to be able to tell you that the United Kingdom will be
establishing a new centre for the prediction of climate change, which
will lead the effort to improve our prophetic capacity. It will also
provide the advanced computing facilities that scientists need. And
it will be open to experts from all over the world, especially from
the developing countries, who can come to the United Kingdom and
contribute to this vital work.
But as well as the science, we need to get the economics right.
That means first we must have continued economic growth in order to
generate the wealth required to pay for the protection of the
environment. But it must be growth which does not plunder the planet
today and leave our children to deal with the consequences
tomorrow.
Second, we must resist the simplistic tendency to blame modern
multinational industry for the damage which is being done to the
environment. Far from being the villains, it is on them that we rely
to do the research and find the solutions. It is industry which will
develop safe alternative chemicals for refrigerators and
air-conditioning. It is industry which will devise bio-degradable
plastics. It is industry which will find the means to treat
pollutants and make nuclear waste safe - and many companies, as you
know, already have massive research programmes. The multinationals
have to take the long view. There will be no profit or satisfaction
for anyone if pollution continues to destroy our planet. As people's
consciousness of environmental needs rises, they are turning
increasingly to ozone-friendly and other environmentally safe
BALANCE
products. The market itself acts as a corrective: the new products
sell and those which caused environmental damage are disappearing
from our shelves. By making these new products widely available,
industry will make it possible for developing countries to avoid many
of the mistakes which we older industrialised countries have made.
We should always remember that free markets are a means to an end.
They would defeat their object if by their output they did more
damage to the quality of life through pollution than the well-being
they achieve by the production of goods and services.
On the basis then of sound science and sound economics, we need
to build a strong framework for international action. It is not new
institutions that we need. Rather we need to strengthen and improve
those which already exist; in particular, the World Meteorological
Organisation and The United Nations Environment Programme. The United
- 6 -
Kingdom has recently more than doubled its contribution to UNEP. We
urge others, who have not done so and who can afford it, to do the
same, and the central organs of the United Nations, like this General
Assembly, must also be seized of a problem which reaches into
virtually all aspects of their work and will do so still more in the
future.
The most pressing task which faces us at the international level
is to negotiate a framework convention on climate change - a sort of
good conduct guide for all nations. Fortunately we have a model in
the action already taken to protect the ozone layer. The Vienna
Convention in 1985 and the Montreal Protocol in 1987 established
landmarks in international law. They aimed to prevent rather than
just cure a global environmental problem. I believe we should aim to
have a convention on global climate change ready by the time the
World Conference on Environment and Development meets in 1992. That
will be among the most important conferences the United Nations has
ever held. I hope that we shall accept a responsibility to meet this
timetable. The 1992 conference is indeed already being discussed
among many countries in many places. I draw particular attention to
the very valuable discussion that members of the Commonwealth had
under the Prime Minister of Malaysia's chairmanship at our recent
Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Kuala Lumpur.
But a framework is not enough. It will need to be filled out
with specific undertakings, or protocols in diplomatic language, on
the different aspects of climate change. These protocols must be
binding and there must be effective regimes to supervise and monitor
their application. Otherwise those nations which accept and abide by
environmental agreements, thus adding to their industrial costs, will
lose out competitively to those who do not. The negotiation of some
of these protocols will undoubtedly be difficult, and no issue will
be more contentious than the need to control emissions of carbon
dioxide, the major contributor - apart from water vapour - to the
greenhouse effect.
We can't just do nothing. But the measures we take must be based
on sound scientific analysis of the effect of the different gases and
the ways in which these can be reduced. In the past there has been a
tendency to solve one problem at the expense of making others worse.
The United Kingdom therefore, proposes that we prolong the role of
the inter-governmental panel on climate change after it submits its
report next year, so that it can provide an authoritative scientific
base for the negotiation of this and other protocols. We can then
agree to targets to reduce the greenhouse gases, and how much
individual countries should contribute to their achievement. We think
it important that this should be done in a way which enables all our
economies to continue to grow and develop. We agreed yesterday at the
Dutch Ministerial Conference on Climate Change that the
Inter-Governmental Panel would examine the basis on which carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases would be stabilized. The challenge
for our negotiators on matters like this is as great as for any
disarmament treaty. The intergovernmental panel's work must remain on
target, and we must not allow ourselves to be diverted into fruitless
and divisive arguments. Time is too short for that.
- 7 -
Before leaving the area where international action is needed, I
would make a plea for a further global convention, one to conserve
the infinite variety of species - of plant and animal life - which
inhabit our planet. The tropical forests contain a half of the
species in the world, so their disappearance is doubly damaging. It
is astonishing but true that our civilisation, whose imagination has
reached the boundaries of the universe, does not know, to within a
factor of ten, how many species the earth supports. What we do know
is that we are losing them at a reckless rate - between three and
fifty each day on some estimates - species which could perhaps be
helping us to advance the frontiers of medical science. We should act
together to conserve this precious heritage.
Britain's Contribution
Every nation will need to make its contribution to the world
effort. So I want to tell you how Britain intends to contribute,
either by improving our own national performance in protecting the
environment, or through the help that we give to others. And I shall
tell you under four headings.
First, we shall be introducing over the coming months a
comprehensive system of pollution control to deal with all kinds of
industrial pollution whether to air, water or land. We are
encouraging British industry to develop new technologies to clean up
the environment and minimise the amount of waste it produces, and we
aim to recycle fifty per cent of our household waste by the end of
the century.
Secondly, we shall be drawing up over the coming year our own
environmental agenda for the decade ahead. That will cover energy,
transport, agriculture, industry - everything which affects the
environment. With regard to energy, we already have a 2 billion
pounds sterling programme of improvements to reduce acid rain
emissions from our power stations. We shall be looking more closely
at the role of non-fossil fuel sources, including nuclear, in
generating energy, and our latest legislation requires companies
which supply electricity positively to promote energy efficiency.
On transport, we shall look for ways to strengthen controls over
vehicle emissions and to develop the lean-burn engine which offers a
far better long term solution than the three-way catalyst, in terms
of carbon dioxide and the greenhouse effect. We have already reduced
the tax on lead-free petrol to encourage its use. That is an example
of using market-based incentives to promote good environmental
practice. We shall see whether there are other areas where this same
principle can be applied. With regard to agriculture, we recognise
that farmers not only produce food - which they do with great
efficiency - they need to conserve the beauty of the priceless
heritage of our countryside. So we are therefore encouraging them to
reduce the intensity of their methods and to conserve wild-life
habitats. We are planting new woods and forests - indeed there has
been a fifty per cent increase in tree planting in Britain in the
last ten years. We also aim to reduce chemical inputs to the soil and
- 8 -
are bringing forward measures to deal with the complex problem of
nitrates in water. All that is part of our own ten-year programme
coming up to the end of this century.
Third, we are increasing our investment in research into global
environmental problems. I have already mentioned the climate change
centre that we are establishing. In addition we are supporting our
own scientists, and in particular the British Antarctic survey's
crucial contribution to the world ocean circulation experiment, as
well as the voyages of our aptly-named research ship, the 'Charles
Darwin'. We have also provided more money for the climate and
environment satellite monitoring programmes in the European Space
Agency.
Fourth, we help poorer countries cope with their environmental
problems through our aid programme. We shall give special help to
manage and preserve the tropical forests. We are already assisting in
twenty countries and have recently signed agreements with India and
Brazil.
As a new pledge, I can announce today that we aim to commit a
further 100 million pounds sterling bilaterally to tropical forestry
activities over the next three years, mostly within the framework of
the tropical forestry action plan. That is all of what we are doing
in Britain under these four headings - all of those things.
Conclusion
Mr President, the environmental challenge which confronts the
whole world demands an equivalent response from the whole world.
Every country will be affected and no-one can opt out. We should work
through this great organisation and its agencies to secure world-wide
agreements on ways to cope with the effects of climate change, the
thinning of the ozone layer, and the loss of precious species.
We need a realistic programme of action and an equally realistic
timetable. Each country has to contribute, and those countries who
are industrialised must contribute more to help those who are not.
The work ahead will be long and exacting. We should embark on it
hopeful of success, not fearful of failure.
I began with Charles Darwin and his work on the theory of
evolution and the origin of species. Darwin's voyages were among the
high-points of scientific discovery, they were undertaken at a time
when men and women felt growing confidence that we could not only
understand the natural world but that we could master it, too.
Today, we have learned rather more humility and respect for the
balance of nature. But another of the beliefs of Darwin's era should
help to see us through - the belief in reason and the scientific
method.
Reason is humanity's special gift. It allows us to understand
the structure of the nucleus. It enables us to explore the heavens.
- 9 -
It helps us to conquer disease. Now we must use our reason to find a
way in which we can live with nature, and not dominate nature.
At the end of a book* which has helped many young people to
shape their own sense of stewardship for our planet, its American
author quotes one of our greatest English poems, Milton's "Paradise
Lost". When Adam in that poem asks about the movements of the
heavens, Raphael the Archangel refuses to answer.
"Let us speak", he says,
"The Maker's high magnificence, who built
So spacious, and his line stretcht out so far,
That man may know he dwells not in his own;
An edifice too large for him to fill,
Lodg'd in a small partition, and the rest
Ordain'd for uses to his Lord best known".
We need our reason to teach us today that we are not, that we
must not try to be, Lords of all we survey. We are not the Lords, we
are the Lord's creatures, the trustees of this planet, charged today
with preserving life itself; preserving life with all its mystery and
all its wonder. May we all be equal to that task.
*"The End of Nature"; Bill McKibben. (Random House, 1989.)
END
THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
Fifth Edition
1948
WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The Second Coming¹
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi³
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,⁴
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
January 1919
1920, 1921
A Prayer for My Daughter¹
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory's wood² and one bare hill
1. This poem expresses Yeats's sense of the disso-
the last stanza of A Prayer for My Daughter.
lution of the civilization of his time, the end of
3. The Spirit or Soul of the Universe, with which
one cycle of history and the approach of another.
all individual souls are connected through the
He called each cycle of history a "gyre" (line I)-
"Great Memory," which Yeats held to be a un
literally a circular or spiral turn (Yeats pronounced
versal subconscious in which the human race per
it with a hard g). The birth of Christ brought to an
serves its past memories. It is thus a source of
end the cycle that had lasted from what Yeats called
symbolic images for the poet.
the "Babylonian mathematical starlight" (2000 B.C.)
4. I.e., the cradle of the infant Christ.
to the dissolution of Greco-Roman culture. "What
1. Yeats's daughter, christened Anne Butler, was
if the irrational return?" Yeats asked in his prose
born on Feb. 26, 1919, in the refitted Normas
work A Vision. "What if the circle begin again?"
tower of Thoor Ballylee (Ballylee Castle) in Cal
He speculates that "we may be about to accept the
way, where Yeats lived: it is not far from Cook
most implacable authority the world has known."
Park.
2. Lines 4-8 refer to the Russian Revolution of
2. Originally part of the Gregory estate, which had
1917. "The ceremony of innocence" suggests Yeats's
once also included Thoor Ballylee.
view of ritual as the basis of civilized living. Cf.
/
(Lange/Cawley)
January 31, 1989
7:00 A.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
10:15 A.M.
who else ?!
Thank you, Dr. Bolin. Professor Obasi. Dr. Tolba.
Reifsnyder
Delegates of the World Meteorological Congress, and the United
Nations Environment Program. Let me congratulate all of you
[[ Brief reflection, post-war: even as prospect of world war
appears to diminish, importance of world stewardship grows. ]]
Over the last forty years, we've unleashed the most
albeit
technologically advanced creations of man. We've gained new, better, incorpie still
understanding of the most ecologically fragile creations of
nature. But whether created by man or nature -- what is critical
to endurance, is balance.
Balance will certainly be crucial to the efforts of this
Panel. For you are called upon to strike an unprecedented
international bargain: a balance between global environmental
policy, and global economic policy, where both sides benefit --
and neither is compromised.
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
2
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is strength wealth, environmental stewardship is considered a
necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a luxury.
For that reason, I believe that within this decade, we must
usher in a new era of global cooperation: for environmental
protection and economic growth. For intelligent management of
industrial and natural resources. Above all, for sustainable
development -- around the world.
The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
develop policy on global climate change. We're committed to
international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
vital that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. But in this, we must attend to what we
know. And what we do, must be done responsibly and well.
The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Over the past
three centuries, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
has gone up by 25 percent. Atmospheric methane has doubled.
What we don't yet understand are the extent and consequences
3
of the alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked
to a significant, imminent climate change. The state of our
thinking, like the state of nature, calls for balance.
Last fall, many -- among them, world leaders -- were citing
a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles, as evidence that
global warming had arrived. But recent observations show that
the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing in size.
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise -- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists --
if not most -- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected -- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
Observing the fervor of the French Revolution, the English
poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while
the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Here, too, we
are called upon for action based on observation -- not media-
driven emotion, or the politics of apocalypse.
What science now knows with confidence, policy-makers can't
use. And what policy-makers are interested in, science doesn't
yet know.
4
The questions that remain -- over the reflective effects of
cloud cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans,
and other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand
-- suggest that we should attend to what is known about climate
change -- and work to know more.
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
Given this level of uncertainty, some suggest we should act
now, on the chance that significant climate change becomes
certain. Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any
meaningful preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of
prohibitive expense; conflict with Third World development; and
declining standards of living, worldwide.
We're confident that the world will neither be caught
surprised by a greenhouse effect it didn't expect, nor
impoverished in anticipation of a cataclysmic warming that
never arrived.
There is a middle way that may be sought -- a balance that
must be struck -- that reconciles policy to emerging scientific
knowledge, and environmental protection to economic development.
The United States remains committed to its leadership role
on environmental issues: in our domestic programs, in our work
to forge international agreements, in our assistance to
5
developing and East Bloc nations, and through our chairmanship of
the Response Strategies Working Group in the I.P.C.C.
Overall, we're already doing more than any other country --
in terms of financial and human resources, by more than a factor
of ten -- to understand and address global warming, among other
major environmental concerns. Funds devoted to environment-
related research in our proposed 1991 budget now total over $70
billion.
Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will
increase by nearly 60 percent in fiscal 1991, to over $1 billion.
It allows NASA to proceed with its "Mission to Planet Earth" --
and funds the launch of the first U.S. Earth Observing System, to
advance the state of knowledge about the planet we share.
Along the way, we will seek the involvement of all nations,
no matter what their level of development or economic system, to
monitor and analyze climate change, and reassess the science. We
place the highest priority on better understanding the earth and
its interrelated systems -- and developing high-performance
computing systems up to the task.
We seek immediate action, and have already taken a number of
steps, that bring major benefits in their own right; make sense
on their own merits; and will also help reduce emissions of
carbon dioxide and other gases now building up in the atmosphere,
stimulating concern about potential climate change.
Last year I announced our support for a worldwide ban on
cloroflourocarbon production, to the extent safe substitutes are
6
available. We recently placed a fee on CFC production that is
expected to reduce American CFC emissions even below the levels
of international protocols.
We have compelling reasons to stabilize -- and reduce where
possible -- both overall emissions and energy consumption.
Ultimately, but eventually, fossil fuel will be all too finite.
So we're actively pursuing technology development programs
to improve the effectiveness of both supply- and demand-side
technologies for energy of all kinds -- through more efficient
fuel generation technologies, renewable sources and end-use
efficiency, and enhanced nuclear generation safety. And we're
committed to regular assessments of the state of technology
development.
To achieve domestic reductions in airborne emissions, we've
introduced new Clean Air Act legislation -- emphasizing clean
Leg.
Aff
coal technology, conservation measures, the trading of emissions
permits, and other devices to encourage industry to find
creative, market-driven solutions.
We're in the midst of a comprehensive review and revision of
our National Energy Strategy, to consider our future energy needs
in light of environmental, efficiency, and conservation issues --
and to develop alternative energy sources in hydro, solar,
biomass, and geothermal designs.
Forests, particularly in tropical regions, are being lost at
a rate of 40 million acres a year -- an area larger than East
Germany. The burning of this biomass and its after-effects
7
account for as much as a quarter of the carbon dioxide that human
beings are adding to the atmosphere. For that reason -- and for
the sake of the irreplaceable species being lost day by day -- we
are working through diplomatic channels, and through innovative
measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than simply
reduce deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
Here at home -- aware that new growth forests absorb
significantly more CO2 than old grove timber -- we ve launched a
major reforestation initiative, to plant a billion trees a year
on private land across America.
The economics of our domestic strategies are now being
scrutinized in Congress. Let me also assure you, given our role
in the R.S.W.G., that the economics of international responses to
potential climate change will get equally intensive study.
We intend to develop real data on the costs of various
response strategies, assess new measures, and challenge other
nations to follow suit. We will offer technical support to those
who need it.
In creating policy to manage CO2 and other emissions now
believed to be implicated in climate change, we want to encourage
truly innovative responses -- including the trading of emissions
permits if appropriate -- as well as a comprehensive approach
where all major emissions implicated in climate change are
included.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should
be applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
8
growth and free market principles in all countries. This is
where the quest for balance will be most crucial.
It will be important to work with, not against, industry if
we hope to promote environmental protection and economic growth
around the world. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Guatemala -- to compensate for a coal-fired plant it was building
in Connecticut. The company expects to couple tree-planting
programs with all seven new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where the developing nations are concerned, some suggest
we'll have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles
that allowed the industrial world to prosper. Well, we're headed
in the opposite direction. We intend to apply the principles of
the free market in the service of the environment -- especially
in the developing nations. Sustainable economic development
demands that we enlist the desires of the developing world,
rather than try to limit them.
To be effective, the I.P.C.C. must truly represent the
interests of the world community of nations. The share of total
emissions contributed by developing countries is expected to rise
9
dramatically in the future -- becoming more than 50 percent by
2025. We understand that China plans to double its use of coal
by the end of the century, and India plans a tripling.
But there may be good news here. To the extent we can
accelerate the advancement of these and other developing nations,
it will take less energy for them to produce wealth: In modern
industrial countries, energy use per unit of Gross National
Product has declined -- steadily, and dramatically.
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace. Allowing for the trading of
emissions permits where appropriate. Considering technology
transfer for clean coal and renewable technologies, conservation,
and end-use services. And encouraging industry to assist
developing nations in making quantum leaps in technologies.
Leaps that will allow LDC's NDC to grow more quickly and easily --
and may help them avoid making the environmental mistakes we
older nations have made.
As I said earlier, I believe we should make use of what we
know. We know of the power of free markets to find creative
solutions. To make resources and talent more rapidly available.
We understand the efficiency of an economic incentive. We should
apply it now, in defense of the environment we share.
We rely on the greenhouse effect, as long as it remains in
balance. Without it, the surface of the earth would resemble
that of the moon.
10
So just as we rely on the corrective action of the
biosphere, we must learn to rely on the corrective actions of
free markets to give incentives and integrity to our climate
change strategies.
To keep this process moving, and advance the debate, we will
host an international environment meeting on April 18 and 19 here Reifenyder
in Washington. I look forward to first assessment report in
June, and IPCC reports in August, etc.
Wish the three working groups the best of luck. Confident
your work will be done carefully and well. Sure the I.P.C.C.
Reifoarder
will continue to prosper under
, and benefit from Dr. Tolba's
leadership
###
08/97/19
10:08
2022 202 0100
OPA
1
UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
WASHINGTON, D.C. 20460
JAN 18 1990
OFFICE OF
THE ADMINISTRATOR
MEMORANDUM
SUBJECT:
IPCC Speech Material
FROM:
Daniel c. Esty
DCE
Special Assistant to the Administrator
TO:
Robert E. Grady
Associate Director
Natural Resources, Energy and science
Attached is a copy of the proposed Presidential speech
outline, as revised through consultations with the Energy
Department. Also attached are several sets of "raw material" to
help flesh out the outline.
The draft speech outline has been sent to Dr. Bromley as a
joint product of Secretary Watkins and Administrator Reilly. The
State Department (Zoellick) has also reviewed the draft.
Let me know if you would like anything else.
Attachments
98/97/19
10:08
$202 252 0780
UPA
W 000
Box Input for Presidential Speach
U.S. Supports the IPCC Process
1. Congratulations to its sponsors, UNEP and WMO, and to Dr.
Bolin (Sweden) its chairman.
-
In May, 1987 the Tenth World Neteorological Congress asked
the Executive Council of the World Neteorological Organization
(WMO), in cooperation with the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP)
"to arrange appropriate mechanisms to undertake further
developments of scientific and other aspects of greenhouse
gases.
-
In June 1987, the WMO Executive Council (which consists o
representatives of WMO member countries) and the UNEP Governing
Council (which is made up of representatives of essentially the
same countries) responded by asking the Secretary-General of WMO,
Professor Obasi, and the Executive Director of UNEP, Dr. Telba to
cooperate in the establishment of an intergovernmental mechanism
to carry out the intentions of the Tenth Congress.
-
The IPCC was established after subsequent discussions.
-
The first session of the IPCC was held in Geneva,
Switzerland, on November 9-11, 1988. It was attended by
representatives of 30 countries and 18 international
organizations.
-
Dr. Bert Bolin of Sweden, a senior science advisor to the
government of Sweden, was elected Chairman. Dr. Bolin is
generally recognized as an outstanding chairman -- even handed,
adroit, with an excellent, understated sense of humor.
2. U.S. saw a need for an orderly, intergovernmental process to
assess scientific understanding, evaluate potential impacts and
develop appropriate response strategies.
-
The issue of global climate change began to emerge as an
important public policy issue during early and mid nineteen
eighties as the earth experienced some of the hottest years in
NO
the last century (5 of the 10 hottest years in the last 100 have
occurred in the 1980s) and as evidence of a significant build-up
in the atmosphere of certain "greenhouse gases" became more
widely known.
-
During the early and mid 1980s, discussion of the issue took
place largely in the context of a number of loosely resulted,
albeit important conferences.
