INSIGHTS

A MISPLACED EFFORT
Climate-change research strategy will do little to avert a real tragedy

BY BETTE HILEMAN

The Bush administration's latest plan for climate-change research is currently being reviewed by the National Research Council (NRC). Although review committee members found many deficiencies in the original version of the plan released in July, they are more satisfied with the second draft. However, the committee still finds fault with its ambitious timetables and the fact that there is little or no money to implement the plan.

	USDA PHOTO

But even if the plan were perfect and money were available over the next decade to carry out every one of its projects, it would still do little to address the climate-change problem. The plan considers adaptation to global warming but only obliquely mentions what might be done to halt or slow it.

Except for a brief statement about carbon sequestration--burying carbon dioxide in geological formations or absorbing it in forests and soils--the strategy does not discuss research on any technologies that could be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Nor does it consider methods of persuading people that in their private lives they should curb their use of fossil fuels.

For this reason, many scientists, including some on the NRC panel, consider the strategy a step backward. They ask, what good will it do? If the review committee finally approves the plan, the Administration will say panel members also believe that there are major uncertainties in climate-change science that should be eliminated before the government requires sharp cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.

Although there are important research questions, the evidence that human activities are causing climate change is as certain as science gets in almost any area, committee members say. It is time to develop additional technologies for emission reductions and act to deploy them, rather than spending the bulk of climate-change research dollars on unanswered questions.

Like many scientists who are observing what is happening with climate, I believe we as a society do not have 10 or 20 years to wait before taking strong action on greenhouse gases. Earth is sending us a message. Arctic ice is melting at an accelerating rate. In 2002, globally the second warmest year on record, summer ice coverage in the Arctic shrunk more than ever. A large Arctic ice shelf that had been stable for at least 3,000 years broke loose over the past two years. Arctic winds in July and August are balmy. Alaska--5.4 °F warmer than it was 30 years ago--now has thunderstorms, unheard of until recently.

In July, the World Meteorological Organization declared that warming of the atmosphere and oceans is making droughts, floods, and heat waves more extreme across the globe. Earth's biological systems are already changing as temperatures rise. With droughts and balmier winters, bark beetles have proliferated, expanding their geographic range, killing and turning to kindling millions of trees in North America. From a small plane flying over Alaska, one can see the work of the spruce bark beetle: patches of brown stretching for miles into the wilderness. In this situation, tree thinning is hopeless as a panacea for forest fires.

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The evidence that human activities are causing climate change is as certain as science gets in almost any area.

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The U.S. eastern states had twice the normal amount of rain this summer, while some parts of Kansas had no rain at all until late August, when several inches fell in one day. Europe's grain harvest dropped precipitously because of drought and record-high temperatures, and global per capita grain production is at its lowest level in 30 years.

Although these unusual conditions could have occurred without elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, they are exactly the kinds of tropical extremes that models project will prevail in a greenhouse world. If we wait decades before taking action, Earth may be locked into a new climate mode that cannot be reversed for centuries.

The U.S., which is responsible for one-quarter of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, is the only developed country that spends most of its global-change research dollars on reducing uncertainties rather than on technologies to cut emissions and plans for convincing businesses and individuals to curb their use of fossil fuels. The U.S. and Russia are the only industrialized nations that have not ratified the Kyoto protocol.

As I was listening to the NRC panel discussions in late summer, I imagined scientists in an airplane studying climate change high above Earth. They have a perfect research plan and are meticulously investigating atmospheric composition as greenhouse gases build up around them. They have money enough to finish their research in two decades.

Below the plane, a tragedy is unfolding on the ground. The scientists can see it happening. They know some things that could be done to slow or even stop it. But almost none of those things are being done. The research under way in the skies, even when complete, will do absolutely nothing to prevent that tragedy.

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