Bush is right to wait on climate change

Princeton students have never been accustomed to sitting on their hands and passively waiting for something to resolve itself. Perhaps this is why so many of us are so impatient when it comes to policy issues, and feel such a need to be activists. Our president, though, is of a different sort on at least one issue: global climate change. President Bush appears to instead be what we might call an inactivist on global warming. Rather than working furiously to solve the problem now, it seems that he would prefer to quietly wait and research new technology, rather than jumping in with a solution. This is an approach somewhat similar to that of President Coolidge, who once commented that, "When you see 10 problems rolling down the road, if you don't do anything, nine of them will roll into a ditch before they get to you." Global warming is most likely one of these problems, rolling nicely into a ditch, that isn't worth the effort to solve.

First, let's look at the nature of the problem. United Nations climate models predict an approximate increase in average global temperature of 2-5 degrees Celsius. This is a significant increase, certainly. But do those models succeed in predicting the warming of the last century? That is how science should be done; the models must check against reality before they can have predicted value. But they tend to mispredict the last hundred years. Climate science is not set in stone yet, and there are still great uncertainties. There may be a "consensus" of scientists that global warming exists and is severe, but that isn't how science is done. The real question is whether or not our predictions are grounded in reality — and they aren't to any certainty.

Maybe, then, there won't even be significant warming. But even if there is, how do we know it will be a bad thing? A study in the Oct. 2, 1998 issue of Science showed that global temperatures increased by approximately 20 degrees Fahrenheit in 50 years, 12,500 years ago. This is far more significant than the warming predicted in the next hundred years. In other words, warming of far greater severity has happened in the past with no ill effects. Warming could even have positive effects. The warming seen thus far has mostly occurred among nightime and wintertime temperature measurements, and such a warming could lengthen growing seasons, moderate harsh winters, and otherwise have benefits. Who knows, maybe warming is desirable. But we just don't know.

What can we do about warming? The most prominent treaty to combat greenhouse gas emissions was the Kyoto treaty, rejected 95-0 by the United States Senate. Kyoto would have mandated a decrease of greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. This would put severe pressure on an economy heavily dependent on fossil fuels. What would it do for warming? By the same models predicting 2-5 degrees Celsius of warming over the next century, it would cut that to about 1.99-4.99 degrees Celsius of warming. Kyoto does nothing. So we can't do that.

We could instead propose a new, more severe cut in greenhouse gas emissions. However, the more severe the cut in greenhouse gases, the more severe the economic hit of such regulation would be. The hit could be moderated by pollution credit systems, but it would still be a hit if greenhouse gas emissions are capped. And economics aren't just about money; an economic depression would mean greater hunger and famine in America, and the effects would reverberate to the third world. Countries dependent on foreign aid would lose that aid in an American depression, and starvation would most likely occur.

So these are our apparent options: do nothing and hope the problem goes away, with significant chances that either the warming is nonexistent or will have a positive effect, or pass stringent regulations to severely dampen the American economy. We can do a little more, though; while waiting to see if global warming will be a problem, we can do research on technology to slow warming. We do not have the technology to switch to renewable energy sources at the moment, but with improved hydrogen fuel cells, more efficient solar power, and possibly some holy grail energy source like nuclear fusion, we could have a reliable alternative to fossil fuels. And possibly some even more extreme solution could be found — a method of increasing the Earth's albedo (the amount of light reflected by the atmosphere) would decrease warming. The best course of action, therefore, is to quietly wait, research new technology, and hope things turn out for the better. This is essentially the Bush policy on climate change To paraphrase an often-used slogan, don't just do something, stand there (and think!)

Brian Beck is an electrical engineering major from Beachwood, Ohio.