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-
As the implication of the issue becams clearer, the ,U.S. and
a number of the countries began to perceive the need to address
the issue through an on-going, international process that spann
the broad range of relevant issues and expertise.
-
This led to the proposals by the Tenth World Meteorological
Congress, the WMO Executive Council, and the UNEP Governing
Council.
3.
IPCC has filled that role.
-
Participation in the IPCC has increased continuously and new
includes over 50 nations, hundreds of scientists and policy
makers, and many non-governmental and international
organizations.
-
The work of the IPCC is carried out through three major
working groups:
The Working Group on Science, chaired by the United
Kingdom, is reviewing and assessing the existing scientific
information on, and understanding of, global climate change.
The Working Group on Impacts, chaired by the USSR, is
assessing the potential environmental and socio-economic
impacts of global climate change.
The Response Strategies Working Group, chaired by the U.S.,
is identifying and assessing possible strategies for
responding to global climate change -- both by limiting
greenhouse gas emissions and adapting to climate change.
4.
Welcome the IPCC reports due in August.
-
The three working groups will complete their reports to the
IPCC late this Spring. The overall IPCC report will be prepared
during the Summer and considered by the full IPCC at a meeting in
Stockholm at the end of August. It will then be forwarded to
UNEP and WHO and considered by the U.N. General Assembly next
Fall and at the Second World Climate Conference (swee) during the
last week of October and first week of November.
5. U.S. is committed to playing a leadership role and
supporting the IPCC as the best forum for global climate change
policy development.
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The IFCC is the best forum for global climate change policy
development because: (a) it is focused exclusively on the
issue; (b) its program of work addresses the broad range of
relevant issues, not just e.g. emission reduction, (c) it has
successfully involved the broad range of necessary expertise;
(d) it is not overly politicized, and (e) it is truly
international, with over 50 countries currently involved and more
becoming involved. Essentially, it has proved a productive and
increasingly popular forum for international analysis and
discussion of the issue.
-
The President is committed to playing a leadership role in
the international community's efforts to address global climate
change. The U.S. is playing a major leadership role in the IPCC
and has provided substantial financial and analytic support for
all major IPCC activities.
5.
Support the UK proposal at the UN to continue the IPCC
-
In her speech on November 9, 1989, to the UN General
Assembly, Prime Minister Thatcher proposed the continuation of
No
the IPCC after it submits its interim report next Fall so that it
can provide an authoritative scientific basis for the negotiation
of protocols to a framework convention. We should strongly
support this proposal and broaden its rationale to include the
need for a sound analytical basis, broadly construed to include
analysis of the administrative and technical feasibility, costs
and economic consequences of future protocols. There will be a
NOI
need for years to come to (a) continually improve and
periodically assess our scientific understanding of global
climate change and its impacts, and (b) develop and evaluate
response measures.
strent
RAW MATERIAL FOR A PRESIDENTIAL SPEECH TO THE IPCC
Section 5:
1. The Clean Air Act
I have submitted to Congress extensive revisions to the Clean
Air Act which should result not only in cleaning the nation's air,
but in reducing greenhouse gas emissions as well. Powerful
incentives exist in our acid rain program for conserving energy.
These will reduce carbon diexide emissions from electric utilities
by about 75 million tons. The alternative transportation fuels
program in the bill also offers the potential for reductions in
emissions, up to 60 million tons, depending on what fuels make it
to the market.
2. Energy Conservation Program.
Since taking office, my Administration has proposed or
promulgated energy efficiency standards for refrigerators,
dishwashers, washing machines, and dryers. Together, these will
reduce emissions by around 15 million tons. In addition, I have
submitted a request to Congress to increase the size of DOE's
Conservation Program by $150 million.
3. Alternative Energy Sources
to be provided by DOE
Reforestation
The U.S. is firmly committed to positive action in response
to threats imposed by global climate change. one immediate and
tangible action which I have called for is a major reforestation
program within the U.S. I am calling upon all Americans to join
in a twenty-year program to plant and maintain twenty billion
treas. We expect to provide up to $175 million per year to support
programs ranging from urban tree planting, to sharing the cost of
large tree plantations, to enhancing the quality and ultimately the
biological yield of existing timber stands.
Complimenting these public investments, I have called for a
private, non-profit foundation called the "America the Beautiful
Foundation", which would capitalize a fund of potentially billions
of private dellars, the yield of which will be used to support tree
planting and maintenance throughout the United States. The
objectives of these tree planting programs will be to absorb from
5 to 10 percent of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, as well as
enhance water quality and wildlife habitat.
5. Chloroflourogarbong (CFCS)
These currently account for 25% of the current U.S.
contribution to global warming. In addition to possibly affecting
the climate system, these substances also are responsible for the
depletion of the ozone layer. I fully support the international
efforts to fully phaseout production of these substances by the
year 2000. In addition, the US is aggressively working with
developing countries to assist them in making the transition to
substitute chemicals. For example, we are working with the
refrigeration industry to facilitate CFC substitution in China and
we are sending technical missions to Brazil, Egypt and Mexico.
6. State Initiatives
The States deserve significant credit for their contributions
to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Their efforts include
programs to increase energy efficiency in homes, offices, and
industries, to expand the use of alternative fuels in the
transportation sector, and to plant trees. Several states have
even mandated general greenhouse gas emissions reduction efforts.
For example, the Governor of New Jersey recently signed an
executive order requiring state agencies to implement measures
designed to reduce energy and CFC use and to maximize the number
of trees in New Jersey. The Oregon legislature has mandated that
the state reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by 20% by 2005.
Almost every state has implemented energy efficiency programs.
An example of a program that has successfully reduced energy
consumption in industry is the Energy Advisory Service to Industry
in New York. In 1988, CO2 reductions attributable to this program
were approximately 682,000 tons, while consumers saved more than
$60 million in energy costs. In California, the South Coast Air
Quality Management District is implementing stringent air quality
standards that will eventually require substantial use of
alternative fuels. (However, this plan calls for the use of
methanol fuel, which, if derived from natural gas, is only slightly
less carbon intensive than coal, and, if derived from coal, is 50-
75% more carbon intensive than coal.)
In addition to individual programs, a number of states are now
undertaking "Least-Cost Utility Planning" which requires utilities
to undertake the least cost alternative to providing power, which
is also often the option with the lowest greanhouse gas emissions,
i.e., energy efficiancy. A few states, such as Wisconsin, New York
and oregon, are taking this a step further by applying an
environmental weighting factor in competitive bidding procedures
for private power supply options. This tends to encourage natural
gas and non-fossil sources of energy.
States are also undertaking their own tree planting programs
geared toward reducing carbon dioxide. The States of North Dakota
and Missouri, for example, have established tree planting programs.
oh
The former has set a target of 100 million trees by 2000.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
REMARKS BY CHIEF OF STAFF
GOVERNOR JOHN SUNUNU
TO THE AMERICAN STOCK EXCHANGE
October 30, 1989
Mayflower Hotel
Washington, DC
GOVERNOR SUNUNU: I appreciate you giving the right
priority to all that. You're absolutely right. The last is what I
consider my most significant involvement and achievement.
It is a pleasure to be here with you today. Obviously,
it is a gathering that not only is representative of what is
important and strong about America's economy, but what is important
and strong about the world economy. Those of you who are here from
outside of town and outside of the country, let me add my welcome to
that which I'm already positive you have heard from previous
speakers.
It is my understanding that Brent Scowcroft was here
ahead of me. I'll have to remind him one of my jobs is cleaning up
after him. (Laughter.) But it's my understanding that Brent was
here a little earlier and talked to you about some of the wonderful,
amazing things that are taking place around the world today. And as
trite as the statement of these are, these times are the most
interesting and critical times in a long, long time. As trite as
that statement may be, I really do think it applicable in the sense
of both what is happening and the potential for what can continue to
happen and impact the world around us.
I'm sure Brent spent a little time talking to you about
what was happening in the context of a victory for Western values.
And it really is, although we are very careful at times not to give
it that emphasis. Any careful reading of what is taking place in the
Soviet Union and Eastern Europe -- even in China, although it was
aborted a little bit -- and around the world is a celebration of
victory in two respects. First of all, the American -- the Western
commitment to democracy is being rejoiced around the world in
political change and reform that is being pressed from within, being
pressed from the bottom up in many cases, and accompanied --
surprisingly enough and constructively enough -- by a pressure that
-- it joins what's coming from the bottom up by a movement
aggressively in that direction in virtually all those countries from
the top down as well.
It has created a sense of inevitability in many cases for
the kind of political change that has been the hope and dream of free
countries around the world that see extended to those countries that
have lived in less free environments.
In the same respect, accompanying this we see changes on
the economic side -- changes that again it is not inappropriate to
say is a celebration of the Western commitment to the free market
approach, the Western commitment to a capitalist society. It is
surprising to me that even those of us in this country who are --
have had an opportunity to discuss or own economic system seem
reluctant at times to suggest that it is a capitalist society. And
yet that is a fact and we ought not to be uncomfortable with that
world.
And what we are seeing in these countries around the
world is a yearning to make themselves a structure in which the
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economy and the benefits of free markets are accrued to their
citizens. And in order to do that, they understand that one thing
that has to be done is to establish an internal economic structure
that is attractive to investment, attractive to capital. And I find
it amazing that we can go to Poland and hear the President of Poland
and the leader of the communist party in Poland asking the President
of the United States how that economic system can create incentives
for capital investment so that they can improve their situation and
job opportunities.
And it's amazing then when you move down to Hungary and
hear the leaders of the communist party in Hungary talk about the
changes they're going to make, and again emphasize their
understanding that what they need is a society that is attractive to
capital investment so that a strong economy can be created.
And the context of that discussion just before the
President of the United States was to go to Karl Marx University and
give a talk on the issues of democracy and free markets. It's just
unbelievable, and yet that is what is happening. And I only point
that out that as we in this country have opportunities for
establishing policies that are incentives for the investment of
capital, we ought to just keep in our mind the amazing context that
the rest of the world at times seems to understand this better than
those of us who have had these benefits all along.
There are other issues taking place not only --
developing not only in this country, but around the world, that will
impact what is clearly understood now to be an economy that is so
globally interwound that major changes in one country, whether it is
overregulation or appropriate regulation or deregulation, can have
impacts on what takes place in other countries around the world.
A situation that is real, a situation that is of
interest, a situation that is of concern and a situation that is
populist enough to capture headlines is the situation involved in
terms of the environment. And I am fortunate today as I came to talk
to you to have join me in the visit here, alhough not scheduled to
speak today, Bill Reilly, who is the Administrator at EPA, and Dr.
Allan Bromley, who is the President's Advisor on Science and
Technology -- both of who are involved in the development of
environmental policy and very much involved in the development of
economic and domestic policy for this administration.
And I point that out because what I would like to touch
on for a little bit this afternoon are some of those issues involved
in terms of the environment, and the approach that I'm sure will have
all the details filled in by Bill Reilly when he makes his
presentation tomorrow that I would like to talk about -- the approach
that has been taken by this administration to bring together some of
these very same basic principles that are clearly the strengths of
this nation and the strengths that are being aspired to by countries
around the world.
This President, President Bush, has laid out a series of
initiatives -- an agenda on the environment that is as much an agenda
involving the economy as a commitment to making sure that we fulfill
our responsibility as stewards of the environment. And it is
important that we understand that national and international
environmental policy is in part a component of national and
international economic policy. They go hand in hand. An effective
focus on these issues provides policies that are complementary,
rather than contradictory. An effective focus -- a focus that deals
with our responsibilities across the board is a focus that yields --
to no one in our the strength of our commitment to the
environment. It yields to no one in terms of our understanding that
a strong economy is critical, so that we can fulfill the obligations
of that stewardship.
And so what the President has put forward in terms of its
environmental initiatives, the Clean Air Act, a bill that was
presented by the President to Congress to break the logjam that
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existed for nearly a decade in terms of dealing with our needs of
establishing policies that were broad enough to deal with the
environment and protect the air quality of this country and
constructive and realistic enough to allow that and, in fact, require
that to be done without gutting the strength of the economic system
that supports (inaudible.)
That plan was sent up by the President. It was a plan
that was balanced; it was a plan that reflected an understanding of
the role of a free market itself in creating domestic and internal
incentives to do what is right. It was a plan that balanced out the
requirements and the commitments and, in fact, the impositions that
are necessary for us as citizens and for us as members of public
institutions, such as local government, state government and the
federal government to deal with these issues. It was a plan that
understood that the global playing field not only domestically, but
internationally, requires us to do this in a way that does not put
our domestic industries at a disadvantage. And yet, it was a plan
that was realistic enough in terms of what had to be accomplished for
the environment that was recognized as being a significant step
forward in that direction.
I urge you to understand that the balance that was
developed within that program is one that must be maintained and kept
as we work this through Congress. I understand that everybody
impacted one way or the other is tempted to suggest the dials ought
to be readjusted to get back individually or corporately a little bit
more preference. And I hope that that part of the system does not so
disrupt the balance fills into the program that again this country
will lose an opportunity to get an act of clean air legislation that
is both protective and will work in -- (inaudible) -- with our
economic strength.
The President, in addition to that, has proposed a phase
out of the chloroflouro carbons that have a negative impact on the
quality of not only our own environment, our own air quality, but in
terms of the international aspect in terms of the long-range capacity
of the world environment -- (inaudible.) And we made that commitment
to phasing these out in a practical way, in a responsive way by the
year 2000. It was done with an understanding that merely stating the
phase-out without recognizing that the partnership with the private
sector sector would be required in order to develop the alternatives,
but impose on us the obligation to have a time frame that was doable.
And it was done with that in mind and in a balance way that again,
this administration leads -- and it's across the board in all the
departments of this administration -- we believe that that approach
is one that meets both the environmental and the economic
responsibility.
So the administration has taken action again in dealing
with fuel economy. It's taken action again in addressing our
responsibilities towards the global environment in terms of global
climate research. The President's budget that he sent up in February
included significant increases for this research, both -- (inaudible)
-- what impact specific pollutants have, or the capacity of our
environment to maintain not only air quality detecting, but the
integrity of the thermal balance that is so critical.
We are spending as a government with a budget proposed by
the President almost one half a billion dollars -- $500 million
across all government entities. And the reserach that is necessary
to help us to find a policy that makes sense and addresses not only
our needs within our own borders, but makes us a constructive partner
for policies around the world.
Now, let me address that because it has become an issue
that is easy for folks to get -- (inaudible) -- with. It has become
an issue that appears to be a bit -- (inaudible) -- and yet, the fact
of the matter is, an issue that must be examined not only in a
popular sense, not only in an emotional response to the concern that
caring citizens around the world have for the environment, but must
be dealt with in such a way where the policies which will shift the
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focus of resources probably in a global level, unprecedented in
history. It must be done in such a way in which that shift of
resources truly has the promise of having a beneficial impact.
For those of you that may not know the general history of
that issue, let me point out that, in the last couple of years, as a
result of examination of some data and as a result of some of the
computer modeling, the analysis that is being done, there is a
discussion of a coupling between the emissions of some of the
industrial products that we have, some of the inevitable industrial
products that we have, as having an impact on the environment's
tendency to be warmed as a result of the non-linear relationships
between entity in and entity out, depending on the composition of the
environment.
Carbon-dioxide is one of the components of concern.
Carbon-dioxide is an inevitable product and it is virtually an
unscrubable product of the combustion of any of the fossil fuels,
whether it is natural gas or coal or oil or wood. The fact is that
there have been in recent years, over the last handful-and-a-half of
decades, a buildup of the levels of carbon-dioxide in our atmosphere.
And there is some concern that there is a coupling between that
buildup and the change in the average temperature, the mean
temperature of the world's atmosphere over a period of time.
There has been significant work done in this direction.
There is significant work yet to be done. May I point out
tangentially that the level of concern which focused worldwide
attention were concerns in which people determined with the initial
models that about a four or five -- (inaudible) -- degree rise in
temperature might be expected if we -- over a period of years -- 30
to 50 years double the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.
There have been in recent months some refinements of
those models which fortunately, in terms of policy and certainly
these are not yet in themselves definitive models -- models which
suggest this rise may be less, but still in that same general
direction. It's been reported in a number of journals in recent
months that work done at both the British Meteorlogical Office and
work done at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder
have indicated a rise of between one and two degrees is a more
realistic assessment.
The point is, is that neither the older pessimistic
numbers nor the current optimistic numbers should be taken as the
final word. And what we ought to do is commit ourselves to the kind
of investment, both in terms of dollars and national resources, that
the President has laid out as part of his agenda and determine as
quickly as we can and as accurately as we can both the quantitative
impact and cause of the kinds of problem we are concerned with and
the benefits of any remedial action that may result from
international policy to -- (inaudible) -- this change.
Those are the kinds of obligations we have to ourselves
as members of the nation and to ourselves as a nation as members of
an international community. And I guess one concern that I have as I
look at those who are involved in policy development on the Hill is a
sometimes irresponsible commitment to -- (inaudible) -- because it
seems to fit the more populist image or that newer data that seems to
reflect that a more prudent approach might be more constructive. And
I ask that those who of you that care about this issue, that those of
you who understand the coupling of this issue to economic well-being
so that we can meet our responsibilities to those parts of the world
that do not enjoy the quality of life that we do -- and I am talking
very specifically about our economic capacity to deal with the parts
of the world that have hunger problems, parts of the world that have
problems in terms of their development and their industrialization
that we understand that we have a responsibility to do this right,
not only to ourselves, but to the billions that fall into the
categories of the have-nots around the world.
Bill Reilly and Al Bromley will be going to the
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Netherlands in about a week to discuss with the international
community how we can responsibly -- and the emphasis is on that word
"responsibly" address the current status of understanding of the
problem, the current commitment to developing a better understanding
of the issue, and a utilization of that better understanding for the
development of international policies that constructively deal with
our obligations across the board.
And it is important to understand that as they do so they
are going again in the context of an administration that has made a
commitment to deal with this issue. An administration that has laid
out an agenda, working with the United Nations intergovernmental
panel on -- (inaudible) -- to develop by 1990, by November 1990, a
report in which the status of what is understood both as the state of
the art or science and the capacity of economic and industrial
response to deal with the environmental needs can be put into a
worldwide context.
In that respect, Administrator Reilly -- the President
has made a commitment to host here a meeting, probably in very early
1990, with the working group that is developing those policies. And
it is expected that as part of that program, there will be initiated
-- discussions will continue that have already been initiated, mainly
the discussions on a framework convention on this issue of global
warming.
Now, I spent a little bit of time in my presentation
today on this issue because I find it is one that is certainly --
(end of tape.)
ICE
ON THE WORLD
By SAMUEL W. MATTHEWS
SENIOR ASSISTANT EDITOR
Fleeting phenomenon of an ice
cave lures an explorer into a
remnant of the Muir Glacier in
southeast Alaska. Creator and
destroyer, ice relentlessly molds
landforms and climate, yet can
fall with a snowflake's lightness.
ToM BEAN
3.3/D polar ice sheets ?
3
79
ICE
ONTHEWORLD
T BEGINS, if it can be said to have any
of man on earth-Cro-Magnon man and his
one beginning, in the great storm of
ilk. Some 18,000 years ago it buried more
early December. The jet stream dips
than three-tenths of the world's land surface
sharply south, and a huge tongue of
under thick ice and mantling snow. And no,
polar air slides under warm and humid
the Ice Age, geologists say firmly, is still with
low-pressure air all across the North
us. We are living in only a slightly warmer
American heartland. Dense, blowing snow
spell of it.
all but obliterates pro football games that
Ice scoured and heaped the hills around
Sunday in Minneapolis, Green Bay, Buffa-
New York City, fed the river courses that
lo, and Boston. The snow falls, and blows
meet at St. Louis, shaped the lochs and golf
into great drifts, for five days.
links of Scotland, gouged the Great Lake ba-
That winter brings a series of such storms,
sins and Norwegian fjords, and even now,
more than anyone in the North can remem-
by continued melting, is slowly raising the
ber. In January the snowpack on fields out-
level of all the oceans. Someday-soon, say
side Buffalo lies 17 feet deep. The white
some climatologists, who think in millen-
blanket extends south to Mississippi. Or-
nia-ice could creep south again over North
ange groves in Florida die as far south as
America to bulldoze away Chicago and
Okeechobee. There is ice on the Tenn-Tom
shove its wreckage to St. Louis.
Waterway and the aqueducts of the Central
Ice still covers one-tenth of all earth's
Arizona Project.
land. An entire ocean, the Arctic, is covered
By July it should have been only a memo-
with it, like a solid scum on a bowl of cold pea
ry-but it is not. Snow still lies in sheltered,
soup. Huge domes of ice lie atop Antarctica
shadowy places outside Butte and Duluth
and Greenland. Glacial rivers of ice in Cana-
and Bangor. It is colder across the northern
da and Alaska and on mountains even on the
tier than at any time in weather records.
Equator help regulate earth's weather.
And when the first snow comes again, in
The Alaskan glaciers have recently been
late August in the high country, it falls on
puzzling and bemusing scientists with unex-
snow from the winter before that has not
pected, even startling, activity. While some
melted. It piles up faster even than in that
are retreating, others are surging forward.
bad December. More of it comes, and keeps
Last spring the giant Hubbard Glacier
coming, again for months.
blocked the mouth of a long tidal fjord and
The TV weathermen talk about it con-
turned it into a fast-rising freshwater lake
stantly, but it is the glaciologists who recog-
(pages 107-119).
nize the signal. The Ice Age, which has
Ice not only crowns polar reaches and
really not left the planet for two million
towering mountains with white glory, it
years, is reasserting itself. The warm time,
also gleams as diadems from roof edges and
which has lasted less than 12,000 years, is
over. The next great return of ice has begun.
