BUENO COLUMN: It will be costly to presume global warming is fact

By Ellen Bueno, Capital Newspaper columnist

It's frustrating when you have an important decision to make but can't get the facts you need to decide wisely.

The U.S. Senate is going to vote on the cap-and-trade bill eventually, based on what they think their constituents want — and what do we have to help us decide? Mountains of complex climate studies that most of us can't decipher, and loudmouthed celebrities saying they've got the answers.

We've got environmentalists declaring we're doomed if we don't make big changes right now.

We've got former Vice President Al Gore saying the same thing but with a slick, Hollywood-produced movie. And the movie stars have piled on as scientific expert naggers, too.

We should know better than to let narcissistic elitists dabble in science. They tend to hatch things like eugenics and Scientology, after all.

But Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" wowed viewers in 2006 with its visuals of our coastal cities turned into swamps. He claimed, among other things, that global warming caused Hurricane Katrina, would make ocean levels rise 20 feet and drown polar bears for lack of ice.

It won an Oscar. Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize, and British education officials decided to make the movie required viewing in all their secondary schools.

Gore became the infallible Pope of Global Warming and his movie was gospel.

In fact, in full pontiff mode, Gore pronounced that the global warming debate "is over," and "the science is settled." Thus, when skeptical scientists challenge Gore to debates, he refuses. When he gives speeches he avoids taking questions. Questions have a way of messing up the illusion of omniscience.

Of course, no self-respecting scientist would ever say the global warming debate is over. And when some pointed out inaccuracies in his movie, Gore reverted from pontiff to politician. His reputation and income depend on widespread belief in his climate catastrophe platform, so he is not interested in truth when it's inconvenient for him.

He is interested in winning what he sees is a political debate, and to that end he will dodge questions, demonize opponents and manipulate statistics because that is the only way politicians know how to deal with a debate.

Maybe some people want the debate to be over, but others, bless them, are more interested in truth.

One of these people is a truck driver named Stewart Dimmock. He sued the British government to keep "An Inconvenient Truth" from being shown to his sons in school, claiming it was inaccurate and biased.

After investigation, the British High Court ruled that the movie was a political film based on science. Gore's "apocalyptic vision" was presented in "the context of alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis." It said the movie couldn't be shown in schools unless teachers informed students of the film's nine significant errors, three of which I've already listed above.

Environmentalists have become like car alarms: Screeching too often to be taken seriously. Scientists have our respect but can only offer probabilities, not absolutes about global warming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says air temperatures could rise between 3 and 11 degrees F, through this century. Sea levels could rise between 7 and 23 inches depending on approximately a zillion different variables. What we don't know outweighs what we do know.

Well, we do know a cap-and-trade program will raise energy costs when energy producers have to pay penalties to use cheap fuel like coal. If they abandon coal, a lot of people in the coal industry will be out of jobs. Rising energy costs will also probably lead to some U.S. companies moving their business to cheap labor countries like China, that don't have greenhouse gas restrictions.

Coal and wood burning countries like China and India that continue to belch out greenhouse gases are a big problem. In fact, a 2008 University of California study reveals that by 2010, China's greenhouse gas emissions will vastly outstrip the emissions reductions achieved by all the countries that are now following the Kyoto protocol.

In view of this, it would be just plain wrong to raise energy costs and put people out of work when big polluters on the other side of the globe will negate our sacrifices. Unless China and India join the emissions reductions fold, we'll never see a benefit from a cap-and-trade program.

— Ellen Bueno has been a Sauk County resident for 21 years.