Greenhouse convert

It's actually kind of sad:

TODAY "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore's movie about the greenhouse effect, opens in New York and California. Many who already believe global warming is a menace will flock to the film; many who scoff at the notion will opt for Tom Cruise or Tom Hanks. But has anything happened in recent years that should cause a reasonable person to switch sides in the global-warming debate?

Yes: the science has changed from ambiguous to near-unanimous. As an environmental commentator, I have a long record of opposing alarmism. But based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert.

The whole point of starting to prepare in the mid '90s was to slowly adjust to newer technologies that will emit less greenhouse gases. Though there was uncertainty, the prospect of having to wait for certainty was too much of a risk to take for most of us. And that's especially true in light of this:

Scientific substantiation of a warming world is not necessarily reason for gloom. Greenhouse gases are an air pollution problem, and all air pollution problems of the past have cost significantly less to fix than critics projected, and the solutions have worked faster than expected.

I'm not so sure that will be the case for GHGs. Certainly reducing methane emissions will be fairly straight-forward and will produce results immediately, but the big bad mountain to climb will be CO2 emissions, which take many decades to clear out of the atmosphere. Years ago should have been the time to all come together and rationally advance an adjustment plan. Now is better than never, but it'll likely be much more difficult. Time will tell.

UPDATE: as this ExxonMobil TCSDaily article indicates, the reversal of Eaterbrook's position is actually far more relevant than I had first thought it might be.

Near the beginning of the film, Gore pays respects to his Harvard mentor and inspiration, Dr. Roger Revelle. Gore praises Revelle for his discovery that atmospheric CO2 levels were rising and could potentially contribute to higher temperatures at a global scale. There is no mention of Revelle's article published in the early 1990s concluding that the science is "too uncertain to justify drastic action." (S.F. Singer, C. Starr, and R. Revelle, "What to do about Greenhouse Warming: Look Before You Leap. Cosmos 1 (1993) 28-33.)

If you read the linked PDF file written by co-author Fred Singer, you'll understand that the second author, Chauncey Starr was brought in to the project due to his knowledge of economics and engineering--his energy engineering backround. So this policy paper was written by a scientist--Revelle--who died shortly after publication; an energy industry expert; and Singer, who since then has been a passionate global-warming denier, whose work appears on every major industry-funded site. In other words it is entirely possible that though Revelle did not object to the conclusions, he did not interfere with them either since his role was to write about what we know and don't know about climate science in 1990, not about potential economic impacts that the other authors were better suited to address. It is also entirely possible that Revelle may have changed his mind in the late 1990s had he survived.

The paper was picked up by Easterbrook and gained notoriety when he published on the uncertainties of global warming in Newsweek and the New Republic magazines. A reversal by Easterbrook, therefore, is of immense significance.

As for the rest of the TCSDaily article, it's the usual hogwash about how the climate has always been changeing, sea levels have always been fluctuating, and even if we were to do something it wouldn't have an effect on temperature (eh-hem, that's because of how long it takes to get carbon out of the atmosphere...as mentioned above). It then ends with:

Throughout the film Gore displays his passion for the global warming issue, and it is obvious that he has dedicated a substantial amount of time to learning about climate change and the greenhouse effect. This leads to an obvious question. The Kyoto Protocol was negotiated in December of 1997 giving the Clinton-Gore administration more than three years to present the Protocol to the United States Senate for ratification. Given Gore's position in the senate and his knowledge and passion for global warming, one must wonder why then Vice President Gore did not seize on what appears to have been an opportunity of a lifetime?

You might remember the pre-emptive vote against Kyoto in the Senate. One of the most shameful days in US history.