An oasis of fresh water on sea ice
quenches a Greenlander's thirst. Salt
AS THERE EVER REALLY
W
water freezes at 28.7°F. As sea floes
an age of ice, long ago and
thicken, gravity pulls brine from the
far away?
surface. The relatively fresher layer on
Yes and no. Yes, an Ice Age
top can be sipped in summer or chipped
(the most recent, that is) did exist in the time
and melted in winter.
BRYAN AND CHERRY ALEXANDER
84
Freshwater islands, icebergs fall from
straight to the bottom. Icebergs would not
oceanfront glaciers and sail on heels that
float. Lakes, rivers, and seas would freeze
form the bulk of their mass (below).
from the bottom up. The world would be in
North Atlantic icebergs, such as the one
deep, cold trouble.
that sank Titanic, break away from
Ice is one of nature's most beautiful and
Greenland and Canada.
elegant substances. It can form in the
Dye sprayed on the face
of Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf (facing
atmosphere as snow-lacy, delicate crys-
page) locates a current meter emplaced for
tals, like fairy place mats, each flake unlike
a study of ice and sea interaction. The
any other.
shelf may have calved the largest berg
Thoreau called snowflakes chariot
ever recorded-some 200 by 60 miles.
wheels fallen from a battle in the sky. To
Job, Elihu said, "By the
breath of God ice is giv-
en, and the broad waters
are frozen fast."
On quiet ponds and
lakes, as winter air drops
water temperature to
zero degrees C (32°F), a
thin skim of ice glazes the
surface. The heat given
up by crystallization is
lost to the air; the water
beneath is both slightly
warmer and denser. If
the lake is absolutely
still, the skim will rapid-
ly thicken, forming a
transparent pane on the
surface. The pond
MITSUAKI IWAGO (ABOVE): STAN JACOBS, LAMONT-DOHERTY GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY (RIGHT)
creaks, even sometimes
sheathes forests and gardens in shimmering
groans soulfully, as it freezes. In daylight it
crystal, brings streams and waterfalls to
appears as black as the water beneath.
frozen stillness.
This black ice, skaters know, is the best of
It menaces your daily life. It can kill you
all-strong, absolutely smooth, lightning
on a street or highway, ground your plane or
fast. If not yet too thick, it will undulate be-
sink the ship you take to Europe, cause a tree
neath you, yet safely hold your weight as you
or hailstones the size of baseballs to fall on
glide across it. If wind or current ripples the
your head. It can break your water pipes or
ice, or if snow falls upon it while freezing, a
car's engine block, flood your farm, freeze
white, softer ice forms, full of air, rougher to
your crops, cut off your electricity.
the skates, opaque to the eye. It cannot be
As seen from the moon or space, the earth
shaved down to black ice; unless it melts
is blue, brown, and white. Much of the
completely before the next freeze, that year's
white is ice, whether solid, rime, snow, or
skating will be second-rate.
frozen cloud.
Sea ice is unlike freshwater ice. Because
of its dissolved minerals (3.5 percent on
A
REMARKABLE STUFF indeed.
average), salt water does not begin freezing
Not only does ice produce heat
until its temperature drops to minus 2°C
while freezing and absorb it in
(28.7°F). Then a thin slurry or scum of fresh-
melting; it floats, because (un-
water ice crystals appears. Between the
like almost every other substance) it is
crystals, as they grow and interconnect, tiny
lighter as a solid than as a liquid.
pockets of brine are trapped and enclosed.
If it were not for this phenomenon, ice
Sea ice thus separates fresh and salt water
cubes dropped in a glass of water would go
to some extent. Newly frozen, it may be only
86
National Geographic, January 1987
Fighting ice with ice, an Exxon oil rig in
Alaska's Beaufort Sea pumps out water that
freezes into bulwarks against crushing ice
floes. Standing on a steel mat anchored 60
feet down, the movable station reduces the
cost of Arctic oil exploration.
one-tenth as salty as the water beneath. As
the ice grows older and thicker, it becomes
fresher; the heavier brine migrates down-
ward, pulled by gravity.
Eskimos know and make use of this phe-
nomenon; they melt the surface ice and its
covering snow for drinking and cooking.
The Inuit, or Eskimos, have dozens of
words for different kinds of ice.
NOW THAT FALLS on land either
S
melts away entirely the next sum-
mer or becomes thicker year by
year, compresses by sheer weight,
and gradually turns to ice.
"Whenever and wherever one year's
snowfall doesn't melt before the next year's
snow, a glacier is born," University of Wis-
consin climatologist Reid Bryson reminds
his students. "If it goes on long enough and
widely enough, you have an ice sheet."
Such an ice sheet covered much of North
America's northern half in the time geolo-
gists call the Pleistocene (map, facing page).
The glacial age began more than 2.5 million
years ago, when man's early forebears, the
australopithecines, prowled Africa's plains.
creatures can reveal the temperature of the
It was at its most recent peak only 18,000
waters, both surface and deep, in which
years ago, when Cro-Magnon artists were
they grew and died. Core samples brought
painting cave walls in southern France.
up by oceanographic research ships can re-
In that human span of time the ice sheets
veal as well just how much ice existed on the
and glaciers came and went, waxed and
earth in different geologic ages.
waned; the oceans rose and fell; extensive
"Seabed cores are our library of the far
areas of the globe were alternately dry land
past," marine geologist William Ruddiman
and below sea level. The forcing mecha-
of Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
hisms for these vast changes are now be-
Geological Observatory said to me recently.
lieved to be slow variations in earth's orbit
"They tell us the earth's past climate, the
around the sun, its tilt in space, and stately
movements of its crustal plates, where the
back-and-forth nodding of its spin axis.
ice sheets lay, and why in large part life
These so-called Milankovitch cycles,
today is as it is.
named for the Yugoslav astronomer who
At different times in the past one million
calculated them in the 1920s, control the
years, there must have been about three
amount of sunlight received by the two
times as much ice on the earth as now exists
hemispheres in winter and summer.
in Antarctica and Greenland. The greatest
Much of this theory is supported by deep-
amount, the geologic record shows, lay
sea sediments. Shells of long-dead sea
on North America, in the Laurentide and
88
National Geographic, January 1987
Cordilleran ice sheets. Ice stretched from the
OW THICK were the northern ice
high Arctic islands south across what is now
H
sheets at the height of the Wiscon-
Hudson Bay and the Great Lakes, down the
sin? In New England the ice had to
midwestern plains as far as today's Ohio and
be at least 4,000 feet deep to have
Missouri River Valleys, and in the west
covered the White and Green Mountains.
across the Yukon and western British Co-
Over Hudson Bay and the ancient Canadian
lumbia to Puget Sound.
Shield it must have been more than two
In Europe an ice sheet covered the entire
miles thick to have bent down and depressed
Scandinavian Peninsula, the North and
bedrock as much as 1,000 feet. The land sur-
Baltic Seas, much of the British Isles, and
face from the Great Lakes north is still re-
extended from the Low Countries acróss
bounding from release of that great weight,
northern Germany and Poland into Russia.
as is all Scandinavia.
There was in Siberia and, beyond the dry
When the meltback began and the release
Bering Strait, glaciers spilled out from the
came, it took relatively little time-a few
mountains of southern Alaska (although
thousand years. The land was unlocked,
other parts of that far northern peninsula
changed dramatically by both the coming
remained strangely ice free).
and the going of the ice.
The Pleistocene ice advanced and with-
The ice sheet left ground-up debris, called
drew, again and again. In the past million
till or drift, smeared wherever it had been. It
years there have been nine full glacial peri-
left ridges, or moraines, of heaped-up debris
ods, separated by much shorter intergla-
along the farthest lines of advance; Long Is-
cials, or warm spells. Each glacial period
land and Cape Cod are two such moraines.
has lasted about 100,000 years; each inter-
It left myriad lake basins, as in Wisconsin
glacial, as little as 10,000.
and Minnesota; ice-block potholes, called
The most recent advance of the ice is
kettles; long sinuous ridges of stream-
GENE MOORE (ABOVE): GERD PFEIFER
called the Wisconsin glaciation in North
deposited gravel, called eskers; and curious
S, hailstones grow
America, the Würm in the Alps. At its height
ice-molded hills, called drumlins.
as they pass through
18,000 years ago, it withdrew unevenly,
And it left water-sheets of water running
ooled water droplets.
probably in two distinct stages of melting,
from atop and below the ice, rivers gushing
aindrops are called sleet,
about 13,000 and 10,000 years ago, glaciolo-
from tunnels in the ice front, huge glacial
Economic damage from
gists now think.
lakes such as Agassiz in Minnesota, Manito-
, primarily through
That marks the start of the Holocene, or
ba, and the Dakotas, and Bonneville in
rops, exceeds that
wholly modern, era. The world was warmer
Utah and Nevada.
does.
at 6000 B.C., in the so-called Climatic Opti-
These lakes occasionally broke out from
mum or Thermal Maximum, than at any
behind ice dams in monstrous floods. One
time since the previous interglacial some
swept across northern Idaho and south-
125,000 years ago.
eastern Washington and created the chan-
There have been bitter returns to cold,
neled, tortuous scablands. Another came
wet times for mankind since then-from the
sweeping down the Mississippi Valley to
second to the first millennium B.C., and
decimate life in the Gulf of Mexico about
again beginning after A.D. 1200 in high lati-
11,600 years ago. Year after year, century
tudes of the Northern Hemisphere, continu-
after century, the flow of meltwater must
ing until the mid-1800s. In the latter Little
have been prodigious.
Ice Age, glaciers grew again in the Alps and
As the ice melted from North America,
southeastern Alaska. Viking colonies were
from northern Europe, from the icebergs
frozen out in Greenland.
that spilled from Antarctica and Greenland,
Then the world's climate turned warm
the seas steadily rose. Measurements on
again-warmer than in any period since the
the continental shelves, on drowned sea-
Climatic Optimum. From about 1880 until
mounts, on coral islands, all put the rise at
present, temperatures have ranged well
close to 110 meters-360 feet. Intruding seas
above the average for the entire Holocene
dramatically reshaped coastlines, broke up
interglacial period. Yet, in our self-centered
floating ice shelves, flooded into Hudson
view, we regard our own time in history as
Bay and the Baltic Sea, and left the face of
"normal." It is anything but that.
the globe much as we see it today.
Ice on the World
91
O GO BACK, to actually see what
inland plateau of ice, one flies from the main
T
the ice atop North America must
U.S. Antarctic base at McMurdo Sound, at
have been like, one can fly across
the edge of the Ross Ice Shelf, up the mas-
Greenland en route to Iceland or
sive, fractured Beardmore Glacier. On the
Europe. Better yet, one cango to Antarctica.
dark, gaunt mountainsides, striations and
Almost 90 percent of all the ice on earth
narrow bands of glacial debris, called lateral
lies atop the Antarctic Continent: seven mil-
moraines, show where ice higher than to-
lion cubic miles of it (30 million cubic kilo-
day's has scoured. and scraped across in the
meters). It rises more than two miles; at the
dim past. More dramatically still, here and
South Pole it is 9,200 feet thick; at the Soviet
there run bands of lighter sandstones, and
Union's Vostok Station, more than 12,000.
amid them jet black streaks of coal.
Antarctica is literally a desert; most of it
Antarctica was not always shrouded in
gets less than two inches of snow a year. But
ice. Long before the Pleistocene, the conti-
that snow scarcely ever melts-it just blows
nent was warm and held lush vegetation,
from place to place and grows deeper.
even forests. Only such organic matter, later
From the lofty dome of ice deep in the inte-
covered by warm seas and thick marine sed-
rior, behind a wall of mountains that divides
iment, could have produced the coal seams
the white continent diagonally, ice slowly
that run through the Transantarctic Moun-
flows outward and down to the sea on all
tains, some of the most extensive on earth.
sides. It escapes through passages in the
Other startling evidence of ancient land-
mountains to the ice-submerged archipela-
scapes and seaways near the South Pole has
go called West Antarctica, and to the great
recently been found high on these peaks.
ice shelves of the Ross and Weddell Seas.
Tree stems, roots, pollen, and tiny fossils of
To reach the South Pole, on the high
open-water marine life have been identified
CIRCA 1650, FROM "WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM IN SEARCH OF THE PICTURESQUE,' OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1975 (ABOVE): CARY WOLINSKY
"We are making ice by evaporation almost every night." In the winter of 1828 in
Allahabad, "the oven of India," Englishwoman Fanny Parks described how water
ladled into bowls set into the ground froze as a result of cooling evaporation even
when air temperatures hovered above freezing. Preserved in pits covered by thatched-
roofed huts, the 120 tons produced that year lasted into August. Today pond ice
hauled from storage caves comes to market in Kashi, China (right).
94
National Geographic, January 1987.
by Ohio State geologists Peter-Noel Webb,
The polar vegetation found on the flanks
David M. Harwood, and John II. Mercer as
of the Beardmore Glacier late in 1985, say
being two to four million years old, from the
Webb and his colleagues, must have grown
Pliocene epoch. Yet up to now it has been
along the edges of the ice as it advanced and
thought that ice lay deep on Antarctica as
retreated, melted and returned, in a time
long as 15, even 30, million years ago.
much warmer than today.
The shrub wood (following page) grew on
Thus the microfossils from the sea and the
the banks and shores of alpine streams and
ancient wood fragments require a major and
lakes during several interglacial periods, the
radical rethinking of Antarctica's long gla-
researchers suggest. In those relatively
cial history. Its icecover must have been un-
warm times, great open seaways may have
stable, subject to massive advances and
reached deep into the Antarctic interior, and
retreats much like those of the northern half
the great central ice mass may have retreat-
of the globe.
ed to much smaller ice caps and high alpine
glaciers (diagrams, page 97).
S THE ICE on Antarctica today shrink-
When, as in the Northern Hemisphere,
ing, growing, or in balance? On this sub-
the central ice sheet began growing again, it
ject scientists are deeply divided. Most
must have scraped up the tiny fossils from
admit they simply do not know, and say
the floor of an inland sea and carried them
it will take years, if not decades, of further
high into the Transantarctic Mountains.
research to find out.
Or did the mountain range, the mightiest
The out pouring of ice from the high interi-
in Antarctica, also lurch and rise upward
or down to the coast, feeding the great float-
thousands of feet? If it once was lower, less
ing shelves, seemingly keeps Antarctica's
ice would have been needed to override it.
ice cover in balance. "But that balance may
Ice on the World
95
be illusory," says glaciologist George H.
RILLING DEEP into Antarctica's
Denton of the University of Maine.
Denton and his colleague Terence J.
D
ice is a way for climatologists to
read the far past. Such work in
Hughes are authors of a monumental study,
Antarctica was undertaken by the
The Last Great Ice Sheets. In it they discuss
United States in 1967-68 at Byrd Station,
what might happen if the West Antarctic ice
where a core drill went down 2, 164 meters
sheet, resting largely below sea level, were
(7,101 feet) before it hit liquid water near
to "collapse," or melt away entirely.
bedrock, then froze fast.
"The edges of that ice sheet have clearly
In 1970 Soviet scientists began drilling at
retreated,' Denton says. "We see it in the
Vostok Station, high on the inland ice cap in
Ross and Weddell Sea embayments and on
East Antarctica. In 1981-82 French scien-
coastal mountains poking up through the
tists reached more than 900 meters beneath
ice, like so many dipsticks in reverse."
a point named Dome C, near the center of
Ian Whillans of Ohio State, studying great
the huge ice cap. And since 1980 the Vostok
ice streams that drain the broad West Ant-
ice drillers have bored through more than
arctic ice sheet, agrees: He sees thinning of
ice on both sides of the Transantarctic
Mountains. Denton, conversely, thinks the
main East Antarctic ice cap is growing
thicker. He-cites increased snowfall brought
on by a still warming climate. The paradox:
warmer times, more snow and ice.
Oddly enough, in that much warmer time
before the truly polar Pleistocene Ice Age be-
gan, the East Antarctic ice sheet must have
been far thicker than today's, Denton says.
As it grew, pushing perhaps through Peter
Webb's inland seas, the ice left marks on the
very tops of the Transantarctic Mountains,
above 14,000 feet today.
If indeed the central ice sheet is again
1/MADEINU.R.R.2
3
thickening, that growth may be matched by
JAMES A. SUGAR, BLACK STAR
outflow of glaciers, by calving of icebergs
from the ice shelves (recent Norwegian stud-
2,080 meters of the 3,700 meters (12,140
ies show more bergs being produced than
feet) of the ice under the station.
previously assumed), and perhaps by melt-
"The Vostok core is the first to cover,
ing underneath the ice shelves.
completely and unambiguously, the entire
Hughes and others have calculated that a
last 150,000 years of earth's ice-age cycle,"
total collapse of West Antarctic ice, with the
French glaciologist Claude Lorius reported
ice shelves gone, would cause a rise in sea
in 1985, after working with Soviet scientists
level worldwide of four to six meters-14 to
on the ice core. "It clearly goes back through
20 feet-in as little as two to five centuries.
earth's previous interglacial warm period,
But if the ice shelves hold, says Denton, the
called the Eem or Sangamon, and well into
specter of collapse of Antarctic ice and a cat-
the ice age before that.
astrophic rise of sea level seems unlikely.
"That previous interglacial was similar
Though worried by continuing increase of
but markedly warmer than our present
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, leading to
warm spell, the Holocene," he told me in
even warmer climate ahead, most scientists
Washington, D. C., a few months after re-
put the possible rise in sea level, largely from
turning from Antarctica in 1985. "The be-
expansion of warm seawater and the melt-
ginning of the previous warming was as
ing of Northern Hemisphere glaciers, at
sharp and extensive as was the opening of
only one to two feet by the year 2100.
the Holocene, between about 10,000 and
After that, as polar ice grows thicker from
8,000 years ago."
more snowfall, sea level may fall again.
The Vostok core, somewhat surprisingly
96
National Geographic, January 1987
Ice's handiwork can be as annoying as a
to Professor Lorius, does not hold evidence
pothole or as magical as circles of stones
of more volcanie activity on earth during the
found in Spitsbergen (above) and
past glacial age and previous interglacial
periglacial regions worldwide. As wet
than in modern times. But the volcanic dust
silty ground freezes and thaws, the soil
seen there, as in cores taken from the Green-
slowly circulates by convection Rocks
land cap, has given a precise and dramat-
lifted to the surface by repeated freezing
ic record of many great volcanic events of
drift to the border of the soil current.
the distant past:
Eastern Pennsylvania resembled present-
day Greenland when these red sandstone
N 1980-81 Danish, Swiss, and American
boulders (center) were fractured by frost
and rounded by meltwater 10,000 years
scientists penetrated more than a mile
ago. In Alaska's Wrangell Mountains
deep at a point named Dye 3 in southern
frost-shattered rock interlaced with ice
Greenland. From winter-summer vari-
creeps downhill one to two inches a year
ations in the preserved frozen core, the drill-
as a rock glacier (far right).
ers can read year-by-year weather for the
past 11,000 years.
The massive eruptions of the volcanoes
98
National Geographic, January 1987
BERNARD HALLET (LEFT); CARY WOLINSKY (CENTER); GEORGE HERBEN (RIGHT)
Laki in Iceland in 1783 and Tambora in the
killed in 44 B.C. A blast in 1390 B.C. may
East Indies in 1815 are clearly identifiable
have been one of several that spelled the end
near the top of the Dye 3 core. The latter pro-
of the volcanic isle of Thera in the Aegean.
duced the notorious "Year Without a Sum-
On back through time, the Dye 3 core
mer" in New England in 1816, when crops
gives absolute dates to unwritten events:
froze and snow fell in July and August.
4401 B.C. Explosion of Mount Mazama in
Sequences of heavy summer melting from
Oregon created Crater Lake.
A.D. 950 to roughly 1200 confirm the world's
7911 to 7090 B.C. Seven different great
warmth during the time that Vikings settled
eruptions occurred somewhere on earth.
and thrived in Greenland, before the cold of
From 25,000 down to 10,000 years ago,
the Little Ice Age froze them out. (From
high amounts of wind-blown continental
about 1200 until the mid-1800s, world cli-
dust marked the last glacial maximum in the
mate was colder than at any time since the
Northern Hemisphere, before the start of
last deglaciation.)
global warming in the Holocene.
Even deeper in the core, volcanic acids
Analyses of a previous deep ice core taken
show that an eruption must have darkened
at Camp Century in Greenland provide omi-
skies over Rome the year Julius Caesar was
nous evidence that the last interglacial may
Ice on the World
99
have ended suddenly and dramatically. A
Greenland, named Vatnajökull. Lying un-
brief, sharp cooling was followed by tem-
derneath Vatnajökull is an active volcano,
peratures only slightly lower than today's.
Grímsvötn. And beneath the smaller
But both ice and seabed cores show it took
Mýrdalsjökull, not far to the southwest,
only 5,000 to 10,000 years for ice sheets to
is another, Katla.
build up on the earth-some 25 million cu-
I have twice been to Iceland to see these
bic kilometers of ice, with a corresponding
glaciers, and to drive across vast outwash
60-meter (200-foot) drop in world sea level.
plains of black sand and ground-up lava be-
Could it happen again? And that fast, in
tween the ice-locked mountains and the cold
the stately turning of the geologic calendar?
sea. With an Icelandic glacier expert, Helgi
Björnsson, I talked of what happens when a
AST. OF GREENLAND, which is
volcano exists under a huge sheet of ice.
E
no longer green, lies Iceland, an is-
"There is what we call a jökulhlaup-a
land of volcanic fire and ash more
glacier burst-and it is nothing to be in the
than of ice. But it does hold one of
way of, he said. "At least 13 have occurred
the largest ice caps outside Antarctica and
from the Grímsvötn region of Vatna since
1955. Katla produced a catastrophic one in
1918; more water than the Amazon carries
burst forth and flowed to the sea for only a
few days.
