In a recent Public Forum, Frank Tivnan unleashed a virulent attack on how the Clinton administration is dealing with global warming. He disgorged a cadre of numbers outlining the economic woe we will all surely face if we take global warming seriously. Seriously, meaning if we ensure that carbon emissions are limited to 1990 levels by the year 2010.
Interestingly, Tivnan's doomsday numbers were supplied by Global Climate Coalition, an umbrella lobbying group for the fossil fuel industry, US auto manufacturers and other energy companies. The GCC has relentlessly attempted to block international agreements for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Not surprisingly, Tivnan is also executive director for the Massachusetts Petroleum Council, and the last thing the petroleum industry wants people to know is that their products cause global warming. The petroleum industry would prefer that people buy as much gas as possible, drive the least efficient cars, and ignore the fact that according to a United Nations statement in 1996, "the balance of evidence suggests a discernible human influence on global climate."
History repeats itself. Several years back, industry advocates warned us that passage of the Clean Water and Clean Air acts would wreak economic havoc on Americans. We were warned that jobs would be lost and economic growth stymied. That never happened, however, and today our air and water are cleaner because the industries had to clean up their act.
Unfortunately, global warming is quite real. It is happening now, and evidence is ample. Carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere measured 280 parts per million before the Industrial Revolution. Today, that amount is 360 ppm. The increased carbon dioxide levels cause the Earth to radiate less heat into space, trapping it below.
A glance at the weather maps is alarming. Monthlong heat waves in Texas, India, and Africa. Droughts and fires in Australia, Malaysia, Mexico, Nicaragua, Cyprus and East Africa. The Melbourne area recently had its driest 13-month period on record, and forest fires consumed more than one million hectares of Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Deadly floods in Korea and China have cost billions of dollars. Rising ocean levels have increased worldwide coastal erosion. Torrential rain and melting snow combined to cause landslides and severe flooding in January in California, Idaho, Nevada and Oregon. Flash floods forced the evacuation of 125,000 people, and destroyed or badly damaged 24,000 houses and several hundred square kilometers of farmland. Economic losses have been estimated at $ 2 billion.
The year 1995 was the warmest since 1856. Glaciers worldwide have shrunk 11 percent, (those in the Alps 50 percent). Dermatologists in Australia and the United States have also seen an explosion in cases of the deadly skin cancer melanoma.
The list goes on, and the culprit is global warming.
The economic cost of continued global warming is vast. Disease, vanishing land, storms, droughts and floods will hurt regional and global economies. The cost of preventing global warming is, comparatively, a small one, and limiting carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels is an important first step. America needs to take the helm in the battle against global warming, and must insist that the new industrial giants of the Far East also take the necessary steps. The agenda of the petroleum industry has always been a singular one. Profit before the environment. Don't forget it!Ray Gregoire is a software engineer and president of Trivium Inc. in Boston's South End.
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