Mark Trahant: The global warming debate

Monday, April 16, 2007  

"If you want to orient yourself toward the future, read The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in its Fourth Assessment Report Summary for Policymakers. The authors, more than 60 top climate scientists from around the world, are crafting definitions.

"Climate change in IPCC usage refers to any change in climate over time, whether due to natural variability or as a result of human activity," the report says.

This is an area of outright agreement. The climate is changing. The question of the cause for the change -- our old "why" -- has some relevance, mainly because it may influence how we and our governments act in the future. The real question for governments over the next century is a simple one: How much should we spend trying to reduce or delay human impact on the climate versus how much of our resources ought to be dedicated to what the IPCC calls "adaptive capacity" or "the ability of a system to adjust to climate change ... to moderate potential damages, to take advantage of opportunities or to cope with consequences."

We will need both mitigation and adaptation. Our only choice is the right balance to our approach and how fast we go.

But before we figure that out, the global warming debate -- the political one, not the scientific one -- has to move beyond slogans. We need to engage this democracy and talk about the next century, opening up ways for people to thoroughly explore our prospects, test scenarios and debate alternatives."

Get the Story:
Debate is between mitigating or adapting (The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 4/15)

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