Posted: 07/24/2003
Good New, Bad News Associated with Climate Report, Says NCPA
Emphasis on Uncertainty is Good, But it Still Relies Too Heavily On Unreliable Climate Models
JULY 24, 2003 – The Bush Administration released its Climate Change Science Program’s (CCSP) strategic plan today to a flurry of criticism from environmental activists that the administration has turned a blind eye to the “universally accepted” occurrence of global warming. Yet, according to scholars with the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), the report was right to point out that there are vast uncertainties at the core of climate science. Unfortunately, the report did not go far enough.
The CCSP report acknowledges the seriousness of a changing climate, whether manmade or natural, and supports intensive research efforts to help us understand the climate better, and help us understand how we might respond to changes regardless of origin. It’s important that the report acknowledges we know far too little about climate change to use it as the basis for any policy decisions.
“These uncertainties have to be worked out before we’ll know if any given action – like reducing greenhouse gases – will do any good, or provide any benefit to present or future generations,” said NCPA adjunct scholar and Fraser Institute chief scientist Kenneth Green.
“Acknowledging the uncertainty is a good first step, even if it does open the administration up to hyped attacks,” said NCPA Adjunct Scholar Chris Horner, also a fellow with the Competitive Enterprise Institute. “Unfortunately like its critics, the report relies too heavily on climate models that recent government-confirmed tests proved could not be validated. These models have proved to be less accurate than a table of random numbers.”
“The Administration was right to move away from the Kyoto Protocol, and instead insist on further research,” concluded NCPA senior fellow H. Sterling Burnett. “Now its time for them to move away from the unreliable models from which Kyoto was based.”
For more information or analysis of today’s report, contact the NCPA’s E-Team at 800-859-1154. For more information on climate models, check online: Limitations of Climate Models as Predictors of Climate Change