Scientists and politicians form colliding fronts on climate change

Nuclear war, a devastating drought, terrible famine and worldwide riots; a "Siberian" Great Britain; and a world in which "once again, warfare would define human life" is an Armageddon scenerio, according to The Observer's Web news service in Britain -- a special report the Pentagon commissioned and deliberately kept from the public eye.

The way the news service tells it, the document was ordered up by long-time defence adviser Andrew Marshall -- a brilliant 82-year-old known as Yoda to Pentagon insiders -- and claims that the world will be on the edge of anarchy in less than a generation.

All because of weather patterns.

A bit of a twister has surely been applied to the report itself -- Fortune magazine reports on the same material and treats it as an "unclassified Pentagon" paper deliberately looking at a worst-case scenario -- but The Observer's hysteria still feeds a sense that scientists and politicians are acting increasingly like two fronts headed into each other.

American scientists have been saying that the White House "cherry picks" the science it likes to back up its agenda and dismisses all other science, regardless of consequences.

British scientists have even taken the unusual step of coming to Washington to make the case for action on climate change, only to find no one to talk to, President George W. Bush having made it fairly clear that he considers such matters as global warming academic hokum.

According to reports in Britain, Sir David King, scientific adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, seriously riled the administration by arguing that the Americans, as the world's largest polluters, have to take responsibility for excessive greenhouse gas emissions.

King has been quoted saying that, in his opinion, climate change is the most serious problem facing the world -- "more serious even than the threat of terrorism."

Concerns are also being raised on the other side of the planet. There are predictions that Pacific islands will disappear as ocean levels rise. The Queensland Centre for Marine Studies is even saying that, given current warming trends, Australia's Great Barrier Reef will likely be wiped out within 50 years.

And for those who prefer not to look so far down the road, the Australian Climate Centre has just declared February's massive heat wave "the most significant in the past century," raising all sorts of concerns for drought and fire.

Australia, of course, has not yet fully signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. Nor is the United States likely to at any point. Russia is balking, and if a country as large as Russia refuses, then the accord is likely dead. The Kyoto deal is that 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 per cent of global emissions in 1990, must come on board and commit to reducing carbon dioxide emissions to a specified level.

Canada talks tough about cutting its emissions but has yet to commit all the way to Kyoto requirements.

After three weeks of talking to people throughout Western Canada, I can assure those in the east that Kyoto is about as popular in Alberta as the National Energy Program once was. It is a bone of contention, though not quite as hot a button, in several other provinces, as well.

How strange, then, that in a 90-minute debate among three who would lead the Conservative Party of Canada -- perhaps even lead the party to victory -- Kyoto did not merit a question or an answer Sunday afternoon in Ottawa.

The head science adviser for the World Bank, Bob White, has said that climate change may yet become a vital issue in this year's U.S. election, given that probable Democratic candidate John Kerry believes absolutely that climate change is a serious threat and the Republican incumbent, Bush, does not.

In Canada, a world leader in energy production and consumption, no one yet knows what will emerge as secondary election issues after, presumably, the sponsorship scandal and leadership.

One would like to think, however, that even if the truth lies somewhere between George Bush's nonchalance and the alarming future horrors outlined in The Observer, climate change and the Canadian response to the Kyoto Protocol will merit debate.

The ruling Liberals, in a way, have already made climate change a bit of an issue in deciding to wait at least until spring before calling the election. It's pretty obvious they're counting on the weather only getting better.