"These floods shape much of Iceland's
south coast. They keep stretches of it all but
cut off from the rest of the country because of
the washout of roads on the coastal plain.
"Vatna bursts about every two years,
with a bad one every five years. In between,
geothermal heat beneath the ice builds up a
big pool or reservoir of meltwater, as much
as a thousand feet deep. A ridge of rock holds
it in, until suddenly it breaks open a channel
under the ice, sometimes 30 miles long."
Helgi told me of an ambitious plan to end
the Grímsvötn floods. After a future burst,
when the glacier pool has drained to its low-
est, a tunnel "the size of my office" might be
drilled through the mountain ridge, he said,
to carry off gathering meltwater and prevent
another outburst.
ROM TALK of a volcano meltwater
F
tunnel in Iceland, I traveled to a high-
way tunnel being bored through a
mountain beneath the largest glacier
left in Norway, Jostedalsbreen.
Much of west-central Norway is cut off
from the populated south by deep fjords and
the glacier-capped mountains above. Boats
and roundabout roads provide the only way
TOM BEAN
to reach towns and farms isolated by ice. But
Wiggling through tiny air pockets in an
a dream of decades was nearing reality at the
Alaska glacier, an inch-long ice worm-
head of a lovely fjord and farm community
Mesemchytraeus solofiugus, once thought
named Fjærland.
to be mythical-feeds on algae and pollen.
"We'll be driving our cars 4,000 feet be-
neath the surface of Jostedalsbreen when the
100
National Geographic, January 1987
tunnel is completed," said an old friend,
ancient scour marks and moraine lines on
glaciologist Olav Orheim of the Norsk Polar-
the mountainsides. Finally we landed on the
institutt. A veteran of research journeys to
ink-dark water at Fjærland.
both the Arctic and Antarctic, Olav for
"This fjord drops to more than 3,000 feet
years has helped his family operate a sum-
deep at its mouth," Olay said, "and once it
mer hotel at jarland. Its name, the Mun-
held solid ice up to 3,000 feet above us."
dal, is not only that of the oldest farm in the
valley, but also as anglicized that of for-
mer Vice President of the United States Wal-
A
LIVING DIORAMA of the Ice Age
in the United States lies in the gla-
ter Mondale, whose family came from there.
ciers of Alaska's southeastern
Olav and 1 and GEOGRAPHIC photogra-
Panhandle and the Chugach,
pher Otis Imboden flew by floatplane over
Wrangell, and St. Elias ranges between An-
the heights of Jostedalsbreen, under clouds
chorage on the west and Yakutat to the east.
only a few hundred feet above the glacier
Amid mountain scenery as spectacular as
surface. Down the tumbled, crevassed spill-
any on earth, the glaciers spill down from
ways of ice we twisted and turned, following
gaunt peaks, flow together, and fan out in
DOUG ALLEN. OXFORD SCIENTIFIC FILMS. LTD.
A crimson tide of summer blooming algae tints " glacier in the South Orkney
Islands. Common throughout the world, these one celled plants form a vital first
link in polar food chains. Discovery of brown algae on the underside of Arctic ice
floes renews concern about the effects of oil spills on the environment.
lee on the World
101
multistriped ice fields along the Gulf of
Alaska. Each black stripe of glacial debris is
a side moraine from a different ice river.
Count the stripes, and you know the number
of glaciers feeding the final broad ice stream.
Occasionally a glacier will "surge"-a
technical term to glaciologists, translated in
popular jargon to "galloping." The ice sud-
denly begins flowing far faster than normal,
grinding and pushing downhill at speeds of
tens, even hundreds of feet a day.
I went to Alaska in 1982 because a well-
known glacier immediately adjacent to the
Hubbard, the Variegated, was in early
stages of a surge. Glaciologists from the Uni-
versities of Washington and Alaska, Cal-
tech, and the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology were camped on the glacier
with ice drills, theodolites, and other gear to
record the ice river's gallop forward. It had
begun only a few weeks before.
"Our thinking is that a glacier that surges
has changed its internal plumbing system,"
explained Barclay Kamb of Caltech, a
friendly, articulate ice scientist. "Meltwater
at the base, blocked in its normal escape pas-
sages, builds up pressure until the friction
between ice and rock is nearly overcome, al-
lowing the ice to slide downhill much faster
[diagrams; pages 114-15]."
Day by day I could sense it moving-
hear it and all but see it. Along the edges
of the Variegated, creaking and groaning
and booming of tortured ice gave loud
proof that the frozen river on which the
scientists were camped was indeed lurching
downhill.
"We can measure not only the surface mo-
tion-between three and twenty feet a day
right now-but also what is more interesting
to us: pulses of water pressure traveling un-
derneath. In a series of drill holes through
LONNIE G. THOMPSON
the glacier, we are recording pressure waves
Frozen archive of weather reports, the 50-
moving as fast as 1,000 feet an hour."
meter face of the Quelccaya Ice Cap in Peru's
The surface of the ice was also rising and
Andes displays annual layers of snow
falling slowly, like the back of a massive cat-
separated by dry-season dust. A 165-meter-
erpillar, measured by precise instruments
long ice core, taken at the ice cap's summit,
mounted on high promontories and cliff
holds 1,500 years of climatic data. Ice cores
ledges above the glacier. Water flowed
from Greenland and Antarctica trace
through deep crevasses in the glacier and
conditions as far back as 150,000 years. But
Quelccaya offers a rare record of equatorial
gushed in a milky freshet from its snout.
weather patterns, such as El Niño, which
When British explorer George Vancouver
can wreak global havoc.
sailed this coast in 1794, ice entirely blocked
the mouths of several of today's deep,
102
National Geographic, January 1987
is along the Gulf of
winding fjords-among them, Glacier Bay
"Exactly the opposite is happening to the
ripe of glacial debris is
southeast of Yakutat. He saw that an inlet
Hubbard. While the Columbia draws back,
a different ice river.
existed there, but he could not sail in to
the Hubbard may be undergoing a major
you know the number
prove it. Today ships as large as ocean liners
advance, heading back down its bay toward
final broad ice stream.
call regularly in Glacier Bay-call with their
where it stood hundreds of years ago.
cier will "surge"-a
great horns to try to bring down ice cliffs in
"Why? Tidewater glaciers such as these
ologists, translated in
thunderous collapse.
seem to follow long-term cycles of advance
lloping.' The ice sud-
Muir Glacier, from the point where famed
and retreat. They do not behave alike or in
ar faster than normal,
naturalist John Muir saw it in 1879, has
phase. Their changes relate to dynamics of
downhill at speeds of
retreated an additional 30 miles, nearly
ice movement, different shapes of their val-
feet a day.
doubling the extent of the ice-freed bay.
leys and snow-accumulation areas, and con-
1982 because a well-
ditions at and under their faces."
iately adjacent to the
A
NOTHER ICE RIVER in Alaska is
Extraordinarily heavy snows of the past
gated, was in early
in the process of doing the same
three winters in southeastern Alaska, from
ologists from the Uni-
thing: Columbia Glacier, just
1983 to 1986, may be forcing the Hubbard's
on and Alaska, Cal-
west of the oil-pipeline port of
advance, says Dr. Maynard M. Miller of the
Federal Institute of
Valdez. Its towering ice cliffs front on deep
University of Idaho. For 40 years he has
aped on the glacier
water in Prince William Sound. There it has
studied and recorded glacier activity cen-
tes, and other gear to
stood, calving icebergs and smaller chunks
tered in the Juneau Ice Field.
allop forward. It had
called growlers and bergy bits and brash ice,
But other glaciologists disagree. Many of
S before.
for hundreds of years.
them see little connection between local
L a glacier that surges
It has, that is, until a few years ago. Then,
weather or short-term climate changes and
11 plumbing system,"
for reasons best known to the gods of ice-and
the behavior of these great ice streams that
amb of Caltech, a
sea change, the cliffs began spawning more
end in the sea.
scientist. "Meltwater
icebergs and inching back off the glacier's
ts normal escape pas-
doorsill, its terminal moraine.
HUS GLACIOLOGISTS watch
are until the friction
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC photographer
T
and measure and ponder: Under the
nearly overcome, al-
Joe Scherschel and I visited Valdez in 1982
inexorable Milankovitch cycles of
lownhill much faster
to see the Columbia as its retreat was accel-
earth's solar orbit, will the great
5]."
erating. With a grizzled, friendly glaciolo-
continental ice sheets again begin growing?
I sense it moving-
gist named Austin Post, we flew over the
A hundred, a thousand years hence, will the
it. Along the edges
Columbia and down along its face in an old
ice have returned?
aking and groaning
Cessna. From the plane's open door we
Certainly the planet's climate will change
ired ice gave loud
peered straight down and full face at a great
in coming millennia, say the scientists of a
river on which the
embayment in the ice front. It towered 200
study called CLIMAP-an acronym for Cli-
was indeed lurching
to 300 feet above the water. Loose brash ice
mate: Long-range Investigation, Mapping,
and bergy bits clustered at its face, but re-
and Prediction. The Northern Hemisphere,
only the surface mo-
markably few large icebergs.
overall but particularly in high latitudes, ap-
d twenty feet a day
Four years later the scene at the Columbia
pears already to be cooling, after a century
at is more interesting
was far different (following pages). The gla-
and a half of abnormal warmth.
essure traveling un-
cier's face had moved back more than a mile
On the other side of the equation is man
drill holes through
and a half. In front of it, trapped between
himself. Will we, by our profligate burning
ding pressure waves
the glacier and its former submarine sill, lay
of hydrocarbon fuels, intensify the green-
feet an hour."
a jam-packed apron of icebergs, floes, and
house effect of excessive carbon dioxide in
was also rising and
bits-loose ice that kept any ship, no matter
the atmosphere and delay the natural plane-
ack of a massive cat-
how large, from approaching.
tary cycle? Will the present interglacial
precise instruments
"The Columbia went back fast the first
thus become even warmer, and the oceans
nontories and cliff
couple of years," Austin told me. "Now it's
continue to rise, as the ice sheets of Antarc-
ier. Water flowed
thinned down somewhat and may be paus-
tica and Greenland pull back and turn to
in the glacier and
ing before it begins breaking back again.
water? Or will the ice caps grow and spread
t from its snout.
But since the terminus lies in deep water
under increasing snowfall, and the seas
George Vancouver
[measured in September at nearly 1,000
begin to fall again?
ice entirely blocked
feet], we think it will continue to retreat
Stay tuned for the weather broadcasts of
of today's deep,
rapidly.
the next millennium.
aphic, January 1987
Ice on the World
103
SCIENTIFIC
SEPTEMBER 1989
$3.95
AMERICAN
SPECIAL
AUG 71
10
ISSUE
WHITE HOUSE LIBRARY
MANAGING
PLANET EARTH
04
0
74820 08715
SCIENTIFIC
AMERICAN
September 1989
Volume 261
Number 3
Managing Planet Earth
Introducing a single-topic issue that explores
the prospects for sustainable human development
on a planet with finite resources and a fragile environment
by William C. Clark
E
very form of life continually fac-
sibility for, their ultimate collision
today by unprecedented increases in
es the challenge of reconciling
with a finite environment. In contrast,
the rate, scale and complexity of those
its innate capacity for growth
the same wellsprings of human inven-
interactions. What were once local in-
with the opportunities and con-
tiveness and energy that are so trans-
cidents of pollution now involve sev-
straints that arise through its interac-
forming the earth have also given us
eral nations-witness the concern for
tions with the natural environment.
an unprecedented understanding of
acid deposition in Europe and in North
The remarkable success of our own
how the planet works, how our pres-
America. What were once acute epi-
species in meeting that challenge is
ent activities threaten its workings
sodes of relatively reversible dam-
reflected in the striking image that
and how we can intervene to improve
age now affect multiple generations-
graces the cover of this single-topic
the prospects for its sustainable de-
witness the debates over chemical-
issue of Scientific American. That ini-
velopment. Our ability to look back on
and radioactive-waste disposal. What
tial success, however, is only the be-
ourselves from outer space symbol-
were once straightforward confronta-
ginning of the story.
izes the unique perspective we have
tions between ecological preservation
As we seek to imagine different
on our environment and on where
and economic growth now involve
ways in which that story might unfold,
we are headed as a species. With this
multiple linkages-witness the feed-
analogies can be helpful. The global
knowledge comes a responsibility not
backs among energy consumption,
pattern of light created by today's civ-
borne by the bacteria: the responsibil-
agriculture and climatic change that
ilizations is not unlike the pattern of
ity to manage the human use of plan-
are thought to enter into the green-
exuberant growth that develops soon
et earth.
house effect.
after bacteria are introduced to a nu-
At the individual level, people have
We have entered an era character-
trient-rich petri dish. In the limited
begun to respond to increased aware-
ized by syndromes of global change
world of the petri dish, such growth is
ness of global environmental change
that stem from the interdependence
not sustainable. Sooner or later, as the
by altering their values, beliefs and
between human development and the
bacterial populations deplete avail-
actions. Changes in individual behav-
environment. As we attempt to move
able resources and submerge in their
ior are surely necessary but are not
own wastes, their initial blossoming is
enough. It is as a global species that
replaced by stagnation or collapse.
we are transforming the planet. It
WILLIAM C. CLARK is a senior research
The analogy breaks down in the fact
is only as a global species-pooling
associate at Harvard University's Ken-
that bacterial populations have no
our knowledge, coordinating our ac-
nedy School of Government. He received
control over, and therefore no respon-
tions and sharing what the planet has
a B.S. in 1971 from Yale University and
to offer-that we have any prospect
a Ph.D. in 1979 from the University
of British Columbia. Clark led studies
for managing the planet's transforma-
on sustainable development of the bio-
tion along pathways of sustainable de-
MANAGING PLANET EARTH will require
sphere at the International Institute for
velopment. Self-conscious, intelligent
Applied Systems Analysis in Austria. He
answers to two questions: What kind of
management of the earth is one of the
is a member of the U.S. National Acad-
planet do we want? What kind of planet
great challenges facing humanity as it
emy of Sciences Committee on Global
can we get? To resolve these questions
approaches the 21st century.
Change and edits Environment maga-
human beings must understand how
zine. His interests at the Kennedy School
their activities affect the global environ-
ment and must choose strategies for
developing the planet. One local aspect
A
Ithough efforts to manage the in-
focus on the policy issues that arise
from the competing international con-
teractions between people and
cerns of development, environment and
of a possible global strategy is symbol-
their environments are as old
security. In 1983 Clark received the Mac-
ized here by a Nepalese woman planting
as human civilization, the manage-
Arthur prize.
a tree as part of a reforestation project.
ment problem has been transformed
striking
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 1989
47
from merely causing these syndromes
ronment and Development (WCED),
countries [see illustrations below and
to managing them consciously, two
chaired by Prime Minister Brundt-
on next three pages].
central questions must be addressed:
land, characterizes sustainable devel-
At one extreme, the richest 15 per-
What kind of planet do we want? What
opment as paths of social, economic
cent of the world's population con-
kind of planet can we get?
and political progress that meet "the
sumes more than one third of the
What kind of planet we want is ul-
needs of the present without compro-
planet's fertilizer and more than half
timately a question of values. How
mising the ability of future genera-
of its energy. At the other extreme,
much species diversity should be
tions to meet their own needs." Sus-
perhaps one quarter of the world's
maintained in the world? Should the
tainable development thus reflects a
population goes hungry during at
size or the growth rate of the human
choice of values for managing planet
least some seasons of the year. More
population be curtailed to protect
earth in which equity matters-equity
than a third live in countries where the
the global environment? How much
among peoples around the world to-
mortality for young children is greater
climatic change is acceptable? How
day, equity between parents and their
than one in 10. The vast majority exist
much poverty? Should the deep ocean
grandchildren.
on per capita incomes below the offi-
be considered an option for hazard-
cial poverty level in the U.S.
ous-waste disposal?
M
anaging the planet toward
As we look to the future, it is encour-
Science can illuminate these issues
sustainable development is an
aging that the growth rate of the hu-
but cannot resolve them. The choice
undertaking made no less
man population is declining virtually
of answers is ours to make and our
daunting by its urgency. The basic
everywhere. Even if the trends respon-
grandchildren's to live with. Because
human dimensions of the task are
sible for the decline continue, howev-
different people live in different cir-
explored by Nathan Keyfitz in "The
er, the next century will probably see
cumstances and have different values,
Growing Human Population" on page
a doubling of the number of people
individual choices can be expected
118 and by Jim MacNeill in "Strate-
trying to extract a living from plan-
to vary enormously. As pointed out
gies for Sustainable Economic Devel-
et earth. Nearly all of the increase will
by Gro Harlem Brundtland in the clos-
opment" on page 154. The broad pic-
take place in today's poorer countries.
ing essay to this issue, poor people
ture, although familiar, bears recount-
According to the WCED, a fivefold to
and rich people are especially likely
ing. The planet today is inhabited by
tenfold increase in world economic
to place different values on econom-
somewhat more than five billion peo-
activity during the next 50 years will
ic growth and environmental conser-
ple who each year appropriate 40 per-
be required to meet the basic needs
vation. Recently, however, the long-
cent of the organic material fixed by
and aspirations of the future popula-
standing debate over growth versus
photosynthesis on land, consume the
tion. The implications of this desper-
environment has matured considera-
equivalent of two tons of coal per
ately needed economic growth for the
bly. A broad consensus has begun to
person and produce an average of 150
already stressed planetary environ-
emerge that interactions between peo-
kilograms of steel for each man, wom-
ment are at least problematic and are
ple and their environments should be
an and child on the earth. The distri-
potentially catastrophic.
managed with the goal of sustainable
bution of these people, their well-
Efforts to manage the sustainable
development.
being and their impact on the en-
development of the earth must there-
The World Commission on Envi-
vironment vary significantly among
fore have three specific objectives.
UNDER 20
20-50
50-100
100-150
150-200
OVER 200
CHILD MORTALITY is one measure of a population's well-be-
people live in countries where the mortality is greater than
ing. The map shows deaths per 1,000 live births for children
one in 10. The data, estimated for 1985 to 1990, are from the
younger than five years. More than one third of the world's
U.N.'s Department of International Economic and Social Affairs.
48
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 1989
to disseminate the knowledge
with the Russian mineralogist Vladi-
A second important component of
the is means necessary to control
mir I. Vernadsky's seminal writings on
the planet's environment is the global
human population growth. The sec-
the biosphere. It received important
circulation and processing of major
is to facilitate sufficiently vigor-
impetus from the International Geo-
chemical elements such as carbon, ox-
economic growth and equitable
physical Year of 1957 and is now be-
ygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sul-
distribution of its benefits to meet the
ing carried forward through a lively
fur. These elements are the principal
basic needs of the human population
array of research and monitoring ef-
components of life. In chemical forms
this and subsequent generations.
forts around the world, capped by
such as carbon dioxide, methane and
The third is to structure the growth
an ambitious new International Geo-
nitrous oxide, they also exert a ma-
ways that keep its enormous poten-
sphere Biosphere Program. Although
jor influence on climate. Even in the
tial for environmental transformation
the "global change" revolution is far
absence of human influences, the
within safe limits-limits that are yet
from complete, its broad outlines can
earth's climate and chemistry have
to be determined.
be summarized in the illustration on
undergone abrupt and tightly linked
page 52.
changes such as those reflected in
f the goals of sustainable develop-
The view of environmental change
the ice-core records shown on page
I
ment describe the type of planet
outlined in the illustration shows a
75. When added to these natural fluc-
people want, the second question
planet dominated through decades
tuations, human activities have cre-
still remains: What kind of planet can
and centuries by the interactions of
ated disturbances in global chemi-
we actually get? When we address this
climate and chemical flows of major
cal flows that manifest themselves
question, the focus shifts from what
elements, interactions that are woven
as smog, acid precipitation, strato-
we value to what we know.
together by the global hydrological
spheric ozone depletion and other
In the end the strategies for sustain-
cycle and are significantly influenced
problems [see "The Changing Atmos-
able development must translate into
by the presence of life.
phere," by Thomas E. Graedel and Paul
local action if they are to have any
The climate system incorporates at-
J. Crutzen, page 58].
impact at all. As I have noted, how-
mospheric and oceanic processes that
The third component of the illustra-
ever, many of today's most intractable
govern the global distribution of wind,
tion, the hydrological cycle, includes
challenges to sustainability involve
rainfall and temperature. Processes
the processes of evaporation and
time scales of decades or centuries
central to human transformation and
precipitation, runoff and circulation.
and global spatial scales. Any signif-
management of planet earth include
Water is a key agent of topograph-
icant improvements in our ability to
changes in concentrations of green-
ic change and an overall regulator of
manage planet earth will require that
house gases and their impact on tem-
global chemistry and climate. As de-
we learn how to relate local develop-
perature; the effect of ocean circula-
scribed by J. W. Maurits la Rivière
ment action to a global environmental
tion on the timing and distribution of
in "Threats to the World's Water" on
perspective.
climatic changes; and the role of vege-
page 80, human impacts on the hydro-
Fortunately, understanding of glob-
tation in regulating the flux of water
logical cycle that require attention in-
al environmental change has been rev-
between land and atmosphere [see
clude pollution of groundwater, sur-
olutionized in recent years. The rev-
"The Changing Climate," by Stephen
face waters and oceans, redistribution
olution has its roots in the 1920's,
H. Schneider, page 70].
of water flows on the earth's surface
UNDER .15
.15-.25
.25-.35
.35-.45
.45-.55
OVER .55
CROPLAND PER CAPITA is an index of the flexibility societies
less than about .2 hectare per capita are especially limited
have to adjust their land-use practices. Shown here is crop-
in their options for managing the environment. Data are from
land in hectares per capita for the mid-1980's. Countries with
the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 1989
49
and potential sea-level changes in-
tury, the human population has in-
than 3 percent a year in the utilization
duced by global warming.
