Copyright 1998 THE DAILY TELEGRAPH (London)
Editorial: "Hot Air and Dogma"
August 13, 1998

About 130,000 years ago, hippos bathed in the tropical eddies of the Thames. In the 13th century, the climate was warm enough to support extensive vineyards in the north of England. So we should be wary of assertions by Vice President Al Gore that July was the hottest month since records began, and even warier of his claims that greenhouse gas emissions are leading to a catastrophic change in our environment. While it may be good Calvinism to blame everything from the scorching heat in Texas to the Yangtse River floods on the excesses of mankind, it is not rooted in good science. If there is any consensus among climate experts, it is that net global warming occurs through the effect of milder winters in the cold regions of the far north and far south. The frost in Siberia is less severe, but the temperature in Texas is not affected. As Mr. Gore must surely have been told by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, this year's heat wave in the world's mid-latitudes has nothing to do with the putative greenhouse effect. It is almost certainly caused by El Nino, a cyclical phenomenon that revisits the world every 15 years or so.

We know that the global climate is warmed and cooled over time by natural changes in the brightness of the sun. Beyond that, we can only speculate. Scientists do not possess computer models sophisticated enough to determine exactly what car exhausts and factories are doing to the climate. All that science can say is that the world's average temperature has risen by somewhere between 0.3 and 0.6 degrees centigrade over the last century. Two-thirds of this warming occurred before 1940, yet most of the increase in pollution has taken place after that date. The more we learn the harder it is to posit a direct relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and rising temperatures.

We should be thankful, perhaps, that Mr. Gore has confined himself to rhetorical extravaance while in office, rather than using executive power to force the cause of green revolution outlined in his book, Earth in the Balance. As Vice-President, he has found himslef having to explain to the rest of the world why the United States is balking at ratification of the Kyoto climate agreement. He, of course, sees it as a major embarrassment, and blames the Republicans in Congress. We would prefer to see this obduracy as a triumph of good sense and intellectual rigour. Americans refuse to take premature action on emissions because in the United States, at least, there is a serious debate going on about the science of global warming. In Europe, dogma prevails.