Tomorrow’s an important day. It is when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases the first section of its Fourth Assessment Report. There will be no surprises: global warming is getting worse and it’s clear that our actions are responsible.

Today, the Washington Post reports that the IPCC will state that in the increase in the severity of hurricanes since 1970 – particularly Atlantic hurricanes – has been due to higher ocean temperatures that have resulted from all the carbon dioxide we’ve pumped into the atmosphere. For George W. Bush, it’s the Katrina hat trick. Not only did he fail to protect Gulf Coast citizens during the storm and failed to help them recover after the storm, it’s now clear his policies and his pre-political career helped cause the storm.

There is, of course, a dissenting scientist – Christopher Landsea of the U.S. National Hurricane Center. Dr. Landsea is employed by Mr. Bush. Earlier this week, the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee heard from government scientists that Bush administration political appointees regularly change their statements on global warming, to water them down, so it’s not surprising that Dr. Landsea might want to hunker down.

Mr. Bush and his friends at the oil companies – by the way, the Post also reports today that ExxonMobil has once again broken its own record for raking in the biggest profits in history – are making sure government scientists get worn down and discouraged. Exxon and its billions will always find another charlatan to call himself a scientist and dispute what’s as clear as the reading on the thermometer outside your kitchen window.

Here’s a great example – Fred Singer. Mr. Singer is a Ph.D., but let’s not disparage other Ph.D.s by referring to Mr. Singer as “doctor.” Mr. Singer, while a long-time feeder at the ExxonMobil money trough, has not published peer-reviewed science in decades, so he’s really not a scientist. He says what he’s paid to say. Before his groundbreaking work doubting human contributions to global warming, he was notable for denying that cigarettes cause cancer. He didn’t publish any science on that subject, either; in those days he was paid by Philip Morris.

The UK’s Guardian reported Saturday that the U.S. delegation to the IPCC does not want the panel to advocate for binding international agreements that would mandate significant decreases in carbon dioxide emissions. Instead, the U.S. wants the IPCC to gets behind its proposals to a) erect giant mirrors space, to deflect sunlight away from the planet and b) pump tons of dust into the upper atmosphere, to create more shade on the planet’s surface. I’m not making this up. (Link to Guardian story below) It’s as if we’d turned the global warming problem over to a bunch of 12-year-old boys and told them, “Give us any solution that doesn’t require using less gas.”

Even the Bush administration flunkies cannot be so dim as to expect that anyone will take a “smoke and mirrors” solution seriously, but it’s not meant to be taken seriously. It’s meant to wear us down, make us tired, induce fatigue. The Gulf Coast remains in ruins a year and a half after Katrina? People have “Katrina fatigue,” they’re sick of hearing about it, unless they live on what remains of the Gulf Coast. Iraq fatigue? Polls show most Americans are unhappy about Iraq, but when an anti-war march is called, the turnout is not so big.

George Bush and his friends are counting on Americans to get tired of hearing about global warming science this year, while the attorneys who work for the oil industry – and are paid by the hour – never get sick of finding new ways to keep the oil pumping.

Here’s where Mr. Bush is wrong: later this year, or next year or the next a major hurricane will devastate south Florida or coastal South Caroline or New England. Maybe a heat wave will blanket a large portion of the country for weeks on end and power failures will lead to the deaths of thousands of sick and elderly people. When it happens, and it will happen, people won’t be fatigued, they’ll be angry and they’ll be looking for someone to blame. Mr. Bush’s real hope is that the disaster doesn’t hit until after January 20, 2009.

© Mark Floegel, 2007

UK Guardian article:
http://environment.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1999968,00.html