creased by a factor of eight; average
of such basic metals as lead, copper
Life, the final component in the il-
life expectancy has at least doubled.
and iron [see "Strategies for Manufac-
lustration on page 52, has found the
During the same period human eco-
turing," by Robert A. Frosch and Nich-
environment of planet earth to be re-
nomic activity has become increasing-
olas E. Gallopoulos, page 144].
plete with possibilities, resulting in
ly global, with demands for goods and
The transformation of the planetary
the evolution of an astounding-but
services in one part of the planet being
environment induced by this explo-
rapidly decreasing-degree of biologi-
met with supplies from half a world
sion of human activity is particular-
cal diversity [see "Threats to Biodiver-
away. The volume of goods exchanged
ly evident in changes to the physi-
sity," by Edward O. Wilson, page 108].
in international trade has increased by
cal landscape. Since the beginning of
It has not been widely appreciated
a factor of 800 or more and now repre-
the 18th century, the planet has lost
until recently that life is also a key
sents more than a third of the world's
six million square kilometers of for-
player in conditioning and regulating
total economic product.
est-an area larger than Europe. Land
the global environment, through its
The three components of this
degradation has increased to a signifi-
influence on the chemical and hydro-
growth and globalization of human
cant but uncertain degree [see illustra-
logical cycles. Finally, one form of
activity that have had greatest impact
tion on opposite page]. Sediment loads
life-the human species-has grown
on the environment are agriculture,
have risen threefold in major river
over the past several centuries from a
energy and manufacturing, each of
systems and eightfold in smaller ba-
position of negligible influence at the
which is discussed at length in subse-
sins that support intense human ac-
planetary scale to one of great signifi-
quent articles. Agriculture has been
tivity; the resulting flow of carbon to
cance as an agent of global change.
the dominant agent of global land
the sea is between one and two billion
transformation; since the middle of
tons a year. During the same period
A
Ithough our knowledge of the
the last century, nine million square
the amount of water humans with-
earth system is quickly expand-
kilometers of the earth's surface have
draw from the hydrological cycle has
ing, we do not yet know
been converted into permanent crop-
increased from perhaps 100 to 3,600
enough about it to say with any cer-
lands [see "Strategies for Agriculture,"
cubic kilometers per year-a volume
tainty how much change the system as
by Pierre R. Crosson and Norman J.
equivalent to that of Lake Huron.
a whole can tolerate or what its capac-
Rosenberg, page 128]. Energy use has
Many substantial changes in the
ity may be for sustaining human de-
risen by a factor of 80 over the same
planet's other chemical flows have
velopment. We do, however, know a
period, with profound consequences
taken place. In the past 300 years
good deal about interactions between
for the planet's chemical flows of car-
agricultural and industrial develop-
individual components of the global
bon, sulfur and nitrogen [see "Strate-
ment has doubled the amount of
environment and specific human ac-
gies for Energy Use," by John H. Gib-
methane in the atmosphere and in-
tivities. This admittedly incomplete
bons, Peter D. Blair and Holly L. Gwin,
creased the concentration of carbon
knowledge provides some useful per-
page 136]. Finally, the world's indus-
dioxide by 25 percent. The global
spectives on questions of planetary
trial production has increased more
flows of major elements such as sul-
management.
than 100-fold in 100 years, supported
fur and nitrogen that result from hu-
Since the beginning of the 18th cen-
by long-term growth rates of more
man activity are comparable to or
0-.75
.75-1.50
1.50-2.25
2.25-3.00
3.00-3.75
OVER 3.75
CARBON DIOXIDE EMISSIONS are one impact of human activ-
expressed as tons of carbon per person per year. Highest Bhu
ities on the environment. Shown are carbon dioxide releas-
tan. Data were compiled by the author's student Susan Subak
are East Germany and the U.S. Lowest are Burundi and
es from energy use, industrial activities and deforestation
50
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 1989
greater than the natural flows of these
tion of change by comparing the pres-
organic solvent and extinction of ma-
the trace metals,
ent rate of transformation with that of
rine mammals-also represents pri-
dements which the many of which are Many of which toxic to life, Jerome
a generation ago. The dominant im-
marily phenomena of the 20th century
O. the Canadian National
pression from this analysis is the rela-
that are now decelerating.
Water Research Institute and Jozef M.
tive recency of most global environ-
The crude measure of long-term de-
Pacyna of the Norwegian Institute for
mental change. None of the compo-
celeration presented here gives no
Air Pollution Research have shown
nents we reviewed had reached 50
assurance that the declining transfor-
that human emissions of lead, cadmi-
percent of its total transformation be-
mation rates reflect increasing com-
um and zinc exceed the flux from
fore the 19th century. Most passed the
petence in planetary management.
natural sources by factors of 18, five
50 percent level only in the second
(Specific transformation rates could,
and three, respectively. For several
half of the 20th century.
for example, decline simply because
other metals, including arsenic, mer-
Beyond this general conclusion, four
there are no more species to exter-
cury, nickel and vanadium, the human
broad patterns of transformation
minate or because we turn to cheap-
contribution is now as much as two
emerge. The first pattern, character-
er fuels that happen to emit differ-
times that from natural sources. Final-
ized by relatively long-established
ent pollutants.) Nevertheless, for most
S
ly, of the more than 70,000 chemicals
and still accelerating change, includes
of the cases I have cited, at least
synthesized by humans, a number-
deforestation and soil erosion. The
some fraction of the deceleration can
such as the chlorofluorocarbons and
second, established relatively recently
be attributed to deliberate large-scale,
DDT-have been shown to affect the
and still accelerating, includes the de-
long-term efforts at environmental
global environment significantly, even
struction of floral diversity, withdraw-
management.
at very low concentrations.
al of water from the hydrological cy-
cle, sediment flows and human mo-
ssessment of the prospects for
bilization of carbon, nitrogen and
T
he global patterns sketched
A
so far provide a necessary but
sustainable development of the
phosphorus. There is little reason to
insufficient perspective from
earth shows that the change in
believe that human society has yet
which to reflect on the prospects for
the rates at which human activities are
learned to manage on a global scale
improving the management of planet
transforming the planet may be as
any of these accelerating transforma-
earth. Also needed is an appreciation
important as the absolute magnitudes
tions of the environment.
of the regional faces of change. To
involved. B. L. Turner, Robert W. Kates
More encouraging are two decel-
analyze regional situations in any de-
and I have analyzed historical trans-
erating trends. Human-induced ex-
tail is beyond the scope of this essay;
formation rates for several compo-
tinctions of terrestrial vertebrates
still, it will be helpful to recall the
nents of the global environmental sys-
reached half of their present total
extraordinary range of local circum-
tem. For each component, we first
by the late 19th century and are ap-
stances that will have to be dealt with
characterized the recency of change-
parently occurring more slowly today
if the human transformation of the
the date by which half of the total
than they were a generation ago. The
planet is to be steered along paths of
human transformation from prehis-
remaining group of transformations
sustainable development.
toric times to the present had taken
we examined-releases of sulfur, lead,
Any classification of regional per-
place. Next, we assessed the accelera-
radioactive fallout, a representative
spectives on sustainable development
AREAS WITH ACUTE
SCARCITY OR DEFICIT
OF FUELWOOD
AREAS UNDER STRESS
FROM ACIDIFICATION
AREAS WITH VERY HIGH
AREAS WHERE POPULATION MAY
OR HIGH RISK OF
EXCEED CARRYING CAPACITY
DESERTIFICATION
OF LOCAL AGRICULTURE
LAND DEGRADATION results from a variety of human activi-
feed more people than the land is actually able to support. The
ties. Shown are regions threatened by desertification, overhar-
data are from the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization and
vesting of firewood, acid rain and stress induced by efforts to
the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment.
SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN September 1989
51
Oliver S. Owen
The HEAT Is On
The Greenhouse Effect and the Earth's Future
Weather experts are
seeking the causes and
effects of global warming
- the "greenhouse ef-
fect." Now is the time to
examine how this
worldwide warm-up
may affect our lives.
Consider the following events
for a moment:
In 1987, an enormous chunk
of ice - twice the size of Rhode
Island - broke away from the Ant-
arctic ice field and splashed into the
sea.
Shortly after being spawned
Greenhouse gases emitted from millions of industrial smokestacks as well as other sources
off the west coast of Africa in Au-
have a warming influence on the world's climate.
gust 1988, Hurricane Gilbert at-
tained wind speeds of more than
ally pervasive experiment whose
a much smaller scale.
200 miles per hour. At its peak, it
ultimate consequences could be
Our inadvertent tampering with
was the most violent hurricane
second only to a nuclear war," was
the global climate must be con-
ever experienced in the Western
the message issued by an interna-
trolled. As one scientist at the To-
Hemisphere.
tional conference of scientists and
ronto meeting stressed: "This con-
During the summer of 1988,
policy makers that convened in To-
ference is screaming out to the
all-time heat records for many cities
ronto in 1988. The "test tube" that
nations of the world to put the
throughout the United States were
humanity is using in this global ex-
brakes on the emissions of green-
shattered. On August 1, for exam-
periment is the atmosphere. Into
house gases."
ple, Furnace Creek, California,
this "test tube" we are spewing a
lived up to its name with an oven-
variety of greenhouse gases, such
The Greenhouse Effect
like temperature reading of 116°
as carbon dioxide, methane, ni-
What is the greenhouse effect?
At first glance, it would appear
trous oxide, and ozone, all of which
Let's give a familiar example. You
that the above events have little in
have a warming influence on the
know what happens if you park
common. Nevertheless, according
world's climate. These gases are
your car in the parking lot on a hot
to some scientists these seemingly
emitted from millions of industrial
summer day and forget to open the
unrelated episodes may all be the
smokestacks, motor vehicles, waste
windows. When you get back in-
direct result of a global climatic
dumps, and other sources.
side your car, it is hot as an oven.
phenomenon called the greenhouse
Today the world's industrialized
This rapid warm-up is due to a
effect. The importance of this phe-
nations, such as the United States,
greenhouse effect: The sun's radi-
nomenon to human society can
England, West Germany, and
ant energy easily passes through
hardly be overstated. Indeed, ac-
Japan, are enjoying a quality of life
the car's windows, and some of
cording to one prominent climatol-
unsurpassed in human history. Re-
this energy is then converted into
ogist, the greenhouse effect, if
grettably, however, that lifestyle is
heat or infrared radiation. Since
uncontrolled, could wipe out civili-
being bought at enormous environ-
this radiation cannot readily escape
zation within 500 years.
mental costs. And one of these costs
back through the windows, it is
It is ironic that we ourselves are
is global warming caused by the
trapped inside, and the car warms
responsible for the climatic di-
greenhouse effect. The less-devel-
up.
lemma with which we are now
oped nations of South America, Af-
Molecules of greenhouse gases,
threatened. "Humanity is conduct-
rica, and Asia are also contributing
such as CO2, behave very much
ing an enormous, unintended, glob-
to the greenhouse problem, but on
like the glass in car windows or in
34
THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
a greenhouse. In a sense, the
year 2050 and will hike up the
greenhouse gases form a "glass
global "thermostat" about 4° C
window" over the earth. They trap
(7° F).
heat that otherwise would escape
from the earth's surface into outer
The Greenhouse Controversy
Senator
space.
It may appear that the green-
Gore
Carbon dioxide is continuously
house explanation of the global
removed from the atmosphere by
warming trend of the 1980s is uni-
In Antarctica
green plants during photosyn-
versally accepted by the scientific
thesis. On the other hand, carbon
community. This is not true. In
dioxide is gradually released back
fact, a number of highly respected
Senator Albert Gore, Jr., has
into the air when plants and ani-
climatologists are not convinced.
long been interested in the
mals respire, when organic matter
Stephen Schneider, a climatol-
earth's environment. He chaired
decays, when forests, grasslands,
ogist with the National Center for
the first congressional hearings
or any organic material is burned,
Atmospheric Research at Boulder,
on the greenhouse effect and
and when water evaporates. For
Colorado, states that the current
has introduced legislation to
thousands of years these processes
warm-up during the 1980s "doesn't
combat climate change and
were in balance, the amount of car-
prove the greenhouse effect."
ozone depletion.
bon dioxide removed from the
Schneider's views are similar to
In 1988, Gore visited Antarc-
atmosphere equaling the amount
those of Chester Ropelewski, a
tica to gather information about
entering it. Since 1860, however,
weather expert with the Climate
global warming and other envi-
atmospheric levels of CO2 have
Analysis Center in Maryland. Ac-
ronmental problems and found
risen substantially. By itself, fossil-
cording to Ropelewski, "It's still
that the Antarctic ice contains
fuel consumption is responsible for
not clear whether this is the CO₂
clear evidence of how the earth's
the annual release of 5 billion met-
signal. The hard evidence isn't
atmosphere is changing.
ric tons of carbon into the air -
there." Kenneth E.F. Watt, profes-
"Ice cores contain highly accu-
roughly one ton for each person on
sor of environmental science at the
rate information about the
earth! The rate of carbon release
University of California-Davis, has
makeup of the Earth's atmo-
from such combustion has in-
ridiculed concern about the green-
sphere year by year for tens of
creased 53-fold since 1860. The
house effect as the "laugh of the
thousands of years," Gore re-
clearing and burning of tropical
century."
ported. "From such cores, we
rain forests to make room for cattle
Despite such skepticism, how-
know, for example, that there
ranches and farms releases an addi-
ever, several highly respected
were dramatically lower levels
tional 1.6 billion tons into the air
climatologists are certain that the
of carbon dioxide in the atmo-
annually.
current warm-up of our planet is
sphere at the peak of the last Ice
Scientists have used several dif-
indeed a bona fide greenhouse sig-
Age, 20,000 years ago.
By
ferent techniques to determine the
nal. For example, in late 1988 James
contrast, the ice and snow laid
atmospheric CO2 levels of past cen-
E. Hansen of NASA's Goddard In-
down in the 1980s show levels
turies. For example, they have
stitute of Space Studies testified be-
of carbon dioxide, methane,
analyzed air bubbles trapped in
fore the Senate Energy and Natural
CFCs, nitrous oxide, and other
glacial ice and have examined
Resources Committee that "we can
gases responsible for the green-
wood from century-old trees. Since
state with 99% confidence that a
house effect higher than they
1958, CO2 levels have been con-
cause-and-effect relationship exists
have been in at least 160,000
tinuously monitored with sensitive
between the greenhouse effect and
years (as far back as the ice cores
instruments atop Mauna Loa, a
the observed warming."
measure)
13,677-foot volcanic mountain on
"Something else is different
the island of Hawaii. Another cur-
"Greenhouse" Benefits
about the ice layers from the
rent monitoring site is located at
The effects of the greenhouse
1980s - they look different to the
the South Pole station of the U.S.
phenomenon will not all be bad.
naked eye because of the thick,
Antarctic Program. Both sites are
Let's consider some of its possible
alternating layers of 'hoar' ice,
far removed from industrial areas
benefits:
apparently caused by partial
where CO2 levels would be abnor-
The cost of heating homes,
melting and recrystallization
mally high. The CO2 levels re-
stores, and factories would be
into larger granules. The scien-
corded at Mauna Loa and the South
somewhat less. According to F.
tists are as yet cautiously with-
Pole are virtually identical.
Kenneth Hare, a meteorologist at
holding judgment on whether
On the basis of such techniques,
the University of Toronto, if the
this is the clear signal of Antarc-
climatologists have determined
CO₂ level rises to 550 ppm by 2050,
tic warming that many have an-
that levels of atmospheric CO2 rose
Canadian fuel costs for heating
ticipated."
from 275 parts per millimeter
purposes could be slashed by 15%.
(ppm) in 1860 to 346 ppm in 1986
The sub-Arctic grasslands,
Source: "Postcard Antarctica: Unbear-
able Whiteness" by Albert Gore, in the
- an increase of 26%. At current
now populated largely by lem-
December 26, 1988, issue of The New Re-
rates of increase, the CO2 concen-
mings and caribou, may warm up
public.
tration will reach 550 ppm by the
sufficiently to attract not only
THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
35
human settlement, but agricultural
and industrial development as
well. Certainly an average warm-
up of 7° F or more would probably
be most welcome to the few people
who are now living in the frigid
realms of northern Canada, Scan-
dinavia, and the Soviet Union.
Some greenhouse researchers have
even suggested that millions of
Americans will emigrate to Canada
because they will find living and
working opportunities so attrac-
tive. As a result, Canada's popula-
tion, as well as its political and
economic clout, could grow enor-
mously, eventually even surpass-
ing that of the United States.
The added carbon dioxide in
the atmosphere could bring in-
creased rainfall as well as a longer
growing season; hence, agricul-
tural production should improve in
NEW
YORK
CONVENTION
&
VISITORS
BUREAU
places such as Canada, Europe,
If the level of the earth's seas rises due to melting of the polar ice caps, waterfront cities
and northeast Africa. For example,
such as New York would experience major flooding and destruction.
the 110-day growing season in
Canada's wheat belt could increase
water needs of Los Angeles for the
Hotter summers. Several of
to 160 days. As Robert Stewart, cli-
next 675 years!"
the leading weather experts in the
mate expert from Agriculture
A 3.3 foot (1 meter) rise in ocean
United States are confident that the
Canada, has said, "The green-
levels by 2035 would cause the seas
searing heat experienced in 1988
house effect is not doom and gloom
to move 100 feet (30 meters) further
was indeed the result of the green-
[for Canada] in any sense!"
inland along our nation's shores,
house phenomenon. Heat records
thus reshaping the coastline. Along
were broken and re-broken in
Harmful Effects
the Atlantic and Gulf shores, major
towns throughout the Middle
Unfortunately, most of the ef-
portions of Florida and Louisiana
West, as well as in New England,
fects of global warming would be
would be flooded. Billions of dol-
the Middle Atlantic states, and the
highly detrimental. These negative
lars of property, including homes,
far West. In Ohio, the Environmen-
effects include:
factories, chemical storage tanks,
tal Protection Agency issued an
Melting of glaciers and rising
railroads, and highways would be
ozone warning because the hot air
seas. An increase in global average
inundated. It is estimated that the
acted like a lid over Cleveland, Co-
temperature of only 4° C (7° F)
city of Charleston, South Carolina,
lumbus, and other cities and
would result in a thermal expan-
alone would sustain $650 million
caused a serious buildup of the
sion of the warmed-up sea water,
in flood damage. Boston, New
health-threatening gas. Health au-
a melting of glaciers such as the
York City, Baltimore, Norfolk,
thorities throughout the United
Antarctic ice cap, and, therefore, a
Miami, Mobile, New Orleans, and
States advised the aged and those
rise in ocean levels. Indeed, such
Houston would likely experience
with heart or respiratory problems
melting has already begun, as evi-
similar destruction. Millions of
to remain indoors and reduce their
denced by the slab of ice that broke
people would be forced to relocate;
physical activity during extreme
off from the Antarctic ice field in
human stress, anxiety, and dis-
heat waves. Despite these warn-
1987 and splashed into the Ross
comfort would be severe. The salty
ings, however, a number of heat-
Sea. So huge was this chunk - 25
water of the rising seas would
related deaths occurred.
by 99 miles in area - that its loss
gradually "invade" brackish water
More frequent and severe
actually reshaped Antarctica's
estuaries such as the Chesapeake
droughts. Suppose that the U.S.
shoreline. In fact, the Bay of
Bay, with the result being a mas-
Weather Service announced to-
Whales is now gone forever, except
sive contamination of breeding and
morrow that the nation would re-
in mapmakers' memories!
nursery habitats used by valuable
ceive 40% less precipitation than
Guy Guthrie, manager of the Na-
food fish such as red snapper,
normal during the next 100 years.
tional Science Foundation's Polar
bluefish, striped bass, and floun-
The report would send shock
Information Program, notes, "The
der. Moreover, salt water would
waves through the country. Such
size of the iceberg in human terms
seep into water-holding layers of
a drastic decline in moisture would
is staggering. If you could some-
porous rock (aquifers) and pollute
cause an environmental-agricul-
how transport it to California and
the drinking water on which mil-
tural-economic disaster of enor-
melt it, it would supply all the
lions of people depend.
mous dimensions. But such cli-
36 THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
matic trauma is precisely what is
tons per acre per year on 4.7 million
number of very intense hurricanes
predicted by Walter Orr Roberts,
acres of cropland - an area the size
that will be triggered by global
former director of the National
of New Jersey. This is triple the rate
warming. Wunsch has stated that
Center for Atmospheric Research
that soil scientists consider "toler-
"the climatic conditions associated
in Boulder, Colorado, when the
able."
with Gilbert were consistent with
greenhouse effect really takes hold.
And what of the future? Unfortu-
what you would expect to see hap-
In other words, droughts would be
nately, because of the greenhouse
pen under the greenhouse effect.
considered "normal" and could be
effect, soil scientists predict that
My gut feeling is that that is what
expected year after year.
the dust storms of the future will
we are seeing." Several other re-
An increase in the frequency
be even worse. Greenhouse expert
searchers at MIT predict that an
and severity of dust storms. The
Walter Orr Roberts writes, "The
ocean warming of only 5° F would
most-destructive soil storms in U.S.
Dust Bowl of the 1930s was the
fuel super-hurricanes that could be
history raged during the Dust Bowl
greatest climatic disaster in the na-
50% more destructive than those
era of the 1930s. Coffee-colored
tion's history. But it will seem like
of the past.
dust clouds more than a mile thick
child's play compared to the Dust
A growth in the number and
billowed darkly across central U.S.
