by Joan Thompson
Once again, Bahamas is embarrassed by the poor judgment of its representatives at the UN. The latest is Fred Mitchell’s command performance and his assumed representation of the “small island nations” – which if accurately reported in The Tribune – also includes Africa. The subject is Global Warming, and action by other countries to pressure the United States into signing onto Kyoto.
Apart from colossal nerve – such a demand ignores the fact that US skepticism on global warming is based on science. American institutions, scientific research and agencies have spent the most money with access to some of the brightest minds that understand that measuring climate change is not an explanation for the cause.
As one eminent scientist has observed there is no way to know whether a small part or a large part of current warmth is manmade. So far there is no laboratory experiment to see how the earth will respond to slowly increasing levels of carbon dioxide.
Senator Inhofe, Chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee recently focused on the myths surrounding global warming, the media hype and “trendy science “ theories.
He notes that 60 prominent scientists wrote to the Canadian Prime Minister this year that “if back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist”.
At a Climate Change workshop in 2002 Fred Mitchell was quoted “adaptation to climate change may be as much as 2.67% of the GNP of the Bahamas”. Also noting that the “resources to study the problem are not sufficient”. In other words the Bahamas will have to direct resources (tax dollars) to the prevention or payment for global warming. We do not know how much money has been spent since 2002, but certainly his presence at the UN has cost a packet for nothing more than “spitting in the wind”.
The majority of those still campaigning for Kyoto are not scientists but enthusiasts for whom environmentalism is an article of faith. It also fits in with anti-American zealotry that our Ambassador should be rejecting – not joining.
If Kyoto is not already a dead issue, it appears to be on the way to becoming one. The countries that signed on have probably wasted millions to blow hard on the subject.
Keeping our Ambassador at home would be a real cost saving for the Bahamas. Resources directed to cleaning and maintenance of our coastal areas, general maintenance and road improvements is the environment that should concern the Bahamas government.
Forget weather Armageddon, we can’t do anything about it anyway.