Getting hot, bothered over global warming

By ROBERT J. SAMUELSON, Washington Post
Published August 18, 2007

WASHINGTON - We in the news business often enlist in moral crusades. Global warming is among the latest. Unfortunately, self-righteous indignation can undermine good journalism. A recent Newsweek cover story on global warming is a sobering reminder. It's an object lesson of how viewing the world as "good guys vs. bad guys" can lead to a vast oversimplification of a messy story. Global warming has clearly occurred; the hard question is what to do about it.

If you missed Newsweek's story, here's the gist. A "well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around climate change." This "denial machine" has obstructed action against global warming and is still "running at full throttle." The story's thrust: Discredit the "denial machine," and the country can start the serious business of fighting global warming. The story was a wonderful read, marred only by its being fundamentally misleading.

The global-warming debate's great unmentionable is this: We lack the technology to get from here to there. Just because Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to cut emissions 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 doesn't mean it can happen. At best, we might curb growth of emissions.

Consider a 2006 study from the International Energy Agency. With present policies, it projected that emissions of carbon dioxide (a main greenhouse gas) would more than double by 2050; developing countries would account for almost 70 percent of the increase. The IEA then simulated an aggressive, global program to cut emissions based on the best available technologies: more solar, wind and biomass; more-efficient cars, appliances and buildings; more nuclear. Under this admitted fantasy, global emissions in 2050 would still slightly exceed 2003 levels.

Even the fantasy would be a stretch. In the United States, it would take massive regulations, higher energy taxes or both. And if we succeed in cutting emissions substantially, savings would probably be offset by gains in China and elsewhere.

Against these real-world pressures, Newsweek's "denial machine" is a peripheral and highly contrived story. Newsweek implied, for example, that Exxon Mobil used a think tank to pay academics to criticize global-warming science. Actually, this accusation was long ago discredited, and Newsweek shouldn't have lent it respectability. (Exxon Mobil says it knew nothing of the global-warming grant, which involved issues of climate modeling. And its 2006 contribution to the think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, was small: $240,000 out of a $28-million budget.)

The alleged cabal's influence does not seem impressive. The mainstream media have treated global warming ominously. The first Newsweek cover story in 1988 warned "The Greenhouse Effect. Danger: More Hot Summers Ahead." A Time cover in 2006 was more alarmist: "BE WORRIED, BE VERY WORRIED." Nor does public opinion seem much swayed. In 1989, Gallup found 63 percent of Americans worried "a great deal" or a "fair amount" about global warming; in 2007, 65 percent did.

What to do about global warming is a quandary. Certainly, more research and development. Advances in underground storage of carbon dioxide, battery technology (for plug-in hybrid cars), biomass or nuclear power could alter energy economics. To cut oil imports, I support a higher gasoline tax - $1 to $2 a gallon, introduced gradually - and higher fuel-economy standards for vehicles. These steps would also temper greenhouse gas emissions. Drilling for more domestic natural gas (a low-emission fuel) would make sense.

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: We simply don't have a solution for this problem. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray global warming as a morality tale - as Newsweek did - in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.

[Last modified August 17, 2007, 20:39:53]