Bowls of the 2040s."
severity of forest fires. The U.S.
prairies. On May 11, 1934, one of
More frequent and severe
Forest Service called the summer
these "black blizzards" airlifted 300
hurricanes. The energy that pow-
of 1988 the worst fire season in 30
million tons of fertile soil - an
ers a hurricane is derived from
years. That summer's drought
amount equal to the tonnage
ocean waters that have warmed up
transformed much of the nation's
scooped out of Central America to
to at least 80° F (27° C). Is it possible
timber into kindling wood, vulner-
form the Panama Canal. The soil
that 1988's Hurricane Gilbert was
able to being set ablaze by lightning
loss in this single storm was equiv-
spawned by an ocean warm-up
strikes. By midsummer, scores of
alent to the removal of 3,000 one-
caused by the greenhouse effect?
forest fires were raging in Alaska,
hundred-acre farms.
Several leading climatologists are
Idaho, California, Oregon, Utah,
Soil erosion is still a critical prob-
of that opinion. One of them is Carl
Wyoming, and Wisconsin. More
lem today. In March 1989, the U.S.
Wunsch of MIT. Wunsch believes
than 3.65 million acres - an area
Soil Conservation Service reported
that Hurricane Gilbert may have
larger than Connecticut - was re-
wind-erosion rates of at least 15
been only the first of an increasing
duced to char and smoking em-
USDA
The greenhouse effect would make forest fires, such as the ones that devastated millions of acres of U.S. forests in 1988, more common
in the future.
THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
37
"The rate of wildlife extinction will be much
greater during the sudden temperature rise of the
next century than it was in the much more gradual
thousand-year warm-ups of the past."
bers. At Yellowstone National Park
greenhouse signal. However, sci-
thermal rise, thousands of years
alone, flames seared more than a
entists predict that, as forests be-
ago, a number of warm-climate
million acres, forcing the evacua-
come hotter and drier when the
species expanded their ranges
tion of thousands of tourists who
greenhouse effect does arrive, the
northward as far as Canada. Osage
had come to watch the eruptions
forest wildfire picture in the United
oranges, for example, grew near
of Old Faithful. Fire Chief Fred
States will be much like that of
Toronto; wild pigs flourished in
Roach, who had battled such
1988, but on a regular basis, year
Pennsylvania. Of course, many
blazes for more than 20 years, told
after year.
plants and animals were not able
reporters he "had never seen any-
Wildlife extinction. Many ma-
to adjust to the thermal shift and
thing as awesome as this."
jor temperature shifts have occurred
became extinct. The crucial point
The outbreak of fires in 1988 may
during the 3-billion-year history of
is that these extinctions were
or may not have been an authentic
life on this planet. During the last
caused by a warm-up of 5° C over
Larry Ephron
The Next Ice Age
Not everyone agrees
season in so many areas. What is
Major ice ages recur on a vast
that the greenhouse
going on?
100,000-year cycle - about 90,000
will lead to worldwide
The greenhouse effect is occur-
years cold, only about 10,000 years
18-26,000
ring primarily in the tropics and
warm (with up to a couple of
warming. In fact, some
lower latitudes, where there is a lot
thousand years variation). Evi-
experts think that a
more of the sun's heat for the
dence of the past 25 of these cycles
greenhouse gases to magnify. Since
has been discovered in sea-floor
new ice age may be
the polar regions are cold and even
and polar-ice cores.
imminent. Author
dark much of the year, the green-
We are about 10,800 years into a
Larry Ephron is one
house effect is minimal there. So
warm period, one of the so-called
the greenhouse effect is resulting
such contrarian.
interglacial periods. Everything we
in the tropics becoming hotter,
call human civilization - pottery,
while the poles stay about the
agriculture, writing, cities - has
same.
been created in that brief span of
Any meteorologist can tell you
time since the last major ice age
the consequences: The hot tropical
ended and the earth warmed up
air rises faster, and cold polar air
again.
Most people assume that the
rushes in to replace it. The result
What could cause such an awe-
greenhouse effect will warm the
is higher winds, including more
some recurring cycle of ice ages?
earth's climate dramatically in com-
and bigger hurricanes and tor-
Up until recently, many scientists
ing years. There does seem to have
nadoes. These greenhouse winds
have believed that the major ice
been a slight increase in the earth's
often carry much moisture with
ages are caused by very small
average temperature during the
them, evaporated from the over-
changes in the earth's orbit and ro-
past 100 years, and the four hottest
heated tropical oceans. Carried in
tation, affecting the amount of sun-
years of the century were all in the
clouds to the higher latitudes, this
light falling on various parts of the
1980s. But winters have also been
moisture falls as increasing rain
globe. Some of these orbital move-
getting longer and colder during
during the spring and fall and as
ments do seem to cause relatively
this same period of time. Never in
increasing snow during the winter.
minor fluctuations in the earth's ice
recorded history have Northern
Thus, winters get longer and colder,
cover. But many scientists now feel
Hemisphere winters been so cold
and there are more devastating
that these variations are too small
or has snow fallen so late in the
floods in the spring.
to be the cause of major ice ages.
38
THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
a span of thousands of years.
International Law of the
3. Promote energy conservation
Today, however, greenhouse sci-
Atmosphere
by recycling paper, glass, and met-
entists predict an equivalent tem-
What can be done to mitigate the
als and using garbage and crop res-
perature rise in only 61 years.
greenhouse effect? In 1989, the En-
idues as sources of fuel.
If the global temperature does in-
vironmental Protection Agency ad-
4. Greatly expand the develop-
deed rise 5° C by 2050, the climate
vocated a number of policy options
ment of solar energy so that the
will shift poleward about 200 miles
that, in aggregate, could reduce the
use of fossil fuels can be reduced.
per century. Could wildlife keep
rate of global warming by 60%, to
5. Develop large "energy planta-
pace? Many of their natural migra-
about 1° C per century. Among the
tions" of fast-growing trees. Burn-
tion paths or escape routes would,
recommended options are the fol-
ing this wood would not result in
of course, be blocked. For exam-
lowing:
any net increase in atmospheric
ple, it would be extremely diffi-
1. Reduce CO2 emissions from
CO2, since the CO₂ released would
cult for a deer to thread its way
cars by switching from gasoline to
only equal the amount taken in by
through the urban sprawl of a
cleaner-burning fuels such as
the trees when they were alive.
major city.
methane, making more-extensive
6. Halt the destruction of forests
If the greenhouse prophets are
use of mass transit, mandating that
in the tropics.
correct, the rate of wildlife extinc-
all new cars have a minimum fuel
These measures should be pur-
tion will be much greater during
efficiency of 50 miles per gallon,
sued vigorously as soon as pos-
the sudden temperature rise of the
and eventually converting to elec-
sible, both in the United States and
next century than it was in the
tric-powered vehicles.
around the world. Since CO2 and
much more gradual thousand-year
2. Impose a CO2-user tax on all
other greenhouse gases have long
warm-ups of the past.
fossil fuels.
air-lives and disperse readily
Fifty years ago, Sir George Simp-
back into the atmosphere, where it
This time around, we're accel-
son, former head of Great Britain's
recombines with oxygen to form
erating the natural processes of
Royal Meteorological Society, sug-
large quantities of carbon dioxide.
climatic change by adding our own
gested that some source of in-
Since carbon dioxide traps more
man-made greenhouse effect: cut-
creased energy would be needed
heat from the sun, the increase
ting down the world's remaining
to move the huge amounts of mois-
creates a naturally occurring green-
forests at an ever-increasing pace,
ture that build up ice-age glaciers.
house effect, with severe climatic
burning fossil remains of long-
More recently, John Hamaker, a
consequences.
buried forests that have turned to
mechanical engineer who has been
This greenhouse effect continues
coal, oil, and natural gas, and so
studying the climate from a multi-
for tens of thousands of years,
forth.
disciplinary perspective for the
transferring more and more mois-
In 1979, Genevieve Woillard, a
past 15 years, has theorized that
ture to the growing polar glaciers
pollen specialist in France, con-
the energy to build up the ice-age
and creating an ice age. Paradoxi-
cluded from detailed studies of the
glaciers comes from a greenhouse
cally, the tropics are known to be
remains of ancient trees that the
effect.
hotter during an ice age and, ini-
shift from a warm interglacial cli-
Science has long known that a
tially, summers in temperate re-
mate to the beginning of the last
great deal of erosion by wind and
gions get hotter and hotter for a
ice age (when it became too cold
water takes place during the 10,000
while.
for fruit and nut trees to grow) took
years of each warm interglacial
Why does an ice age ever come
less than 20 years. Observing that
period. One of the major conse-
to an end? That's the last piece of
European forests now seem to be
quences of this erosion is that the
this incredible puzzle. As the
dying in a similarly precipitous
minerals in the soil get eroded
glaciers slowly advance over tens
way, she wrote that we may now
away or are leached deep into the
of thousands of years, they grind
be in a similar period of climatic
subsoil where they are no longer
up the rocks in their path into a
change and could be only a few
available to the trees and other
fine dust. This dust is carried by
years from the beginning of the
plants. As the minerals vital to
streams and blown by wind over
next ice age.
plant growth get eroded away, the
the earth. This rock dust - com-
earth's temperate-region forests
posed of vital minerals - re-
get progressively weaker and even-
mineralizes the earth's soil and
tually begin to die back. They suc-
nourishes the forests again. As the
cumb more readily to insects, dis-
forests thrive and spread, they con-
About the Author
ease, drought, and forest fires.
sume the excess carbon dioxide in
Larry Ephron is director of People for a
the atmosphere. The greenhouse
Future, author of The End: The Imminent Ice
As the forests die back, they not
Age & How We Can Stop It, and producer
only consume less carbon dioxide,
engine eventually subsides, and
of the hour-long video Stopping the Coming
but they also release the huge
another temperate interglacial pe-
Ice Age. His address is 2140 Shattuck
amounts of carbon stored in them
riod is ushered in.
Avenue, Berkeley, California 94704.
THE FUTURIST, September-October 1989
39
"The effective control of the greenhouse problem
demands a concerted international effort."
through the air from one nation to
tions, such as China and India,
crease per capita gross national
another, the effective control of the
have just launched an industriali-
product to just 15% that of the
greenhouse problem demands a
zation process that they hope will
United States. To accomplish this,
concerted international effort. To
lead to a better quality of life. How-
the nation would have to burn so
this end, the United Nations has
ever, such development is depen-
much fossil fuel that the increase
sponsored a series of conferences
dent on energy derived from fossil
in CO2 emissions would equal the
involving over 40 countries. The
fuels, the consumption of which re-
total CO2 released from all the coal
TRADI
first was held in Washington, D.C.,
leases large amounts of CO2. Cur-
currently consumed by the United
in early 1989. It is hoped that these
rently, the per capita emission of
States.
conferences will lead eventually to
CO2 by heavily industrialized na-
The world's soaring population
an International Law of the Atmo-
tions such as the United States and
is another major barrier to the inter-
sphere, with provisions for the sig-
Japan is 20 to 50 times greater than
national control of CO2 emissions.
nificant reduction of greenhouse-
that by underdeveloped nations
The number of people on earth is
gas emissions throughout the
such as China and India. Certainly
projected to double in the next half
world.
it only seems right that the poor
century. It is apparent, therefore,
Unfortunately, there are serious
nations have the same opportunity
that without creative control strat-
obstacles to the implementation of
to develop economically as did
egies emissions of CO2 will in-
such a law. One problem is that a
first-world nations. Suppose, how-
crease dramatically even if the
number of underdeveloped na-
ever, that China would like to in-
global quality of life is merely main-
tained at its present level.
Despite these formidable prob-
lems, a growing number of the
world's weather experts, environ-
Clouds and Global Warming
mentalists, and lawmakers are con-
vinced that humanity must come
Scientists are paying more at-
But if a warmer climate results
to grips with the greenhouse effect.
tention to the "wild card" in the
At a recent congressional hearing,
in more cirrus clouds - high,
Senator Max Baucus of Montana
climate system - clouds - to
thin ice clouds - the problem
determine their relationship to
could be compounded because
sounded a note of urgency: "The
global warming. Different cloud
cirrus clouds do not block sun-
Environmental Protection Agency's
formations can either prevent or
policy options report makes a com-
light and tend to trap heat near
accelerate global warming, so a
the earth.
pelling argument for action now.
crucial question is how warmer
Noctilucent clouds, the strik-
The question confronting us is, will
surface temperatures on the
ing silvery blue clouds seen on
we heed this warning?" We should
indeed - and without further
earth will affect clouds.
summer evenings only at high
Marine stratocumulus clouds,
latitudes, have been viewed as
delay. After all, "the heat is on."
which form low-lying cloud
a natural phenomenon for the
banks over the oceans off the
past century. However, Gary
west coasts of North America,
Thomas, a professor at CU-Boul-
South America, and Africa, pre-
der, now believes they are actu-
vent sunlight from reaching the
ally a signal of atmospheric
earth and therefore keep the
changes brought on by the
planet cooler. Thus, a warmer
Industrial Revolution - specifi-
climate resulting in more marine
cally, increasing levels of meth-
About
stratocumulus clouds will help
ane gas in the upper atmo-
the
prevent global warming, says
sphere.
Author
Howard Hanson, a research as-
sociate with the Cooperative
Source: University of Colorado at Boul-
Oliver S. Owen is professor of biology at the
Institute for Research in Envi-
der, Office of Public Relations, 354 Wil-
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, Eau
ronmental Sciences at the Uni-
lard Administrative Center, Campus
Claire, Wisconsin 54702. He is the editor of
versity of Colorado at Boulder.
Box 9, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0009.
Natural Resource Conservation: An Ecolog-
ical Approach, the fifth edition of which will
be published by Macmillan Press this fall.
(Lange/Cawley)
January 31, 1989
9:45 A.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
Bert
10:15 Cholum A.M.
Thank you, Dr. Bolin. Professor Obasi. Dr. Tolba.
Reifsnyder
647-4069
Delegates of the World Meteorological Congress, and the United
Nations Environment Program. Let me thank and congratulate all
of you, for taking on an issue of such great importance.
In recent years we've seen emerge the most technologically
advanced creations of man. We've also gained new -- better --
though still incomplete understanding of the most ecologically
fragile creations of nature. But whether created by man or by
survival?
nature -- what is critical to endurance is balance.
Balance will certainly be crucial to the efforts of this
Panel. For you are called upon to strike an unprecedented
international bargain: a balance between global environmental
policy, and global economic policy, where both sides benefit --
and neither is compromised.
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is economic strength, such stewardship is considered
2
a necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a
luxury.
For that reason, I believe that within this decade, we must
usher in a new era of global cooperation: for environmental
protection and economic growth. For intelligent management of
industrial and natural resources. Above all, for sustainable
development -- around the world.
Watkins/
Reilly Memo The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
to Bromley
develop policy on global climate change. We're committed to
Bernthals
speech
NPC; state international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
PAO
1216
vital that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. But in this, we must attend to what we
know. And what we do, must be done responsibly and well.
The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
Foreign 89 Policy #74
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Over the past
ipring climate chars
avid wirth
two three centuries, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
since
but
mid
19th
has gone up by 25 percent.
Atmospheric methane has doubled.
is
the
R.
What we don't yet understand are the extent and consequences
since
of the alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked
to a significant, imminent climate change. The state of our
thinking, like the state of nature, calls for balance.
Last fall, many people among them, world leaders -- were citing
3
Thatcher's
to
the
U.N.;
a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles, as evidence that
Oct 1989
global warming had arrived. But recent observations show that
the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing in size.
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise --- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists -
if not most -- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected --- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
Observing the fervor of the French Revolution, the English
"London"
poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while
the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Here, too, we
are called upon for action based on observation -- not media-
driven emotion, or the politics of apocalypse.
What science now knows with confidence, policy-makers can't
use. And what policy-makers are interested in, science doesn't
yet know.
The questions that remain -- over the reflective effects of
cloud cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans,
and other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand.
There and others,
suggest that we should attend to what is known about climate
change -- and work to know more.
4
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
Given this level of uncertainty, some suggest we should act
now, on the chance that significant climate change becomes
certain. Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any
meaningful, preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of
prohibitive expense; conflict with Third World development; and
declining standards of living, worldwide.
We're confident that the world will neither be caught
surprised by a greenhouse effect it didn't expect, nor
impoverished in anticipation of a cataclysmic warming that
never arrived.
There is a middle way that must be sought -- a balance that
must be struck -- that reconciles policy to emerging scientific
knowledge, and environmental protection to economic development.
The United States remains committed to its leadership role
on environmental issues: in our domestic programs, in our work
Dauson
to forge international agreements, in our assistance to
developing and East Bloc nations, and through our chairmanship of
the Response Strategies Working Group in the I.P.C.C.
Overall, we're already doing more than any other country
Bromley
in terms of financial and human resources, by more than a factor
X5860
of ten -- to understand and address global warming, among other
12/4/89
NYAcodemy
DOESTB
5
major environmental concerns. Funds devoted to environment-
billion. dollars.
Robertos Washing Walkins
thems
related research in our proposed 1991 budget now total over $70
sg Budget p.129 Eal
Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will
increase by nearly 60 percent in fiscal 1991, to over $1 billion.
It allows NASA to proceed with its "Mission to Planet Earth" --
and funds the launch of the first U.S. Earth Observing System, to
advance the state of knowledge about the planet we share.
Along the way, we will seek the involvement of all nations,
no matter what their level of development or economic system, to
monitor and analyze climate change, and reassess the science. We
place the highest priority on better understanding the earth and
its interrelated systems -- and developing high-performance
computing systems up to the task.
We seek immediate action, and have already taken a number of
steps that bring major benefits in their own right; that make
sense on their own merits; and that will also help reduce
emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases now building up in
the atmosphere, stimulating concern about potential climate
change. Let me outline them very briefly:
We called last year for a worldwide ban on chloro-
Dawson
flourocarbon production, to the extent safe substitutes are
6473630
available. We're working to stabilize, and reduce where
possible, both overall emissions and energy consumption. We're
actively pursuing technology development to improve the
6
effectiveness of both supply- and demand-side technologies for
energy of all kinds.
We've introduced new Clean Air Act legislation --
Legis
emphasizing clean coal technology, conservation measures, the
Affairs
trading of emissions permits, and other devices to encourage
industry to find creative, markét-driven solutions.
We're in the middle of a comprehensive review and revision
Natkins/Rerly
of our National Energy Strategy, considering our future energy
nemo
to
Promineeds in light of environmental, efficiency, and conservation
issues and developing alternative energy sources in hydro,
solar, biomass, and geothermal designs.
We're working through diplomatic channels, and through
Treasury
innovative measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than
simply reduce global deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
And here at home -- aware that new growth forests absorb
significantly more CO2 than old grove timber -- we've launched a
1sg
FY'91 Budger ma jor reforestation initiative, to plant a billion trees a year
p.122
on private land across America.
+30B in communities
The economics of our domestic strategies are now being
scrutinized in Congress. Rest assured, given our role in the
R.S.W.G., that the economics of international responses to
potential climate change will get equally intensive study.
We intend to develop real data on the costs of various
response strategies, assess new measures, and challenge other
nations to follow suit. We will also offer technical support to
those who need it.
7
In creating policy to manage CO2 and other emissions now
believed to be implicated in climate change, we want to encourage
truly innovative responses -- including the trading of emissions
permits if appropriate -- as well as a comprehensive approach
where all major emissions implicated in climate change are
included.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should
be applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
growth and free market principles in all countries. This is
where the quest for balance will be most crucial.
If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic
growth around the world, it will be important to work with, not
against, industry. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Fortune
Guatemala -- to compensate for a coal-fired plant it was building
Magazine
1/12/90
in Connecticut. The company expects to couple tree-planting
p.55 programs with all seven new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where developing nations are concerned, some suggest we'll
have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles that
allowed the industrial world to prosper. Well, we're headed in
8
the opposite direction. We intend to apply the principles of the
free market in the service of the environment -- especially in
the developing nations. Sustainable economic development demands
that we enlist the desires of the developing world, rather than
try to limit them.
The share of total emissions contributed by developing
countries is expected to rise dramatically in the future. We
3ernthats speech
understand that China plans to double its use of coal by the end
do
NPC; Sept 1989 of the century, and India plans a tripling.
late Dept PAO # 1216
To the extent we can accelerate the advancement of these and
other developing nations, it will take less energy for them to
produce wealth: Because in modern industrial countries, energy
slicy Options for
tabilizing global use per unit of Gross National Product has declined over time --
limak; EPA IFT
2 congress; /ggsteadily, and dramátically.
p.I.7.
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace. Considering technology transfer
for conservation, clean coal and renewable technologies. And
encouraging industry to assist developing nations in making
quantum leaps in technologies. That will allow (LDC's to grow
more quickly and easily -- and may help them avoid making the
environmental mistakes we older nations have made.
As I said earlier, I believe we should make use of what we
know. We know of the power of free markets to find creative
solutions. To make resources and talent more rapidly available.
We understand the efficiency of an economic incentive. We should
apply it now, in defense of the environment we share.
9
You all understand that we benefit from the greenhouse
effect -- as long as it remains in balance. Without it, the
surface of the earth would resemble that of the moon.
As you begin your Third Plenary Session, I hope the idea of
balance takes root and prospers here. Without it, the
intellectual climate may be more than a little harsh.
And just as we rely on the corrective action of the
biosphere, I hope we will learn to rely on the corrective actions
of free markets -- to give incentives and integrity to our
strategies for climate change.
I wish the three working groups the best of luck. I'm
confident that your work will be done carefully, and well -- and
that the I.P.C.C. will continue in its vital role.
Thank you ; and bless you. And good luck!
# # #
DRAFT #3
(Lange/Cawley)
January 31, 1989
2:45 P.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS:
INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
10:15 A.M.
[Bow-leene]
Refsngder
Thank you, Dr. Bolin. Professor Obasi. Dr. Tolba.
4069
Delegates of the World Meteorological Congress, and the United
Nations Environment Program. Let me thank and congratulate all
of you, for taking on an issue of such great importance.
