Questing for Atlantis

Aaaannnddd the prize goes to Al Gore (and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change but who cares about them when you’ve got Big Al). That’s right, in case you had not heard, the Nobel Peace Price for 2007 was jointly awarded to Al Gore and the IPCC for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.”

This would all be fine and dandy if it were not for the fact that the case is hardly as cut and dry as environmental activists would present it. Not only is the science behind climate change still contested, especially on significant points such as the degree to which change may be occurring and to what degree man is responsible for any change, but the debate has almost entirely excluded ethical concerns for how green initiatives are in fact red – red with the blood of the world’s poor.

First to address is the science. Al Gore and other defenders of the science of climate change have consistently argued that any credible scientist supports the idea that climate change is catastrophic, it stems from carbon emissions, and it is primarily caused by man. The facts however tell a very different story. A great many scientists disagree as to the causes of climate change, with other arguments ranging from gases such as methane to shifts in the Earth’s position, to increased solar activity. Where scientists do agree on climate change, they disagree over how much is occurring, with a great many believing any change will be of no more than a few degrees. Scientists’ objections to the idea of carbon-based, man-caused climate change is strong enough that over 19,000 scientists have signed onto a petition to reject the Kyoto Accord and any similar agreements.

There is not even a sound consensus amongst the scientists of the IPCC, co-winner of the prize. Steven Killoy, a journalist and free market activist, submitted a survey to the IPCC (which only 54 deigned to complete) and the responses were surprising. According to his report on the responses, “Less than 50% of the respondents said that an increase in global temperature of 1-degree Celsius — twice the level of warming occurring during the 20th century — is flatly undesirable. Half of the respondents said that such a temperature increase is desirable, desirable for some but undesirable for others, or too difficult to assess.” With this kind of disagreement amongst the foremost body on climate change, can the science of global warming really be considered a definite matter?

Apart from the question of science is the even more relevant question of ethics. The majority of advocates for dealing with climate change are currently pushing for mandated limits on emissions of carbon, but how often has there been a concern for how this impacts people. For a test case consider the Kyoto accords. As far back as two years ago it had already cost $150 billion and resulted in a temperature reduction of 0.0015 degrees Centigrade. The cost of these sort of “developments” almost always falls hardest on the world’s poorest. They are the least able to implement the costly alternatives to fuels like coal or oil and at the same time they are the most dependent on them. This problem is compounded by the fact that the poor are the least equipped to stand up for themselves.

This truth has been evidenced by the success of well-funded entities like Greenpeace who have repeatedly succeeded in stopping development in the name of preserving the Earth. Every single one of these successes resulted in the poor being denied much needed development, and the denial of that development ensures that they are incapable of moving out of poverty.

For this reason alone neither Al Gore nor the IPCC deserved the Nobel Peace Prize. Alfred Nobel’s will states that the prize is to go to “to the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” They have done none of these things. In fact, by encouraging mandated standards that can be met only by the wealthiest of nations they are encouraging discord, not fraternity amongst nations. Furthermore, their work worsens the plight of the poor, and to top it all off, it is based off of uncertain science.