wilderness issues lecture series
Law Professor Says Government Obligated to Curb Climate Change
By Peter Metcalf, 2-20-08
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The government’s failure to protect the atmosphere from climate change is a violation of its “fiduciary duties” as guardian of the nation’s natural resources, distinguished University of Oregon Law Professor Mary Wood said in a Wilderness Issues Lecture Series address to the University of Montana campus Tuesday night.
Citing common law and a variety of other statutory frameworks like the Clean Air Act, Wood argued the atmosphere, like all natural resources, belongs to the people as a natural trust administered by the government. The government then has a legal responsibility as trustee to maintain these resources for the benefit of present and future generations.
“Our imperiled atmosphere is the most vital asset of the trust,” Wood said. “A government that fails to protect its natural resources sentences its people to misery.”
Wood spoke via live, interactive webcast from the University of Oregon’s Law School in Eugene, Ore. where she teaches. The format was a first for a large scale public lecture at the University of Montana and was an attempt to reduce carbon emissions related to speaker travel for the series, said series coordinator and UM instructor Nicky Phear. The lecture series has also purchased carbon off-sets for the emissions associated with the other speakers’ travel.
Climate change is a global issue, and each nation must do its part to reduce its share of greenhouse gas emissions, Wood said. The United States, which accounts for more than 30 percent of the world’s emissions, must take a leadership role.
But responsibility for our nation’s reduction in greenhouse gases also falls to each state, city and individual, Wood said. Wood likened the atmosphere to a giant pie divided into shares based on contributions of greenhouse gases. Each contributor—industry, nations, states, cities and individuals—has a responsibility to reduce their share of the emissions.
“We can’t excuse any orphan shares. Unless every share is accounted for, we are not going to reduce the carbon pie in the time we need to,” Wood said.
Throughout the lecture, Wood compared the challenge and urgency of climate change to that faced by the nation during World War II.
“Nothing less than a massive global effort on the scale of WWII can save our climate,” Wood said.
She said every local, state and federal government agency needs to organize to fight climate change, just as they did to fight the Axis, and within months every industry in America had been retooled to support the war effort: car manufacturers built vehicles for the military, banks issued war bonds, and communities planted victory gardens
“The leaders did not sit by. They took action,” Wood said.
By comparison, today’s leaders, Wood said, are actively engaged in pursing policies that make it worse, such as licensing coal fired power plants, permitting large rural subdivisions, and encouraging deforestation. The Environmental Protection Agency is even fighting California’s attempts to stringently regulate carbon emissions, she said.
“Failure to mount a climate defense is as senseless as America sitting idle during an attack on our land.”
She called “climate defense” a moral imperative and likened the government’s failure to protect the atmosphere as a theft from future generations.
Wood outlined immediate steps the government needs to take to safeguard the atmosphere. These included a carbon tax on greenhouse gas emissions, a moratorium on all new coal fired power plants, and protection of remaining carbon sinks—such as forests and untilled prairies—that can absorb carbon already in the atmosphere.
And America must act quickly and decisively or else we will live on a totally different planet, Wood said. She cited a host of leading scientists, including NASA’s James Hansen and the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) who argue America has two or three years to begin cutting emissions, and needs to reduce emissions annually by four percent thereafter or else cross an irreversible threshold in climate change.
“It’s an urgency that puts a premium on everyday that passes,” Wood said.
She chastised the American public for being asleep on this issue and not holding its elected leadership accountable for its trust responsibilities. “By living out the American Dream today, we are signing our children up for a draft for a war that will last their lifetime.”
Americans, she said, seem to be too busy for climate change and too attached to a life of convenience that will lead to more catastrophic events like Hurricane Katrina. Unaddressed climate change will lead to the deaths of millions of people around the world, experts believe.
“Our consumption is going to cause death. That is the end in sight unless we change our patterns,” she said.
Despite the grim outlook, Wood maintained optimism that the large scale alteration of the planet could be avoided. True to her World War II analogy, Wood called for ordinary citizens to become victory speakers to motivate all citizens for the war on climate change—to talk to their friends, their relatives, their coworkers, their churches, and to their communities about the urgency of climate change.
“Our collective future depends on what we do today,” Wood said.