Over the past century we've produced the most
technologically advanced creations of man. We've also gained new
understanding -- though still incomplete --- of the most
ecologically fragile creations of nature.
But unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we picked up a
bias, that has harmed both man and nature: a mistaken belief
that there is a divergence of interests -- a logical division --
between the natural world and we who inhabit it.
Nothing could be further from the truth - - or more central
to the work of this Panel. For you are called upon to strike an
unprecedented international bargain: a convergence between
global environmental policy, and global economic policy, where
both sides benefit -- and neither is compromised.
You are called upon to end to the environmental cold war.
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
2
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is economic strength, such stewardship is considered
a necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a
luxury.
are saying by
For that reason, I believe that within this decade, we must
usher in a new era of global cooperation: for environmental
protection and economic growth. For intelligent management of
industrial and natural resources. Above all, for sustainable
development -- around the world.
watkins/Restly
The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
nemo
to
develop policy on global climate change. We're committed to
Bromley
international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
vital that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. But in this, we must attend to what we
know. And what we do, must be done responsibly and well.
The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Over the past
Foreign
Policy
since
the
Industrial
Rev
spring "Climate chais
89,P.3 three centuries, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
by wirth has gone up by 25 percent. Atmospheric methane has doubled.
But 90% brown the
is
3
What we don't yet understand are the extent and consequences
of the alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked
to a significant, imminent climate change.
Last fall, many clear thinkers among them, world leaders
were citing a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles as
evidence that global warming had arrived. Recent observations
show that the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing
in size.
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise -- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists --
if not most -- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected -- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
Observing the fervor of the French Revolution, the English
poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all conviction, while
the worst are filled with passionate intensity." Here, too, we
are called upon for action based on observation -- not media-
driven emotion, or the politics of apocalypse.
What science now knows with confidence, policy-makers can't
use. And what policy-makers are interested in, science doesn't
yet know.
4
Questions remain -- over the reflective effects of cloud
cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans, and
other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand.
Those questions, among others, suggest that we should attend to
what is known about climate change -- and work to know more.
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
Given this level of uncertainty, some suggest we should act
now, on the chance that significant climate change becomes
certain. Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any
meaningful, preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of
prohibitive expense; conflict with Third World development; and
declining standards of living, worldwide.
We're confident that the world will neither be caught
surprised by a greenhouse effect it didn't expect, nor
impoverished in anticipation of a cataclysmic warming that
never arrived.
There is a middle way that must be sought -- a symmetry that
must be reached -- that reconciles policy to emerging scientific
knowledge, and environmental protection to economic development.
The United States remains committed to its leadership role
Dawson
on environmental issues: in our domestic programs, in our work
647-
3638
to forge international agreements, in our assistance to
developing and East (X Bloc nations, and through our chairmanship of
5
Dawson
the Response Strategies Working Group in the I.P.C.C.
Steve Olson
Overall, we're already doing more than any other country --
X5860
in terms of financial and human resources, by more than a factor
of ten - - to understand and address global warming, among other
major environmental concerns. Funds devoted to environment-
Robert
Mathios
related research in our proposed 1991 budget now total over $70
DUE
billion. dollars.
Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will
usg Budget, FY'91
p.129
increase by nearly 60 percent in fiscal 1991, to over $1 billion.
It allows NASA to proceed with its "Mission to Planet Earth" --
and funds the launch of the first U.S. Earth Observing System, to
advance the state of knowledge about the planet we share.
Along the way, we will seek the involvement of all nations,
no matter what their level of development or economic system, to
monitor and analyze climate change, and reassess the science. We
place the highest priority on better understanding the earth and
its interrelated systems -- and developing high-performance
computing systems up to the task.
We seek immediate action, and have already taken a number of
steps that bring major benefits in their own right; that make
sense on their own merits; and that will also help reduce
emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases now building up in
the atmosphere, stimulating concern about potential climate
change. Let me outline them very briefly:
6
Chris Dawson
We called last year for a worldwide ban on chloro-
state
flourocarbon production, to the extent safe substitutes are
Policy
647-3638
available. We're working to stabilize, and reduce where
possible, both overall emissions and energy consumption. We're
actively pursuing technology development to improve the
effectiveness of both supply- and demand-side technologies for
energy of all kinds.
We've introduced new Clean Air Act legislation --
Legislative
Affairs
emphasizing clean coal technology, conservation measures, the
trading of emissions permits, and other devices to encourage
industry to find creative, market-driven solutions.
Natkins/Reilly We're in the middle of a comprehensive review and revision
memo to
Dr
Bromicy of our National Energy Strategy, considering our future energy
needs in light of environmental, efficiency, and conservation
issues --and developing alternative energy sources in hydro,
solar, biomass, and geothermal designs.
We're working through diplomatic channels, and through
hris Dauson state
innovative measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than
Depl647-3635
simply reduce global deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
And here at home -- aware that new growth forests absorb
signifícantly more CO2 than old grove timber -- we've launched a
major reforestation initiative, to plant a billion trees a year
usg FY'91 budget
on private land across America.
30B
in
communities
p.122
The economics of our domestic strategies are now being
scrutinized in Congress. Rest assured, given our role in the
7
R.S.W.G., that the economics of international responses to
potential climate change will get equally intensive study.
We intend to develop real data on the costs of various
response strategies, assess new measures, and challenge other
nations to follow suit. We will also offer technical support to
those who need it.
In creating policy to manage CO2 and other emissions now
believed to be implicated in climate change, we want to encourage
truly innovative responses -- including the trading of emissions
permits if appropriate -- as well as a comprehensive approach
where all major emissions implicated in climate change are
included.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should
be applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
growth and free market principles in all countries. This is
where ending the environmental cold war will be most crucial.
If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic
growth around the world, it will be important to work with, not
against industry. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
Fortance
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Guatemala -- to compénsate for a coal-fired plant it was building
1/12/96
8
in Connecticut. The company expects to couple tree-planting
obtells
programs with all seven new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where developing nations are concerned, some suggest we'll
have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles that
allowed the industrial world to prosper. Well, we don't see it
that way. We intend to apply the principles of the free market
in the service of the environment -- especially in the developing
nations. Sustainable economic development demands that we enlist
the desires of the developing world, rather than try to limit
them.
The share of total emissions contributed by developing
countries is expected to rise dramatically in the future. We
r
Bernthalinderstand that China plans to double its use of coal by the end
pecchess clubx
the century, and India's use may triple.
Hate qt 89 Dept + 1216
To the extent we can accelerate the advancement of these and
other developing nations, it will take less energy for them to
produce wealth: Because in modern industrial countries, energy
Options
unit óf Gross National Product has declined over time --
and dramatically.
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace. Considering technology transfer
for conservation, clean coal and renewable technologies. And
encouraging industry to assist developing nations in making
quantum leaps in technologies. That will allow developing
nations to grow more quickly and easily -- and may help them
9
avoid making the environmental mistakes we older nations have
made.
As I said earlier, I believe we should make use of what we
know. We know of the power of free markets to find creative
solutions. To make resources and talent more rapidly available.
We understand the efficiency of an economic incentive. We should
apply it now, in defense of the environment we share.
Just as we rely on the corrective action of the biosphere, I
hope we will learn to rely on the corrective actions of free
markets -- to give incentives and integrity to our strategies for
climate change.
Let me wish the three working groups the very best of luck.
I'm confident that your work will be done carefully, and well --
and that the I.P.C.C. will continue in its vital role.
Thank you -- and God bless you.
# # #
Draft #4
(Lange/Cawley)
January 31, 1989
7:00 P.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
10:15 A.M.
Thank you, Dr. Bolin. Professor Obasi. Dr. Tolba.
Reifsnyder
Delegates of the World Meteorological Congress, and the United
647-4069
Nations Environment Program. Let me thank and congratulate all
of you, for taking on an issue of such great importance.
Over the past century we've produced the most
technologically advanced creations of man. We've also gained
new understanding -- though still incomplete -- of the most
ecologically fragile creations of nature.
But unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we picked up a
bias, that has harmed both man and nature: a mistaken belief
that there is a divergence of interests -- a logical division --
between the natural world and we who inhabit it.
Nothing could be further from the truth -- or more central
to the work of this Panel. You are called upon to strike an
unprecedented international bargain: a convergence between
global environmental policy, and global economic policy, where
both sides benefit -- and neither is compromised.
You are called upon to end the environmental cold war.
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
2
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is economic strength, such stewardship is considered
a necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a
luxury.
For that reason, I believe we must usher in a new era of
global cooperation: for environmental protection and economic
growth. For intelligent management of industrial and natural
resources. Above all, for sustainable development -- around the
world.
Vatkins/Reilly memo The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
to
Bromley develop policy on global climate X change. We re committed to
X
x
X
X
X
international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
vital that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Since the mid-
oreign Policy
X
1800s, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up
pring 89,p3
X
climate,
by 25 percent.
chaos
by
D.
wirth
3
What we don't yet understand is the extent of the
alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked to a
significant, imminent climate change.
Thatcher
speech Last fall, many clear thinkers -- among them, world leaders
to the UN
-- were citing a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles as
Oct, 1989
evidence that global warming had arrived. Recent observations
show that the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing
in size.
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise -- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists --
if not most -- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected -- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
When he was observing the fervor of the French Revolution,
the English poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all
Tammy
conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate
intensity." Here, too, we are called upon for action based on
observation -- not media-driven emotion, or the politics of
apocalypse.
Questions remain, about the reflective effects of cloud
cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans, and
other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand.
4
Those questions, among others, suggest that we should attend to
what is known about climate change -- and work to know more.
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
In the search for answers, the United States continues to
lead the world. We're seeking hard data and new ways to improve
the science. Because what science now knows with confidence,
policy-makers can't use. And what policy-makers need to make
decisions, science doesn't yet know.
In spite of the uncertainty, some suggest we should act now,
on the chance that significant climate change becomes certain.
Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any meaningful
preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of prohibitive
expense; conflict with Third World development; and declining
standards of living, worldwide.
I believe we can do better. There is a middle way, that
matches policy to emerging scientific knowledge -- and reconciles
environmental protection to economic development.
With every word, with every decision made here, we're also
making a committment that is profoundly personal. I think all of
us understand, deep inside, how the actions we take now speak to
the future.
5
Last week, in my State of the Union address, I spoke of
stewardship. I believe it's something we owe our children and
grandchildren -- because the earth we stand upon is only
borrowed, never owned.
hris Dawson
So the United States remains committed to a leadership role
state Dept
policy
X
on environmental issues. In our domestic programs. Our work to
647-3638
X
X
forge international agreements. Our assistance to developing and
X
X
East Bloc nátions. And here, by leading the Response Strategies
Working Group.
Overall, we re already doing more than any other country to
understand and address global warming -- in terms of financial
and human resources, by more than a factor of ten.
I just proposed a budget to our Congress for fiscal 1991
Robert
that devotes a total of over [$70] billion to environment-related
Mathios
DUE
work. Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will
15g Budget FY "91
X
X
increase by nearly 60 percent, to over $1 billion.
p.129
X
That will allow NASA to move forward with its "Mission to
Planet Earth" -- and will fund the launch of the first U.S. Earth
Observing System, to advance the state of knowledge about the
planet we share.
We ve already taken many steps that bring major benefits in
their own right. Steps that make sense on their own merits, and
Chris Dawson
that will also help reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other
gases now building up in the atmòsphere. Let me outline them
very briefly:
usually single dont nt
gases
6
Dawson We
want to stabilize -- and reduce wherever we can -- both
our energy consumption and our total emissions.
So we're
pursuing new technology development. Working on a revised Clean
Legis!
AFF
Air Act with incentives for industry to find creative, market-
driven solutions. Working out a comprehensive review and
Notkins/Reilly mematkins
revision of our National Energy Strategy. And launching a major
reforestation initiative to plant a billion trees a year on
sg Frat budgetz
private land across America.
30
We're also working through diplomatic channels, and through
innovative measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than
hrs
simply reduce global deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
The economics of our response strategies to climate change
are getting intensive study. We intend to develop real data on
the costs of various response strategies, assess new measures,
and challenge other nations to follow suit. We will offer
technical support to those who need it.
And as we work to create policy to manage CO2 and other
emissions, we want to encourage the most innovative responses.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should be
applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
growth and free market principles in all countries. This is
where ending the environmental cold war will be most crucial.
If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic
growth around the world, it will be important to work with, not
against industry. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
7
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
p.55
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Guatemala -- to compensate for a coal-fired plant it was building
in Connecticut. The company expects to couple tree-planting
programs with all seven new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where developing nations are concerned, some suggest we'll
have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles that
allowed the industrial world to prosper. In fact, we think it's
all the more important in the developing countries, to apply the
principles of the free market in the service of the environment.
To the extent we can accelerate the advancement of these and
other developing nations, it will take less energy for them to
produce wealth: in modern industrial countries, energy use per
unit of Gross National Product has declined over time --
alobal 2pt 2/89
to
steadily, and dramatically.
Engress,
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace, considering technology transfer,
and encouraging industry to assist developing nations in making
This pawsa
quantum leaps in technologies. That will allow developing
nations to grow more quickly and easily -- and may help them
avoid making the environmental mistakes we older nations have
made.
continuew
8
As I said earlier, I believe we should make use of what we
know. We know that free markets find creative solutions. We
understand the efficiency of economic incentive. Our challenge
now is to apply that knowledge, in defense of the environment we
share.
Just as we are coming to understand the natural mechanisms
and symmetry of the planet that supports us, I hope we will also
learn to rely on the corrective action and natural wisdom of free
markets: they can bring integrity to our strategies for climate
change.
Let me wish the three working groups the very best of luck.
I'm confident that your work will be done carefully and well --
and that the I.P.C.C. will continue in its vital role.
Thank you -- and God bless you.
# # #
Draft #5
Staffed Copy
(Lange/Cawley)
February 1, 1989
10:45 A.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
10:15 A.M.
Thank you, Dr. Bolin [Bo-leen]. Professor Obasi. Dr.
Tolba. Delegates of the World Meteorological Congress, and the
United Nations Environment Program. Let me thank and
congratulate all of you, for taking on an issue of such great
importance. The decisions this organization makes will have a
profound effect on
the world's environmental and economic policy.
In the post-war era, we've produced the most technologically
advanced creations of man. We've also gained new understanding
-- though still incomplete -- of the most ecologically fragile
creations of nature.
But unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we picked up a
bias, that has harmed both man and nature: a mistaken belief
that there is a divergence of interests -- a logical division --
between the natural world and we who inhabit it.
Nothing could be further from the truth -- or more central
to the work of this Panel. You are called upon to strike an
unprecedented international bargain: a convergence between
global environmental policy, and global economic policy, where
both sides benefit -- and neither is compromised.
You are called upon to end the environmental cold war.
2
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is economic strength, such stewardship is considered
a necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a
luxury.
For that reason, I believe we must usher in a new era of
global cooperation: for environmental protection and economic
growth. For intelligent management of industrial and natural
resources. Above all, for sustainable development -- around the
world.
The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
develop policy on global climate change. We're committed to
international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
vital, that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Since the mid-
3
1800s, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up
by 25 percent.
What we don't yet understand is the extent of the
alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked to a
significant, imminent climate change.
Last fall, many clear thinkers --- among them, world leaders
-- were citing a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles as
evidence that global warming had arrived. Recent observations
show that the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing
in size
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise -- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists --
if not most ---- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected -- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
When he was observing the fervor of the French Revolution,
william Yats
the English poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all
conviction, while the worst are filled with passionate
intensity." Here, too, we are called upon for action based on
observation -- not media-driven emotion, or the politics of
apocalypse. The decisions being made are too important to be
compromised intellectually -- or polarized politically.
4
Questions remain: about the reflective effects of cloud
cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans, and
other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand.
Those questions, among others, suggest that we should attend to
what is known about climate change -- and work to know more.
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
In the search for answers, the United States continues to
lead the world. We're seeking hard data and new ways to improve
the science. Because what science now knows with confidence,
policy-makers can't use. And what policy-makers need to make
decisions, science doesn't yet know.
In spite of this uncertainty, some suggest we should act
now, on the chance that significant climate change becomes
certain. Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any
meaningful preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of
prohibitive expense; conflict with Third World development; and
declining standards of living, worldwide.
I believe we can do better. There is a reasoned middle
ground, that matches policy to emerging scientific knowledge --
and reconciles environmental protection to economic development.
With every word, with every decision made here, we're also
making a committment that is profoundly personal. I think all of
5
us understand, deep inside, how the actions we take now speak to
the future.
Last week, in my State of the Union address, I spoke of
stewardship. I believe it's something we owe our children and
grandchildren -- because the earth we stand upon is only
borrowed, never owned.
So the United States remains committed to a leadership role
on environmental issues. In our domestic programs. Our work to
forge international agreements. Our assistance to developing and
East Bloc nations. And here, by leading the Response Strategies
Working Group.
Overall, we're already doing more than any other country to
understand and address global warming -- in terms of financial
and human resources, by more than a factor of ten.
I just proposed a budget to our Congress for fiscal 1991
2Bin New spending
*
that devotes a total of over [$70] billion to environment-related
work.
Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will
increase by nearly 60 percent, to over $1 billion.
RoB Roinweather
That will allow NASA to move forward with its "Mission to
OMB X6827
Planet Earth" -- and will fund the launch of the first U.S. Earth
X
Observing System, to advance the state of knowledge about the
planet we share.
We've already taken many steps that bring major benefits in
their own right. Steps that make sense on their own merits, and
that will also help reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other
6
gases now building up in the atmosphere. Let me outline them
very briefly:
We want to stabilize -- and reduce wherever we can -- both
our energy consumption and our total emissions. So we're
pursuing new technology development. Creating a revised Clean
Air Act with incentives for industry to find creative, market-
driven solutions. Working out a comprehensive review and
revision of our National Energy Strategy. And launching a major
reforestation initiative to plant a billion trees a year on
private land across America.
We're also working through diplomatic channels, and through
innovative measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than
simply reduce global deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
The economics of our response strategies to climate change
are getting intensive study. We intend to develop real data on
the costs of various response strategies, assess new measures,
and challenge other nations to follow suit. And we will offer
technical support to those who need it.
As we work to create policy to manage CO2 and other
emissions, we want to encourage the most innovative responses.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should be
applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
growth and free market principles in all countries. But we will
break the hold of the environmental cold war only through
dialogue -- through a shared commitment to consensus.
7
If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic
growth around the world, it will be important to work with, not
against industry. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Guatemala -- to compensate for a coal-fired plant it was building
in Connecticut. And the company expects to couple tree-planting
programs with all of the new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where developing nations are concerned, some suggest we'll
have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles that
allowed the industrial world to prosper. In fact, we think it's
all the more crucial, in the developing countries, to apply the
principles of the free market in the service of the environment.
To the extent we can accelerate the advancement of these
nations, it will take less energy for them to produce wealth: in
modern industrial countries, energy use per unit of G.N.P. has
declined over time -- steadily, and dramatically.
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace, considering technology transfer,
and encouraging industry to assist developing nations in making
quantum leaps in technologies. That will allow developing
8
nations to grow more quickly and easily -- and may help them
avoid making the environmental mistakes we older nations have
made.
As I said a moment ago, I believe we should make use of what
we know. We know that the future of the earth cannot be
compromised. We bear a sacred trust in our tenancy here -- and a
covenant with those most precious to us: our children, and
theirs.
We also know of the efficiency of economic incentive -- and
that free markets yield the most creative solutions. We must now
apply the wisdom of the market, in defense of the environment we
share. It is time to heal this false schism. It is time to put
an end to the environmental cold war.
Working together, with good faith and earnest dialogue, I
believe it can be done. But more important: We know it must be
done.
Thank you -- and God bless you.
# # #
Lange & Cawley's I's
(Lange/Cawley)
February 1, 1989
10:45 A.M.
[IPCC.DOC]
PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS: INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1990
10:15 A.M.
O.?
Thank you, Dr. Bolin [Bo-leen]. Professor Obasi.
Dr.
Tolba. Delegates of the World Meteorological
Congress,
and the
United Nations Environment Program. Let me thank and
congratulate all of you, for taking on an issue of such great
importance. The decisions this organization makes will have a
profound effect on the world's environmental and economic policy.
In the post-war era, we've produced the most technologically
advanced creations of man. We've also gained new understanding
-- though still incomplete -- of the most ecologically fragile
creations of nature.
But unfortunately, somewhere along the way, we picked up a
bias, that has harmed both man and nature: a mistaken belief
that there is a divergence of interests -- a logical division --
between the natural world and we who inhabit it.
Nothing could be further from the truth -- or more central
to the work of this Panel. You are called upon to strike an
unprecedented international bargain: a convergence between
global environmental policy, and global economic policy, where
both sides benefit -- and neither is compromised.
You are called upon to end the environmental cold war.
2
This will be possible only if we understand that economic
growth and environmental integrity are not contradictory
priorities. One reinforces and complements the other.
A sound environment is the basis for the continuity and
quality of human life and enterprise. And strong economies allow
nations to fulfill the obligations of environmental stewardship.
Where there is economic strength, such stewardship is considered
a necessity. But where there is poverty, it is too often a
luxury.
For that reason, I believe we must usher in a new era of
global cooperation: for environmental protection and economic
growth. For intelligent management of industrial and natural
resources. Above all, for sustainable development -- around the
world.
The United States believes the I.P.C.C. is the best forum to
develop policy on global climate change. We're committed to
international cooperation on this issue. And we consider it
vital, that the community of nations is drawn together -- in an
ordered, rational way -- to assess the potential for climate
change.
The state of the science; the social and economic impacts;
and the right response strategies: all are crucial components to
a global resolution. The stakes here are very high.
There is no question that human activities are changing the
atmosphere in unexpected and unprecedented ways. Since the mid-
3
1800s, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone up
by 25 percent.
