Dear List members
A friend of mine sent me this article from the Japan Times of
12/11/1997 which generated some very interesting discussions in
Kyoto, Japan. As you may be aware that Kyoto city is set
to host World meeting on Global Warming next month and countries are hoping
to set binding targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. However,
"cliff hangers" have began to loosen. Please read on...
Concerns that excessive emissions of greenhouse gases,like carbon
dioxide, will cause catastrophic changes in the climate represent a
"non-problem" that is best ignored, according to a noted German physicist.
There is no (carbon dioxide) problem, man-made or otherwise," said
George Stroke, a French-educated specialist in modern optics who invented
the white light-reflection hologram. He made the remarks Monday at Foreign
Correspondents Club of Japan in Tokyo.
Stroke, 73, said carbon dioxide-induced climate change "is a matter
mostly of politicized science" that gained World attention after Al Gore,
now U.S. vice president, called global warming " a strategic threat" in his
1992 book "Earth in the Balance."
Stroke, a professor at Technical University of Munich who has
advised firms like Citibank, Daimler-Benz Aerospace Corp. and Rand Corp.,
said future climate change scenarios are based on computer modeling and
"what if" games, but not reality.
Stroke said global warming concerns are "a waste of time and
talent," as well as diversion of funds from real problems.
He said they have as their basis the need by politicians to justfy
their existence, emotional fears by environmentalists and a desire by
companies to sell more products.
The greenhouse phenomenon in the atmosphere is caused not so much
by carbon dioxide, methane or nitrous oxide - three of a score of
greenhouse gases blamed for global warming - but by water vapor, according
to Stroke.
He stressed that even a 100 percent rise in carbon dioxide
emissions over a century will have a negligible effect on the global
climate and called the issue an "uncritically accepted, apocalyptically
propagated scientific fallacy" and a "monumental scientific error."
A draft report released in June by the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, composed of leading scientists, predicts a mean annual
global surface temperature increase of 1.0 to 3.5 C and a sea level rise of
15 to 95 cm by 2100.
Such a rise is projected to effect changes in soil moisture,
precipitation and temperature that would see whole coastal areas vanish,
affect water supplies and prompt a rise in outbreaks of infectious
diseases.
The IPCC impact assessment, which will be submitted next month at
the Third Conference of Parties to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate
Change in Kyoto, calls for significant cuts in gas emissions in order to
curb global warming.
IPCC was established by the U.N. Environmental Program and the
World Meteorological Organization in 1988 with the aim of formulating a
realistic response to climate change to influence government policies.
Joshua Idassi (Ph.D.)
Tennessee Forest Products Center
University of Tennessee
Knoxville, TN 37901, USA.
Tel 423-974-7126
Fax 423-974-4714
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