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Comments
I know that Americans are capable of miraculous goals such as the space race, the Manhattan Project, and mobilization of an entire country during WWII, but the difference is that in the war against climate change, we are our own enemies. There is no direct consequence to our actions. There will be no Pearl Harbor or first man to the moon--only slow defeats and eventual destruction.
Soon, climate change will be the number one killer of people worldwide, surpassing cancer, heart disease, and aids. The problem is that global warming will not be so cause-and-effect as any of these. Historically, we were able to focus our energy against an enemy: Hitler, the Russians, communism, etc. Now we don't have that luxury.
How will we catalyze a nation into action when there is no one else to blame? Ironically, perhaps we will be boiling like frogs by the time we figure it out.
Never mind Timmy Wirth(less) ... paraphrasing:
We've got to ride this global warming issue. Even if the science is wrong, it's the right thing to do.
As for large scale alteration, where would Wood be if the shoreside campus of the University of Lake Missoula was about to be left dry?
Come to think of it, she'd probably be screaming for more soot production in order to keep Eugene from getting flushed uphill to Oakridge.
should we then give up trying to save humanity, just because some cynics may blame us for trying to rule? to my mind, that's a defeatist approach, and a waste of everyone's time.
what mary wood is asking of us all is simply some serious consideration of an obviously serious issue. unfortunately, as she said, "the more serious the issue, the less seriously people seem to take it," because the mental and emotional load is huge. i agree, it is, this is a very hard thing for all of us to consider seriously, but copping out with the sixty-year old words of a certifiable cynic is the last thing we need.
and i disagree with you and mencken both, and agree with brett and mary both - watch the news, no leader in the united states has stepped up to global warming and taken it to the polls, as much of a vacuum is there, as much as we need some leadership there, but obviously no one sees any money or power in it.
By presuming climate change trumps all, he sets out a vision of an ideal society ruled by disinterested philosopher kings. In his book Visions of the Anointed, Economist Thomas Sowell describes the how this groundwork is laid. Here it goes.
The Warning of Danger: A great danger to the whole society is asserted, a danger to which the masses are oblivious (but to which the anointed are uniquely sensitive).
The Call to Action: Urgent action is demanded to avert the impending catastrophe. Again, while malevolent forces try to preserve the status quo, the anointed--wiser and more caring than others--are fighting to rescue you.
The Invocation of Authority: The government is called upon to set stringent limits on the dangerous behavior of the many...Since most people aren’t as enlightened as the anointed, it stands to reason that they are part of the problem…so--for their own good, of course--they must be forced via the threat or actual application of state power to comply with the new required behavior.
The Demonization of Critics: Arguments which criticize any aspect of the crusade are dismissed as uninformed, irresponsible, or motivated by unworthy purposes….anyone who threatens to reveal the truth--that the solution was worse than the supposed problem--is by definition evil. Destroying such critics is a commendable act of “courage.”
Sond familiar?
No.
Besides, when one is anointed, isn't that a religious sorta thing? You know, taking things on faith?
I don't read Sowell much- I find him absurdly negative and bombastic- but I like this list a lot. It seems a universal framework for totalitarianism and those who seek it.
And is it not the exact blueprint for what our own gov't has done since those ridiculous religious whackos attacked the Trade Center and the Pentagon?
Hal
What do you think of this one?
"The greatest dangers to liberty," Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, "lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding."
Also, let's also say that we are hitting a peak in oil production. What should we do about that? Any ideas on resolving our national (and worldwide) dependence on oil?
I'm well aware that coal is an abundant natural resource for power production, but what are your thoughts about solar, wind, tidal and other forms of alternative energy? Can you think of any reasons not to push for these technologies? It's clear that coal isn't good for our atmosphere, so why not go "green?" If not for global warming, just for clean air....
I'm just trying to return this little debate to something more than an argument over values. Regardless of your beliefs, it's possible to think of the alternative, right?
Pete, your quotes are categorically used for climate change naysayers nationwide. They're nothing new and don't contribute to the debate. Give us some facts man. This is my challenge to you.
Thanks!
(1) The tremendous strides in human and environmental progress since the Industrial Revolution are largely due to our ability to harness affordable and reliable supplies of energy. Energy indeed “makes civilization possible.”
