Is The Global Warm Turning?

For years climate scientists have been telling us just what the environmentalists have wanted: Global warming is real and more research is needed.

Actually that last bit about “more research” is my little contribution. That is because it pretends to understand what scientists are thinking. I imagine it is something like this: “My Land! There’s gold in them thar hills. Ahem, yes. GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL! Now, can I have my next climate change grant approved, please.”

But now Kenneth Green in NRO thinks that the worm has turned.

Environmentalists, who have long espoused a version of humankind as an energy-powered cancer on the Earth, see greenhouse-gas controls as a way to starve out the tumor of humanity. Many scientists, unable to look beyond linear thinking, can’t get past the idea that the only answer to change is to impose stability.

Of course, tree researcher Daniel Botkin in Discordant Harmonies deals rather firmly with the stability theory. The climate of the earth fluctuates in all times scales, according to his research.

Up to now scientists have bought into the self-help solution of the environmentalists, to put mankind on a energy diet as repentance for its sins. But now some of them are changing their tune.

On April 18, a group of 90 scientists wrote an open letter to Canada’s prime minister observing that “Advances in climate science . . . have provided more evidence supporting the need for action and development of a strategy for adaptation for projected changes.” The group goes on to emphasize that as “mitigation measures will become effective only after many years . . . adaptive strategies are essential and must begin now.”

Notice the words “action” “development,” and “begin now.”
You can see why the scientists might be changing their tune. They are not fools. They can see that an adaptive strategy on climate change could mean a lot to them. It could mean: Jobs; Research; Startups; Money, power and the love of beautiful women. Yes, scientists can play both sides of the street on this one. And why not? The only thing that matters to a scientist is where the next grant is coming from.

The adaptive strategy, in case you didn’t know, is the policy of President Bush and the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Signatories to the partnership included Australia, India, Japan, the People’s Republic of China, and South Korea, as well as the United States—in other words, everyone that matters.

Do you think that President Bush might have figured the scientists out?