Mia Sullivan
Staff Writer
The United Nations recently came out with a report stating that human activity is causing global warming.
“Our use of fossil fuels like oil and gas, our agricultural activities, and the other ways we exploit our planet have all produced heat-trapping greenhouse gases.”
Supposed facts contained in this report, however, contradict its premise. For example, the thesis of the report is that human activity is to blame for global warming, but the evidence suggests that temperatures will continue to increase over the next few centuries, regardless of changes in human activity, such as decreasing greenhouse gas emissions.
Earth is going through a period of global warming. This is not unique. Throughout history, Earth has always either been going through a period of warming or cooling. In fact, during the 1970s The New York Times published alarmist articles about how the Earth was, at that time, getting colder.
The unique thing about this period of global warming is that critics of the United States have attempted to turn it into a political issue. These critics claim, without solid scientific proof, that the reason for the current period of global warming is the activity of humans, and in particular humans in the United States. They claim that carbon dioxide emissions from American vehicles and American industries are the main cause of global warming.
These critics also claim— also without any scientific proof— that putting severe restrictions on American industry and American vehicle usage can reverse the current trend of global warming. While it is not known whether such severe restrictions would have any effect on global warming, it is obvious that they would have devastating economic consequences in the United States.
The Kyoto Treaty, which sets targets for limiting greenhouse gas emissions, is the icon of these critics. They claim similarly severe restrictions would not be placed on less-developed nations. In other words, under elementary rules of economics, the industry that would be shut down in the United States would simply rise up in one of these less-developed countries, regardless of the incentives placed on less-developed nations to develop in eco-friendly ways.
Nevertheless, the myth that the Kyoto Treaty would somehow solve global warming has become very popular with elites and the mainstream media. In a recent speech in Switzerland, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., criticized his own country as an “international pariah” because, among other things, it had “walked away” from the Kyoto Treaty.
Kerry neglected to mention, however, that as a Senator he joined in the 95-0 vote against ratifying the Kyoto Treaty in 1997. And, of course, the man who claims he was elected president in 2000, Al Gore, is now making a career out of claiming that global warming will cause global catastrophe within the next 30 years or so.
Just as Earth has survived periods of global warming and global cooling for billions of years, chances are that it will survive this period of global warming, as well as the doomsday messengers, Kerry and Gore. In any event, we should not destroy large segments of the U.S. economy in an uncertain attempt to control the forces of nature.
Such common sense, however, will not stop the media from demanding that the U.S. government, “do something” about global warming even if they cannot predict whether any particular measure will be effective. According to U.N. Environmental Program head Achim Steiner, “there’s no excuse for the public to sit back and do nothing.”
An Associated Press headline from Feb. 2, however, describes the recent U.N. report on the subject: “Global warming unstoppable: scientists hoping for fast government action.”
Apparently global warming is unstoppable, yet something needs to be done about it.
02-08-2007