(2) Over the next fifty years the world’s developing nations will seek to emulate the West’s material success. Their leaders know that improving the quality of life for their citizens requires more, not less, energy consumption.
(3) Fossil fuels are our cheapest, most available sources of energy. “Renewables” (e.g., solar and wind) will play only a limited role in the short and medium term and can only augment, not replace, base load generation. Unless we embark on a major effort to expand nuclear power generation, for the next few decades almost all new energy demand will be met by fossil fuels.
(4) Government should provide funds for basic R&D;. But beyond that we must be alert to two problems. First: History usually shows that the consequences of ambitious government actions often counter alleged goals. Think of the unintended fallout of rent control, minimum wage legislation, and welfare entitlements.
Second: We’ve learned government too often devolves into an engine of plunder when it subsidizes programs. Transferring wealth and opportunities from the weak and unorganized to the well-off and well-organized becomes the dominant activity. Farm subsidies, for example, overwhelmingly go to the wealthy and well-connected.
(5) I'm convinced that geoengineering, i.e., the deliberate modification of the Earth's environment, will receive ever more attention as the steep and unavoidable costs of mitigating carbon emissions become more obvious.
How's that?
If you're interested in learning more, email me off line, and I'll be happy to provide you some citations.
I know enviros refuse to acknowledge that they could ever posssibly be wrong about anything, but have you guys figured out exactly how we will keep warm if you should be wrong and this year is actually the begining of another downward trend in temperatures? You will have stopped the production of everything we need to survive. Before you say the prediction cannot be wrong remember the last two years of terrible hurricane seasons predicted to be caused by global warming.
Bandwagons tend to be shortlived.
I'm not quite sure what you're talking about with geo-engineering, but I thought you might appreciate a few numbers which might change your thoughts a little bit.
The State of Montana recently released a Climate Change Action Plan (available here: http://deq.state.mt.us/ClimateChange/ActionPlanNov2007/FinalReportChapters.pdf
)
They concluded that the cheapest way to reduce (read: mitigate) carbon in the atmosphere was by creating clean car standards, SAVING the economy $100 per ton of CO2 emitted. The most expensive is the restoration and management (read: geo-engineering) of timber stands at a COST of $119/ton of CO2 emitted.
According to every reliable scientific resource out there, mitigating carbon is far cheaper than dealing with the consequences (i.e. geo-engineering).
I also appreciate your example of farm subsidies. I agree with you on that count, but let's take a different example. How about bringing a halt to CFCs or acid-rain? These two are right up the climate change alley and are positive examples of how our government can be effective in stopping hazardous emissions.
Climate Change is poised to become the #1 killer, but people aren't going to be dying of a warmer climate. They're going to be dying from the effects associated with these changes. For example, cities like Nairobi are situated just above the level which mosquitoes can thrive. As temperatures warm, mosquitoes will find their way into this town and malaria will have the potential to run rampant. Drought, famine, heatwaves, sea-level rise--these too are potential killers which are caused by climate change.
I highly recommend you attend the next lecture on March 4th regarding the role of journalism in communicating climate change, especially since you have quoted Mencken who once said, "A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier."
I genuinely hope that you are right, that all of this is a farce. Unfortunately I believe in facts, and the facts weigh out in favor of an undeniably warming globe. I am not willing to sit back and watch my earth, our lifeboat, be sunk by inaction. Call me young and naive, but I prefer to take the minor consequences of action over the grave consequences of apathy any day.
I don't claim this is all a farce. Just lots of bad information all round. For example your Nairobi example.
There's nothing new about malaria in Nairobi. Between World WarI and the 1950s, there were 10 disastrous epidemics in the region, and they extended too much higher elevations.
"An Inconvenient Truth," which claims that Nairobi was established in a healthy place "above the mosquito line" but is now infested with mosquitoes — naturally, because of global warming.
Gore's claim is deceitful on four counts. Nairobi was dangerously infested when it was founded; it was founded for a railway, not for health reasons; it is now fairly clear of malaria; and it has not become warmer.
FMalaria's return in the past 20 years has been due to many factors — the effective ban on DDT, deforestation, migration from highly malarious areas, drug and insecticide resistance and above all, poverty.
