The truth about global warming
The year was 1994 and the vice president was convinced rising temperatures were responsible for recent floods in the Mississippi River Valley.
He invited Wallace, a distinguished climate researcher from the University of Washington, to join a small group of scientists for a breakfast discussion in Washington, D.C.
As Gore sipped Diet Coke, Wallace nervously left the eggs on his own plate untouched.
“It was one of the more awkward audiences I’ve ever had,” he recalled with a chuckle. “I was trying, in a polite way, to tell him he was coming on too strong about global warming.”
Like many of his peers, Wallace wasn’t convinced greenhouse gases were altering the world’s climate, and he thought Gore was straining scientific credibility to score political points.
More than a decade later, Wallace still won’t blame global warming for any specific heat wave, drought or flood — including the recent devastating hurricanes. But he no longer doubts the problem is real and the risks profound.
“With each passing year the evidence has gotten stronger — and is getting stronger still.”
1995 was the hottest year on record until it was eclipsed by 1997 — then 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003 and 2004. Melting ice has driven Alaska Natives from seal-hunting areas used for generations. Glaciers around the globe are shrinking so rapidly many could disappear before the middle of the century.
As one study after another has pointed to carbon dioxide and other man-made emissions as the most plausible explanation, the cautious community of science has embraced an idea initially dismissed as far-fetched. The result is a convergence of opinion rarely seen in a profession where attacking each other’s work is part of the process. Every major scientific body to examine the evidence has come to the same conclusion: The planet is getting hotter; man is to blame; and it’s going to get worse.
“There’s an overwhelming consensus among scientists,” said UW climate researcher David Battisti, who also was dubious about early claims of greenhouse warming.
Yet the message doesn’t seem to be getting through to the public and policy-makers.
Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, calls global warming “the greatest hoax ever perpetuated on the American people.” Novelist Michael Crichton’s “State of Fear” landed on the best-seller list this year by depicting global warming as a scare tactic of diabolical tree-huggers. A Gallup Poll in June found only about half of Americans believe the effects of global warming have already started.
At the G8 summit of world leaders this summer, President Bush acknowledged man is warming the planet. But he stood alone in opposition to mandatory emissions controls, which he called too costly.
“There’s a huge disconnect between what professional scientists have studied and learned in the last 30 years, and what is out there in the popular culture,” said Naomi Oreskes, a science historian at the University of California, San Diego.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle Times:
The truth about global warming