"The precautionary principle says, 'if the scientific evidence is incomplete, you shouldn't do anything to make the situation worse.' It should not be 'if you don't understand everything, you should shut up and do nothing."

---taken from: Hileman, Bette. "Case Grows For Climate Change." Chemical and Engineering News. 9 August 1999: 16-23.

Those who are calling for immediate action to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases recognize the financial and social costs involved with this proposal and argue that the stakes are much too high to just wait or do nothing at all. Even with immediate action, warming trends are likely to continue well into the next century. Naysayers argue that too many questions remain to justify investing money in solutions. This has been the attitude of the US government in recent years-- that it would be cheaper to adapt to climate change rather than restructure the whole energy system (Whyte 175). A powerful coalition of companies have worked for years to slow any efforts to control global warming pollution, claiming that efforts to reduce emissions would be too expensive. Michael Boskin, chairman of the Bush administration's Council of Economic Advisors, has said that cutting emissions by 20 percent would, for no reason, cost the US "trillions of dollars" (qtd in Newton 101). This argument, however, blatantly ignores the huge economic and human costs of living with the impacts of a warming planet.

And yet there are those who believe that nothing need be done at all--- that even if the global warming argument is true, there is no realistic way to deal with it. The only solution, some advocates suggest, is "for humans to learn to live on a slightly warmer planet and adjust to the new problems..." (Newton 19). Ludicrous as it may sound, others believe that the future will fix itself. In his "Global Warming: More Than Just Hot Air?," Thomas Gale writes, "We can predict [that] future generations will have better technology at their disposal, that they will be wealthier, and that they will live longer. They will certainly be in a better position to deal with adverse climate changes than we are today" (1). He goes on to say that sooner or later technology will advance and Third World countries will grow, making the world more capable of coping with change. This 'live and let die' position, along with all of the scientific "uncertainties" that many argue against, is what is keeping us from making that first step towards putting the Earth back in balance.

Recently, the EIA's 1998 emission figures show that US industry has made some surprising progress in reducing CO2 emmisions. Fossil fuel use in 1998 fell 1.4% from the 1997 level, even as the gross domestic product grew 3.9% (Hileman 23). Similar trends can be seen around the world, showing a disconnection between economic stability and carbon emissions. If this falling trend continues, it could show that cutting back will not be as hard as previously thought. As global temperatures continue to rise, the costs too expensive to contemplate will be the costs of doing nothing.

A Global Issue

"Global climate change is the supertanker environmental issue; it can potentially affect our values, our behavior, our social structures, and our instituitions, which like a supertanker are slow to form, slow to stop, and slow to change."

--- Thomas G. Lambrix, chairman of the Global Climate Coalition
taken from: Lambrix, Thomas G. "Global Climate Change: A Retrospective View From Business." Greenhouse Glastnost: The Crisis of Global Warming. Minger, Terrell J., ed. New York: Ecco Press, 1990. 49-63.

If governments all over the world decided to do everything that they could in the next few years to stabilize global climate, major changes would need to be made in order to improve energy efficiency dramatically, and phase out the use of chloroflourocarbons and other heat-trapping chemicals. Yet in preparation for an uncertain climate, the international community has faltered under economic and political pressure not to rush into actions that may hinder industry and economic growth. For example, at the United Nations Summit of Global Warming in Berlin on March 28, 1995, representatives of more than 130 nations met to try to negotiate a legally binding process to reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. A final compromise plan, called the Berlin Mandate, won approval in early April 1995. It called for specific timetables and targets for greenhouse gas emissions reductions to be established by 1997 and to take effect after 2000. But as it became clear that most countries would miss the 2000 target, a rebellion against the whole idea of cuts, started by oil-exporters Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, spread to Australia and the United States. Industries that depend on fossil fuels launched huge lobbying campaigns, claiming that targets would cost jobs. In November 1997, under pressure from industry and Congress, President Clinton postponed the stabilization of emissions in the Unites States until 2012 and ruled out real cuts before 2017.

A key issue in all international negotiations is the fact that even if industrialized countries are able to constrain their reliance on fossil fuels, developing countries will want to continue to exploit this energy source, and who are the industrialized nations to deny them this opportunity? (Claudine Schneider 108) These nations ask why then should they be asked to cut back on industrial processes that produce CO₂ emissions, when such production is their best hope for progress (Newton 23). The role of deforestation as a factor in climate change has been another area of great dispute in the arena of international compromise. Deforestation is a highly sensitive issue among developing countries. Some of these nations claim that wood is a natural resource critical to their economic well-being and argue that developed nations have no right telling them how to use their own resources.

Political Games: Toying with the Future

"It boggles the mind that our forest have become pawns in the political chess games played in...the Northern Hemisphere...[Malaysia is not going to keep its trees] in custody for those who have destroyed their own forests and now try to claim ours as a part of the heritage of mankind."

---Wen Lian Ting, Malaysia's leading representative to the Earth Summit--1992
qtd in: Newton, David E. Global Warming: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara: Instructional Horizons, 1993.

Although research on the topic of the forests as storage areas for CO₂ had been going on for decades, the US government did not seem interested in this topic until the Kyoto talks in 1997. At that time, a paper was published concluding that forests and soils of North America, especially those below the 51st parallel, were absorbing as much or more carbon than the US was emitting from burning fossil fuels. (Fan et al. 442) Based on this paper, US policymakers tried to focus on preserving the forests (not cutting emissions) as a great, economical way to offset emissions reduction targets. At one point in the Kyoto meetings, the US delegation threatened to walk out of negotiations if this idea was not included. However, in 1998, two more groups, one in Australia and one in France--- completed a similar research and came to different conclusions, with US forests taking up much less CO₂ than previously found.

The Kyoto Protocol, negotiated in December 1997, set targets for developed countries to reduce their emissions. At a meeting in Buenos Aires, negotiators of the original treaty reunited to specify how and when these reductions will take place. As sessions concluded, "the U.S. signed the protocol amid much fanfare," writes Nemecek (14). This was mainly "a ceremonial act, because the US is not bound by the treaty unless the Senate ratifies it," and opposition to the treaty is so strong that "the Clinton administration will not be sending it to Capitol Hill for a vote anytime soon" (Nemeck 14). Most members of Congress seem to agree with the view of Representative Jim Sensenbrenner (Wisconsin) that the Kyoto Protocol "poses a severe threat to the vitality of the US economy in the form of drastic energy price increases, job losses in key manufacturing industries, and an overall decline in our standard of living" (Hileman 23). It is this view from our leadership that is resulting in government inaction-- the US has made little progress toward meeting its goal to reach 7% below 1990 greenhouse gas levels by 2012 (Hileman 23).

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