Your claim, "...every reliable scientific resource out there, mitigating carbon is far cheaper than dealing with the consequences (i.e. geo-engineering) is flat out wrong.
Again, if you're interested in learning more, email me off line, and I'll be happy to provide you some citations.
you are the program director for FREE, the Foundation for Research on Economics and the Environment, which, according to the website exxonsecrets.org, has received $240,000 from ExxonMobile since 1998. Other corporate funders have included General Motors, General Electric, Merck, and Shell Oil. See here http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=34 for more info.
you're also a contributing writer for the Tech Central Science Foundation, or Tech Central Station, which received $95,000 dollars in 2003 for "Climate Change Support". see http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/orgfactsheet.php?id=112
I wonder if any of that money is paying for your time to comment on this lecture which it seems you didn't even attend.
Do global warmers have a plan for keeping folks from dying from the cold if we are limiting heating fuel and power and it does turn extra cold? How are we going to know the earth is cooling if we do not have any firm perimeters? Stating that cold temps, increasing polar ice, etc has nothing to do with what is then called global climate change doesn't do much to reassure anyone that those who want to bring the US to a stand still has a clue what they are doing or talking about.
This carbon credit BS is the old snake oil, except all one gets is the empty bottle of hot air for their money.
Yep that's me. You can fund our current sources of funding on our web site. We update it every year.
Now, do you have a substantive response to my comments, or in your world view does funding taint everything?
you seem like a pretty involved guy. it seems like you are right on top of this forum responding to every other post. why don't you swing by the lecture series a week from tomorrow. i'll carry a sign with your name so you can sit with me, brett and izaak. it's a very informative series and i highly suggest you attend. see you in a week.
To which lecture series do you refer?
In the few words offered in Opinon pieces, Dr. Fulks advances some ideas that perhaps global warming has yet to be proven as a threat to mankind and the world. It is worth the read.
So the author of this op ed piece, Gordon J. Fulks, PhD, would have you examine these web sites: http://www.icecap.us/ http://www.worldclimatereport.com/ http:// scienceandpublicpolicy.org http://www.co2science.org
And now I anxiously await the onslaught of hate mail from the True Believers (Eric Hofer is a good read, by the way).
There is an ongoing lecture series at the University of Montana which this article is related to, hence the title of this page. Here's more information: http://www.forestry.umt.edu/Research/MFCES/programs/wi/lectureseries.htm
and bearbait,
There is not "huge scientific opposition". This is a myth which is perpetuated by corporate-funded thinktanks like Pete's FREE organization. There is overwhelming agreement among scientists world-wide that the earth is warming and anthropogenic factors play a key role. The only questions are how much/fast are we warming and how responsible is humanity.
This comment debate is useless. Pete's getting paid to write this stuff and I've got work to do....
What a cop-out. "corporate-funded thinktanks" hardly desceribe FREE. As our web site shows about 80% of our funding is from foundations.
Science is an evoultionary process, not an end state. To claim that
because their is agreement among scientists, therefore the case is closed, is to commit and error in logic and expose a deep ignorance of the scientific method.
Here, for example, is a piece that questions assumptions. Are these people "corporate funded toadies as well?"
A comparison of tropical temperature trends with model
predictions
David H. Douglass,a * John R. Christy,b Benjamin D. Pearsona† and S. Fred Singerc,d
a
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Rochester, Rochester, NY 14627, USA
b
Department of Atmospheric Science and Earth System Science Center, University of Alabama in Huntsville, Huntsville, AL 35899, USA
c
Science and Environmental Policy Project, Arlington, VA 22202, USA
d
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903, USA
ABSTRACT: We examine tropospheric temperature trends of 67 runs from 22 ‘Climate of the 20th Century’ model simulations and try to reconcile them with the best available updated observations (in the tropics during the satellite era).
Model results and observed temperature trends are in disagreement in most of the tropical troposphere, being separated by more than twice the uncertainty of the model mean. In layers near 5 km, the modelled trend is 100 to 300% higher than observed, and, above 8 km, modelled and observed trends have opposite signs. These conclusions contrast strongly with those of recent publications based on essentially the same data.
