Great ruckus the week of February 23 over a report commissioned by Andrew Marshall, a graybeard in the Pentagon. It's a study put together by Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, San Francisco Bay Area researchers, and it looks at the rock-bottom, worst-possible-case situation of short-term, out-of-control global warming.
The Observer in London got hold of a copy and trumpeted it far and wide under the headline:
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
- Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
- Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
- Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
The Observer reporters, Mark Townsend and Paul Harris, writing from New York, took the story dead seriously, saying, among other things, "An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately," [the study's authors] conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions..."
And this: "The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents."
Stateside, the press reaction was more cautious. Keay Davidson, a science writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, largely downplayed the story: "A Pentagon-commissioned report by two Bay Area futurologists has sparked an international brouhaha over possible climate change disasters. But both the authors and military officials say the study has been largely misconstrued by the media and environmentalists."
And this: "One big problem: both the Emeryville futurologists and Pentagon officials stress the report's scary-sounding projections are highly improbable and extremely unlikely, as Schwartz said Tuesday. Singling out The Observer for criticism, Schwartz emphasized the report is "not a suppressed secret report, it is not a prediction of imminent (doom). . . . They got it all wrong."
The New York Times stayed above the fray, relying on an Associated Press story for its coverage. That story was fairly neutral, but it did include the following: "Still, the authors Peter Schwartz and Doug Randall, said their scenario was 'not implausible' and would challenge U.S. national security in ways that should be considered immediately... Schwartz and Randall asserted the plausibility of severe and rapid climate change is higher than most scientists and nearly all politicians think. They also concluded it could happen sooner than generally believed... This report suggests that because of the potentially dire consequences, the risk of abrupt climate change -- although uncertain and quite possibly small -- should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a U.S. national security concern," they wrote.
We here at Tom's Turn do not claim any special expertise in these matters but hope that wiser heads will be thorough and honest in their evaluation of the study. One cannot help but be a bit concerned by a scathing report issued recently by the Union of Concerned Scientists and endorsed by 60 scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates. That report, in the words of The New York Times, charges that the "administration repeatedly censors and suppresses reports by its own scientists, stacks advisory committees with unqualified political appointees, disbands government panels that provide unwanted advice and refuses to seek independent scientific expertise in some cases," hardly a cause for confidence.
Note: Readers (and correspondents) may have noted a none-too-subtle shift in the contents of the letters published in the mailbag. I have stopped publishing letters that talk about the upcoming presidential election and the necessity of electing or defeating one candidate or another. This is because of Internal Revenue Service rules that forbid organizations like Earthjustice from participating in electoral politics.
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