What we don't yet understand is the extent of the
alterations we've brought about -- and how they're linked to a
significant, imminent climate change.
Last fall, many clear thinkers -- among them, world leaders
-- were citing a significant thinning of sea ice at the poles as
evidence that global warming had arrived. Recent observations
show that the polar ice sheets are not melting, they're growing
in size.
I'm not prepared -- academically, or otherwise -- to draw
conclusions. But I have noticed something about the scientists
drawing the conclusions.
Those who see climate change as a clear and present danger
represent one distinct minority. Those who discount it
completely, represent another minority. But many scientists ---
if not most -- are not ready to claim that the extent of global
climate change can now be reliably detected -- or predicted.
That may be to their credit.
When he was observing the fervor of the Russing Revolution,
Ivish
Butter Yeats
the English poet William Blake wrote, "The best lack all
conviction, while the worst are filled full with passionate
of
intensity." Here, too, we are called upon for action based on
observation -- not media-driven emotion, or the politics of
apocalypse. The decisions being made are too important to be
compromised intellectually -- or polarized politically.
4
Questions remain: about the reflective effects of cloud
cover, the cooling effects and CO2 absorption of oceans, and
other sinks and feedback mechanisms we don't yet understand.
Those questions, among others, suggest that we should attend to
what is known about climate change -- and work to know more.
Current computer models are marvels of mathematics. Still,
they cannot yet be said to represent reality -- and cannot be
expected to predict the future. Above all, responsible policy
cannot rest on the shifting sands of hypothesis and a chaos of
conjecture.
In the search for answers, the United States continues to
lead the world. We're seeking hard data and new ways to improve
the science. Because what science now knows with confidence,
policy-makers can't use. And what policy-makers need to make
decisions, science doesn't yet know.
In spite of this uncertainty, some suggest we should act
now, on the chance that significant climate change becomes
certain. Others point to the opposite edge of that sword: any
meaningful preemptive policies would bring only the certainty of
prohibitive expense; conflict with Third World development; and
declining standards of living, worldwide.
I believe we can do better. There is a reasoned middle
ground, that matches policy to emerging scientific knowledge --
and reconciles environmental protection to economic development.
With every word, with every decision made here, we're also
making a committment that is profoundly personal. I think all of
5
us understand, deep inside, how the actions we take now speak to
the future.
Last week, in my State of the Union address, I spoke of
stewardship. I believe it's something we owe our children and
grandchildren -- because the earth we stand upon is only
borrowed, never owned.
So the United States remains committed to a leadership role
on environmental issues. In our domestic programs. Our work to
forge international agreements. Our assistance to developing and
East Bloc nations. And here, by leading the Response Strategies
Working Group.
Overall, we're already doing more than any other country to
understand and address global warming -- in terms of financial
and human resources, by more than a factor of ten.
I just proposed a budget to our Congress for fiscal 1991
dollars
with $2 billion in new spending to protect the environment.
Funding for the U.S. Global Change Research Program will increase
by nearly 60 percent, to over $1 billion. dollars
That will allow NASA to move forward with its "Mission to
Planet Earth" -- and will fund the launch of the first U.S. Earth
Observing System, to advance the state of knowledge about the
planet we share.
We've already taken many steps that bring major benefits in
their own right. Steps that make sense on their own merits, and
that will also help reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other
6
gases now building up in the atmosphere. Let me outline them
very briefly:
We want to stabilize -- and reduce wherever we can -- both
our energy consumption and our total emissions. So we're
pursuing new technology development. Creating a revised Clean
Air Act with incentives for industry to find creative, market-
driven solutions. Working out a comprehensive review and
revision of our National Energy Strategy. And launching a major
reforestation initiative to plant a billion trees a year on
private land across America.
We're also working through diplomatic channels, and through
innovative measures like debt-for-nature swaps, to do more than
simply reduce global deforestation. We hope to reverse it.
The economics of our response strategies to climate change
are getting intensive study. We intend to develop real data on
the costs of various response strategies, assess new measures,
the power n,
and challenge other nations to follow suit. And we will offer
technical support to those who need it.
As we work to create policy to manage CO2 and other
of
emissions, we want to encourage the most innovative responses.
Wherever possible, we believe that market mechanisms should be
applied -- and that policy must be consistent with economic
growth and free market principles in all countries. But we will
break the hold of the environmental cold war only through
dialogue -- through a shared commitment to consensus.
7
If we hope to promote environmental protection and economic
growth around the world, it will be important to work with, not
against industry. That will mean moving beyond the tradition of
command, control, and compliance -- toward a new kind of
environmental cooperation. Many industries, in fact, are already
providing crucial research and solutions. And a few are already
ahead of us.
One power-plant management firm, just across the river in
Virginia, donated $2 million in 1988 for tree planting in
Guatemala -- to compensate for a coal-fired plant it was building
in Connecticut. And the company expects to couple tree-planting
programs with all of the new power plants now on its drawing
boards.
Where developing nations are concerned, some suggest we'll
have to abandon the laissez-faire, free-market principles that
allowed the industrial world to prosper. In fact, we think it's
all the more crucial, in the developing countries, to apply the
principles of the free market in the service of the environment.
To the extent we can accelerate the advancement of these
nations, it will take less energy for them to produce wealth: in
modern industrial countries, energy use per unit of G.N.P. has
declined over time -- steadily, and dramatically.
So we need to work with the developing nations: Applying
the power of the marketplace, considering technology transfer,
and encouraging industry to assist developing nations in making
quantum leaps in technologies. That will allow developing
8
nations to grow more quickly and easily -- and may help them
avoid making the environmental mistakes we older nations have
made.
As I said a moment ago, I believe we should make use of what
we know. We know that the future of the earth cannot be
compromised. We bear a sacred trust in our tenancy here -- and a
covenant with those most precious to us: our children, and
theirs.
We also know of the efficiency of economic incentive -- and
that free markets yield the most creative solutions. We must now
apply the wisdom of the market, in defense of the environment we
share. It is time to heal this false schism. It is time to put
an end to the environmental cold war.
Working together, with good faith and earnest dialogue, I
believe it can be done. But more important: We know it must be
done.
Thank you -- and God bless you.
###
Add
-maeta framework
- white House mtg.
THE GREENHOUSE BLUES
Keep Cool About Global Warming
DIXY LEE RAY
T
he year 1988 ended on a high note of hysteria,
radiation to penetrate. When that warms the surface,
one that was to continue well into 1989. The issue,
infrared heat is radiated back. The "greenhouse gases"-
fueled by an unusually hot, dry summer, was global
carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane, hydrocarbons—
warming. NASA's James Hansen testified at a Senate
all absorb longwave (infrared) radiation. This process
hearing that the high temperatures presaged the onset
moderates the surface temperature. Let us therefore
of the long-debated "greenhouse effect" and global
rejoice and be glad that the Earth does indeed function
warming due to buildup of carbon dioxide in the at-
as a greenhouse!
mosphere. Forgotten were the harsh winters of 1978
In addition, the greenhouse gases are all produced
(when barges carrying coal and heating oil froze in river
by nature as well as by human activity. For example,
ice and more than 200 people lost their lives in the
carbon dioxide comes from the respiration of all living
cold weather) and 1982.
things, and from forest fires, decaying vegetation, and
Memory is a capricious thing. Perhaps the early winter
volcanoes, as well as from humans burning fossil fuel.
months of 1989 will remind prophets of global warming
The total amount divides about 50/50 between what
that nature can be fickle. Only days after Time magazine
nature produces and what people can be blamed for.
featured as its "Man" of the Year for 1988 a doomed
Hydrocarbons come from growing plants, especially
Planet Earth, perishing from human mismanagement
evergreens such as the pines and firs that cause the "blue
and greenhouse overheat, Alaska experienced the worst
haze" of the Great Smoky Mountains and other areas
cold in its history. Twenty locations in our most northerly
where coniferous forests abound. Hydrocarbons also
state recorded their lowest-ever temperatures, mainly in
come from various industrial activities and incomplete
the range of -50 to -65 degrees Fahrenheit. The cold did
combustion in automobiles. Both hydrocarbons and
not begin to move south until the first week in February,
methane enter the atmosphere from the "burping" of
when it seeped down from Alaska on both sides of the
COWS and other ruminants. The contribution of hydrocar-
Rocky Mountains, bringing near-record lows to the
bons to our air is also about evenly divided between
Pacific Northwest and throughout the Midwest, south to
nature and human activities. Methane comes from
Texas, and eventually to the mid-Atlantic and New
swamps, termites, coal mines, and rice paddies. Ap-
England states. Proponents of the "greenhouse-effect-is-
proximately 90 percent of methane comes from nature
here-global-warming-has-begun" theory were very quiet
and only about 10 percent from human activity.
during these weeks.
Contrary Computer Models
Seeing Infrared
These gases have always been present in the atmos-
To be fair, even if there is a potential for increased
phere, but in total they have been increasing during the
temperatures due to enhancement of the greenhouse
last century. Carbon dioxide, the most carefully
effect, no one would expect it to occur all at once or
measured, has increased 25 percent since the Industrial
without intervening cold spells. So let us examine the
Revolution. The current rate of increase in carbon
situation more closely.
dioxide plus the other greenhouse gases is about 1
Earth, with its blanket of atmosphere, constitutes a
percent a year. Assuming this rate continues, the amount
"greenhouse." This fact has never been at issue. Indeed,
of greenhouse gases will double in this century.
were it not for the greenhouse function of air, the Earth's
According to the leading computer models of climate
surface would be like the moon's, bitterly cold (-270
degrees Farenheit) at night and unbearably hot (+212
DIXY LEE RAY was formerly Democratic governor of Washington
degrees) during the day. Although the amount of solar
state and chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, a precursor
energy reaching the moon is similar to that reaching the
to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. This article is excerpted
Earth, the Earth's atmosphere permits incoming solar
from a forthcoming book on the excesses of environmentalism.
70
Policy Review
Although Mitch Snyder admits his numbers are meaningless, Ernest Hollings and Jim Wright cited them this year as fact.
less than 50 percent (less than 1-to-1), and six of these
policymaking, but to all policymaking.
were less than 30 percent. The one study that found a
An inaccurate count of the homeless, high or low,
ratio higher than 50 percent adds less fuel for the
diverts attention from the condition of the people who
homeless advocates' fire than one might imagine. Over
need help. To devise effective treatment programs for
a six-month period during 1985-86, sociologist Peter
the mentally ill homeless, who account for about one-
Rossi of the University of Massachusetts' Social and
third of the homeless population, it is essential to know
Demographic Research Institute conducted a stratified
just how many of these tragic individuals there are. The
random sample of street homeless on Census blocks in
problems of homeless alcoholics are far different from
Chicago (a separate count had been conducted of the
those of homeless mothers with young children, and
city's shelters). City authorities assisted Rossi in dividing
"advocates" who disparage research about their numbers
blocks into those with a high probability of encountering
are doing a serious injustice to the people they ostensibly
a homeless person, and those with a low probability.
are trying to aid.
Interviewers then searched all possible sites where the
For better or worse, Mitch Snyder's aggressive con-
homeless might be found. During autumn months, the
tempt for facts has set the tenor for the homeless move-
street-to-shelter ratio was 59 percent; during the colder
ment. His meteoric rise in stature has been an inspiration
winter months, the figure declined to 27 percent. Rossi,
for heightened political involvement among an irrational
a pioneer in social research methods, estimated the total
social type for whom strident moral appeals, often tinged
number of Chicago's homeless to be between only 3,700
with religious symbolism, can and must substitute for
and 6,000.
good research. Such people reject more than "good
One local study that generously allowed for the pos-
data." They reject the very rational-positivist basis of
sibility of not detecting the concealed homeless still
science-that problem definition precedes solution; that
counted many fewer homeless than the Community for
facts precede values; and that means and ends are in-
Creative Non-Violence maintains. According to a full
timately linked. In this sense, Snyder's remark about
count of street and shelter people conducted by the
Americans having "Western little minds" is more than a
University of the District of Columbia's Center for Ap-
little self-revealing.
plied Research and Public Policy, the maximum number
Snyder sounded the opening salvo of a national speak-
of homeless in Washington, D.C., in July 1985 was 7,142.
ing tour in mid-April, announcing to a church group in
The author, Frederic Robinson, obtained this figure by
Harrisonburg, Virginia, "they [Congress] know we're
weighting the actual street count upward by 2.5; without
facing the worst domestic crisis the country has ever
this inflation, the figure would have been 4,347. In either
faced. And all that stands between that happening and
case, the total is well below the 1980 Hombs-Snyder
not is money. Affordable housing disappears, because
Washington estimate of 15,000.
if the federal government doesn't build affordable hous-
ing, nobody does." Of course, one might respond that
Why Numbers Matter
unsubsidized private enterprise has been responsible for
Advocates for the homeless have made an art form of
most of the more than 12 million housing completions
deflecting questions about their inflated and often ab-
this decade, that the nonprofit sector has initiated suc-
surd estimates, either by denying the validity of lower
cessful, low-cost housing rehabilitation programs nation-
estimates, questioning the competence or the sensitivity
wide, that there were homeless people before HUD's
of researchers who obtain them, or denying altogether
budget cuts, and that a strong economy is still the best
the importance of accurate measurement. As a result,
defense against a housing depression. Snyder would view
the perception of millions of neglected homeless roam-
making such points as foot-dragging, an excuse for con-
ing the streets has gathered wide currency, abetted by a
tinuing neglect, as the number of homeless climbs to
news media that has given advocates a nearly free ride,
four million, five million, and God-knows-what beyond.
regularly indulging their grand gestures such as hunger
Ironically, this manipulation of issues and statistics into
strikes without subjecting their assertions to reasonable
a giddy, evasive, and yes, McCarthyist game will do little
scrutiny. This situation is harmful not only to housing
for the people who most need help: the homeless.
Summer 1989
69
scientists, the rise in carbon dioxide concentration since
the middle of the 19th century should have caused
measurable warming of 1 to 5 degrees centigrade (2 to
9 degrees Fahrenheit). But it hasn't! The temperature
has oscillated and the overall rise is in the range of 0.3
to 0.7 degrees centigrade. (Nobody knows what has
happened in the Southern Hemisphere, which is 90
percent ocean, because oceanic temperature measure-
ments are so scarce.)
Recall that the public furor started June 1988, when
NASA scientist James Hansen testified in the U.S. Senate
that the greenhouse effect was here and changing the
climate. He said he was 99 percent sure of it and that
"1988 would be the warmest year on record unless there
is some remarkable, improbable cooling in the
remainder of the year." Well, there was. (Ask them in
Washington State Tourism Division
Alaska!) While Hansen was testifying, the eastern tropical
Pacific Ocean cooled drastically. The temperature
dropped 7 degrees quite suddenly and is now at near-
Volcanoes such as Mount St. Helens are responsible
record lows. No one knows why. The phenomenon is
for some of the increase in carbon dioxide.
called La Niña, to contrast it with the warmer El Niño
current. Such cooling has occurred 19 times in the last
year cycle of volcanic activity, which may have something
102 years. But Hansen didn't consider La Niña because
to do with the carbon dioxide increase. The quantity of
his computer model didn't take sea temperatures into
air-polluting materials produced by man during his en-
account even though sea water covers 73 percent of
tire existence on Earth does not begin to equal the
Earth's surface. When a NASA scientist talks "global" it's
quantities of toxic gases and particulates spewed forth
hard to imagine that he would ignore 73 percent of the
into the atmosphere from just three volcanic eruptions:
globe's surface-but he did.
Krakatau in Indonesia in 1883, Mount Katmai in Alaska
Another possible explanation for the absence of the
in 1912, and Hekla in Iceland in 1947. Mount St. Helens
warming predicted by the computer models: both carbon
pumped out 910,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide
dioxide and water vapor have several absorption bands
during six months in 1982, not including the eruption.
besides the infrared. While longwave (infrared) radia-
tion may be kept in, some shorter waves of the incoming
Switch to Nuclear
solar radiation may be kept out (by the combined effect
Despite the uncertainty about whether we are now
of carbon dioxide and water) so that less heat becomes
experiencing global warming, it is prudent to reduce the
available to be trapped in the first place. Nature has many
production of greenhouse gases through human activity.
feedback and self-regulating mechanisms of which this
Because no one really knows what the ultimate conse-
is only one.
quences of the increases in carbon dioxide and other
greenhouse gases might be, we should reduce man's
Eddy's Sun Spots
contribution wherever possible. While there is no need
There also may be cosmic forces at work that influence
to take draconian measures that would damage our
Earth temperatures more than does the greenhouse
standard of living, there are several things we can do.
effect. John Eddy of the National Center for Atmospheric
For starters, we can phase out the use of fossil fuel for
Research has found an interesting correlation between
generating electricity and turn to technology with no
decades of low sunspot activity and cold periods such as
the "Little Ice Age" of the 17th century, when there was
a virtual absence of sunspot activity between 1645 and
We should do what we can to
1715. (During the winter of 1683-84, recorded in the
novel Lorna Doone, the trees of Somerset could be heard
reduce our own carbon
bursting in the cold.) Conversely, Eddy found that
decades of high sunspot activity coincided with warm
temperatures on Earth. If Eddy's theory holds up, the
dioxide contribution-proper
high solar activity of the mid-20th century accounts for
the period's unusual warmth, and Earth may soon enter
stewardship of the Earth
a slow return to colder temperatures. (Ice ages recur
about every 10,000 to 12,000 years, and it is now 11,000
demands nothing less.
years since the last one.)
While most environmentalists blame deforestation
and the burning of fossil fuel for the carbon dioxide
known adverse impact on the atmosphere-nuclear
increase, they generally fail to take into account the role
power. We can shift to an essentially all-electric economy.
of volcanoes in affecting the composition of the atmos-
We can turn, once again, to electric buses and trains and
phere. We are currently near the peak of a 500-to-600-
eventually to electric automobiles. For air travel we could
Summer 1989
71
demands nothing less.
To do so, we need not be panicked into precipitous
and costly "corrective" actions that only reduce our stand-
ard of living. We can phase out fossil fuels-replacing
them with nuclear power and other fuels such as
hydrogen-in a deliberate, responsible way. We can also
plant lots of trees.
Apocalypse No
A final note on the supposedly dire consequences of
a global temperature rise of 1.5 to 4.5 degrees centigrade
over the next 50 years: Such a climate change, should it
occur, is not nearly so drastic a change for humans as a
move by an Alaskan to Palm Springs. Elevated tempera-
tures would have greater impact on agriculture and
vegetation in general. But with plants, temperature is
hardly the only determinant of growth. Perhaps as im-
portant are the duration and quality of light (latitude is
significant here), soil moisture, and the amounts, timing,
and duration of rainfall, and the possibilities for irriga-
Reforestation is far more effective in carbon dioxide
tion. A warmer Earth-and the changes in rainfall that
reduction than preservation of existing forests.
might accompany it-would make some areas of
farmland more fertile or less fertile than today. But that
replace fossil fuels with hydrogen. New ceramics
hardly constitutes global environmental doom.
materials and ceramics-metal compounds can overcome
Nor do the predictions of melting ice caps and pos-
the former problem of embrittlement resulting from the
sible inundation of low-lying areas. Most weather
absorption of hydrogen into metal. Recent advances in
specialists predict that a global temperature rise of 1.5
storage technology promise to ease the necessity for
to 4.5 degrees centigrade-enough to dislodge Antarctic
large, heavy, high-pressure, low-temperature hydrogen
ice submerged under the surface-would cause the sea
storage tanks.
level to rise by one and a half to four and a half feet.
Should this happen, a number of cities would be vul-
Sapling Hopes
nerable to flooding of the sort that Venice and Holland
We can also take advantage of photosynthesis to ab-
have coped with for centuries. Some beachfronts would
sorb carbon dioxide and producé oxygen. Those who
be gradually moved back a few miles, and some people
urge preservation of old growth, or "climax," forests on
would have to move. The inconvenience of all this should
the basis of their contribution to the oxygen-carbon
not be minimized, but it is hardly apocalypse.
dioxide balance in the atmosphere overlook the fact that
Is a global warming on the way? Maybe sometime, but
old trees metabolize far less rapidly than young ones
it is not here now. Why do so many people believe in
(like humans and most living things). Indeed, old trees
the dire forecasts? Perhaps the historian Hans Morgen-
contribute little to removing carbon dioxide or produc-
ing oxygen, whereas a forest of young trees will remove
carbon dioxide from the air at a rate of five or six tons
per acre. Reforestation, therefore, is far more effective
High solar activity, not the
in carbon dioxide reduction than is preservation of
existing forests. We should also vastly increase the use of
greenhouse effect, may
plants in urban areas, where air pollution is usually worse
account for the unusual
than in rural regions.
In considering possible carbon dioxide mitigating
warmth of the mid-20th
actions, it is important to keep in mind that these steps
are feasible for an advanced, highly technical industrial-
ized society with plenty of electricity. Around the world,
century.
however, fossil fuel burning will inevitably continue for
many years. In China, for example, 936 million metric
tons of coal were burned in 1987-88. Who is going to tell
thau was right when he wrote in 1946, "The intellectual
them to stop or to change? What alternatives do they
and moral history of mankind is the story of insecurity,
have? No matter what we do in the United States, or even
of the anticipation of impending doom, of metaphysical
throughout the Western world, the carbon dioxide from
anxieties." John Maddox, editor of the British journal
man-made sources is bound to rise. Should global warm-
Nature, says, "But these days there also seems to be an
ing occur, it is estimated that no nation, acting alone,
underlying cataclysmic sense among people. Scientists
could affect it by more than 10 percent. We should
don't seem to be immune to this."
nevertheless do what we can to reduce our own carbon
Well, they ought to be. What the greenhouse debate
dioxide contribution-proper stewardship of the Earth
needs most is a dose of healthy skepticism.
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Policy Review