Copyright 2007 Royal Meteorological Society
KEY WORDS climate trend; troposphere; observations
Received 31 May 2007; Accepted 11 October 2007
I highly encourage you to look up David Douglass's peer-reviewed article. It's fascinating indeed. He is one of the few scientists who have found evidence suggesting anthropogenic effects have not contributed to global warming.
Thousands of other scientists have discovered the opposite, which is available here:
http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm
I highly recommend you read this as well, then formulate your own opinion which is not based on either my or Pete's thoughts. If there's not enough evidence there to convince you, I don't know what else would.
One last comment for you. Imagine that a commission or study group was formed by the state of Montana to consider and evaluate proposals for reforming state business regulations.
Furthermore, the state hired consultants to assess the economic impact of the different changes being considered. Now imagine the consulting group was formed by a very conservative out-of-state think tank or advocacy group, known for opposing business regulations – the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation. In addition, most of the group’s funding was coming, not from taxpayers, but from four wealthy foundations known for supporting right-wing causes.
What would the reaction be from Montana’s editorial writers, left-wing advocacy groups, and think tanks? Certainly there would be outrage and justifiable complaints that “right-wing” money and large, out-of-state right-wing organizations were trying to influence Montana's policy process by infiltrating the work of an official government body.
This is exactly the case of The Montana Climate Change Advisory Committee (CCAC).This report was facilitated and led by the out of state The Center for Climate Strategies (CCS). CCS is active in 16 states, including California, Maryland, Minnesota, Montana, South Carolina, Vermont and Washington. The group has also been active in New England and the West, where states have formed regional compacts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
This group is funded by the liberal Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Surdna Foundation, the Z. Smith Reynolds Foundation. Among the top issues for these charities is to stop global warming.
So, by your logic, should we ignore this report?
http://climatesci.org/2007/09/01/the-2007-ipcc-assessment-process-its-obvious-conflict-of-interest/
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Climate Science has discussed the shortcomings, bias and errors with the 2007 IPCC Report (e.g. see, see, see, and see). My final Climate Science posting summarizes the fundamental problem with this assessment.
If instead of evaluating research in climate, suppose a group of scientists introduced a new cancer drug that they claimed could save many lives. There were side effects, of course, but they claimed that the benefit far out weighed these risks. The government than asked these scientist to form an assessment Committee to evaluate this claim. Colleagues of the group of scientists who introduced the drug are then asked to serve on this Committee, along with the developers.
If this occurred, of course, there would be an uproar of protest! This is a clear conflict of interest.
Yet this is what has happened with the IPCC process! The same individuals who are doing primary research in the role of humans on the climate system are then permitted to lead the assessment! There should be an outcry on this obvious conflict of interest, but to date either few recognize this conflict, or see that since the recommendations of the IPCC fit their policy and political agenda, they chose to ignore this conflict. In either case, scientific rigor has been sacrificed and poor policy and political decisions will inevitably follow.
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http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/columnists/story.html?id=332289
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Bill Jamieson - Chilly months make for cool reflection on the climate theories
Not everyone can be a hot-water bottle. It looks an easy life, stretched out in bed all night. But all that gurgling and burbling and radiating can wear you down. And the indignities! Scalding hot water poured into your bum and then shaken upside down to test you don't leak!
I raise this existential problem because Henry, my hot-water bottle in a fetching Mickey Mouse cover, is now in his 16th consecutive week of service with barely a night off since November.
A problem? It is, for him and me, having been assured by the relentless propaganda of the global warming industry that Henry could look forward to early retirement, basking in a sunny spot on top of the wardrobe, with those nights of gurgling and burbling and radiating behind him. Instead, he is working overtime in the front line against ... global cooling.
It is not just in Scotland that the long and earnestly prophesied onset of global warming has failed to materialise this year.
Across America, Europe and Asia, this winter has been a big brrr. Earlier this month, there were fresh falls of snow in Jerusalem. In China, snow and freezing weather brought dislocation and chaos on a massive scale. The worst storms in 50 years cut power supplies and transport links to millions of people.
In North America, eastern districts have been hit by abnormally high levels of snow, well above the 30-year average. Greece has been gripped with winter storms. Athens has been blanketed by 4in to 6in of snow...
January 2008 has seen the largest area of Northern Hemisphere snow cover for the period of 1966-2008, just slightly higher than the largest anomaly of January 1984, with February likely to exceed that.
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