An
Inconvenient Principle
By Jules and Maxwell
Boykoff
08 July, 2006
CommonDreams.org
With Al Gore's recently released
book and film on global warming - "An Inconvenient Truth"
- the former vice president has managed to deliver a one-two punch that
is both staggering and, well, chilling.
"An Inconvenient Truth"
brings global warming into high relief, demonstrating its far-reaching
implications for the world-as-we-know-it. Gore also attempts to re-frame
global warming as a moral issue that must be dealt with collectively
and immediately.
Along the way, Gore makes
use of a study we conducted in 2004, which found that the U.S. mass
media were playing a problematic role in the global warming discussion
simply by offering balanced coverage.
As he mentions in his film
and book, our research revealed that 53% of articles appearing in major
U.S. newspapers over a fourteen year period gave equal weight to the
findings of the most reputable climate-change scientists from around
the world who asserted that humans were having a discernible impact
on the planet's temperature and the work of a small band of global-warming
skeptics who denied humans contributed to changes in the climate.
Balanced coverage - telling
'both' sides of the story - is widely considered one of the pillars
of high-quality, professional journalism. However, when applied to this
critical environmental issue, balance greatly amplified the views of
the skeptics, many of whom are funded by Exxon-Mobil, the Competitive
Enterprise Institute, and their fossil-fuel-pushing, status-quo-desiring
allies.
Therefore, through balanced
reporting, the U.S. public and policymakers were presented with the
misleading scenario that there was a raging debate among climate-change
scientists regarding humanity's role in global warming.
While the human contributions
to global warming are not seriously debated in the scientific community,
what should be done to deal with this growing problem is hotly discussed.
Yet, everyone agrees that unless we make sharp reductions in our greenhouse-gas
emissions, global warming will significantly alter the climate - from
glaciers to coastlines to ecosystems - in potentially irreversible ways.
This brings us to the inevitable
intersection between science and political science.
In a recent interview Al
Gore said the United States is in "a Category 5 denial" regarding
"the seriousness of the global warming crisis." He then asserted,
"Until the American people change their minds about this reality,
then the politicians in both parties are going to find rough sledding
when they propose the serious solutions that are needed."
If Gore is correct and legislators
need strong public opinion as political cover, perhaps they should take
another glimpse at the numbers.
A recent NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll found that 59 percent of those surveyed believed that action
needed to be taken to combat global warming while a majority told Gallup
that protection of the environment should be given priority, even if
it might hamper economic growth.
Sure, global warming does
not garner the attention of more immediate, headline-grabbing issues
like the War in Iraq, terrorism, or national security, but it is a topic
that the public is both familiar with and ready to move on.
Even if U.S. residents were
not in such an open-minded mood, policymakers should nevertheless be
willing to take the lead in combating global warming. In theory that's
why we call them 'leaders.'
This brings us to an inconvenient
principle that U.S. legislators should consider: the precautionary principle.
In 1992 the United Nations
Conference on Environment and Development concluded by issuing the Rio
Declaration. Principle 15 of the declaration stated: "Where there
are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific
certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective
measures to prevent environmental degradation."
Translated into the philosophy
of Mahatma Gandhi, this precautionary principle means if you don't know
what you're doing, at least don't do anything harmful.
When risks of alternative
policy choices are difficult to calculate, as they are with global warming,
the precautionary principle requires choosing the option that minimizes
harm. This principle provides a basis for acting before one has full
information. Therefore it is relevant to the global-warming crisis since
waiting for full information may mean postponing action beyond the climate-change
tipping point.
Regrettably, the precautionary
principle - a simple, sensible concept - has surreptitiously slipped
out of the global-warming discussion. It is time for it to be concertedly
reinserted into the debate.
As "An Inconvenient
Truth" points out, our geological clock is ticking. Even if we
do not feel the hot hand of global warming at our collective throat,
we need to take action now - before it's too late.
Jules Boykoff ([email protected])is
an assistant professor of political science at Pacific University in
Forest Grove, Oregon. Maxwell Boykoff ([email protected])
is a research fellow at the University of Oxford's Environmental Change
Institute in Oxford, England.