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Jewish World Review August 26, 2005 / 21 Av, 5765 Global Warming Controversy vs. Health By Drs. Michael A. Glueck & Robert J. Cihak
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Everybody agrees that climate has changed in recent centuries and will
almost certainly change in the future.
"What to do?" it is the question.
In the past, humans moved to better climates. At one time, Greenland
supported vineyards and thousands of people. Not today. Everybody moved out.
Climate has changed a lot lately, judging from data
encoded in Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, ocean floor sediments, tree
rings and other records.
Long cold periods interspersed with significantly warmer periods dominate the long term climate pattern. Today, we're into one of these warm periods
(appropriately called "interglacial") between long ice ages.
Many years ago, judging from the Antarctic ice core taken
at the Vostok station, Antarctica was more than 5 degrees Centigrade (or 8
degrees Fahrenheit) colder than today.
Many factors are important in climate change patterns, including tectonic
continental drift, ocean currents, cosmic rays, sunspots, insulating
"greenhouse" gases in the atmosphere and other factors. The most important
of these greenhouse gases is water vapor. Carbon dioxide is less important.
Most scientists believe that climate will continue to warm up a bit in the
next several decades. Given our limited knowledge of the factors causing
climate change, no one seems able to predict the degree of future warming or
cooling accurately, judging from the different predictions made by different
scientists.
Would the suggested treaties and laws cause a significant change in global
climate? If the whole world achieved the drastic changes in energy use and
lowered carbon dioxide generation to the degree called for by the 1997 Kyoto
Protocol, scientists estimate the global cooling produced would be less than
0.1 degree C. by the year 2050. This is unlikely to produce a detectable
change in the course of future global climate.
But, if fully implemented in the United States, adherence to the Kyoto
protocol would cut our GDP by at least $400 billion every year for the
foreseeable future, or $1,000 for every man, woman and child. This much
money means a lot to most people, especially the poor.
In other words, the Kyoto protocol won't make a significant difference in
future climate and therefore doesn't make much sense.
Here in the United States, Senators McCain, Lieberman and Bingaman are
pushing for legislation that would cut the projected increase in global
warming even less but would cost less. This makes even less sense.
Finally, different states and even cities are proposing legislation to limit
carbon dioxide generation; such local efforts can only be expensive in terms
of human health and well-being and will have no impact on climate. This is
crazy.
Let's get back to square one. Wealthy is healthy. People's health and lives
are better, longer, more productive and more fun in wealthy societies than
in poor ones.
All the proposed measures to combat global warming are harmful and very
expensive. They would diminish the resources available to adapt to climate
change or any other new challenge. But that would make us less healthy.
Should we gamble on the possibility that making ourselves poorer today might
make us better off 50 years from now? Or, should we develop and compound our
health and wealth to be better able to meet whatever the future might hold?
We find it much better to devote resources to improving human health and
economic conditions than to waste them in futile efforts to "save the
glaciers."
These climate control proposals can only degrade human health and conditions
of life for the foreseeable future.
Someday, our children and grandchildren will look back on these days and see
the current global warming scare as another example of the foolishness of
humankind, perhaps at the hand of "climatic fundamentalists." Let's hope the
global warming scare is just a footnote to history and has not caused
another great disaster visited on our children and grandchildren.
Editor's Note: Robert J. Cihak wrote this week's column.
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Michael Arnold Glueck, M.D., is a multiple award winning writer who comments on medical-legal issues. Robert J. Cihak, M.D., is a Discovery Institute Senior Fellow and a past president of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons. Both JWR contributors are Harvard trained diagnostic radiologists. Comment by clicking here. © 2005, |
Mitch Albom | |||||||||||
