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If you have flown the polar route, from London to San Francisco, you may have had the opportunity to look down on the arctic ice cap from 35,000 feet. In the summer the vast span of perennial sea ice—some 1.7 billion acres—begins just west of Greenland a nd extends for hundreds of miles, ending in a span of open water off the coast of North America and Eurasia. The next time you fly this route, take a long look at this endless expanse of whiteness. Before the end of the century the ice cap will be gone, a victim of global warming or, more precisely, the anthropogenic forcing of global climate change. 

Although the scientific evidence of global warming seems incontrovertible, the Bush administration determinedly ignores it and proceeds with business as usu al. The trillion-dollar question is why?  

Of course, if you are an American who lives in an area that traditionally suffers through savage winters, weeks on end of gray skies and freezing temperatures, then the prospects of global warming may not seem that dire to you. The problem is that global warming is a systemic change, and while there may be some positive short-term outcomes—the introduction of golf to Iceland—the long-term consequences are dire.  

In a recent series of articles in the New Yorker, Elizabeth Kolbert brings the problem of global climate change into sharp focus. Over the last million years the temperature of the world has been remarkably stable. However, since 1769, and the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, the planet has b een getting warmer—the 15 hottest years have occurred since 1980. Pollution is a side effect of the industrialization launched by Watt’s invention; transportation and business daily generate “greenhouse gases,” notably carbon dioxide and methane, whose in creasing levels drive the rise in temperature. Scientists predict that by 2050, carbon dioxide levels will double, pushing the average global temperature up by 4.9 to 7.7 degrees Fahrenheit. As a consequence, sea levels will rise as much as two feet, glac iers will melt, ocean currents will change, and weather systems will become more savage and unpredictable. 

Despite the fact that each year produces more evidence of unstable climactic conditions, the Bush administration pooh-poohs concerns about global c limate change. The president’s official position is that there is no scientific “consensus” that supports a presumption of global warming. As a result, his administration has refused to sign the Kyoto Accords and to participate, meaningfully, in global ac tion to halt these alarming trends. Bush believes that reducing the level of our carbon-emissions would be “bad for business.” 

But an overwhelming majority of earth scientists believe that we are steaming towards disaster. Recently, UC San Diego professo r Naomi Oreskes reviewed almost 1,000 scientific papers on the subject of global climate change—roughly 10 percent of the total. She found 75 percent of her sample provided evidence of anthropogenic forcing, i.e. a relationship between human-created green house gas emissions and temperature rise. Amazingly, she found no articles that argued to the contrary.  

Thus, the contrarian “experts” cited by the Bush administration come from outside the reputable scientific community—they are “junk scientists.” Amon g those whose opinions are cited by the administration are writer Michael Crichton—whose only scientific credentials are a stint in medical school—and policy analysts, such as Sallie Baliunas and Steven Milloy—employees of conservative think tanks such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, funded by Exxon-Mobil and General Motors.  

The burning question remains, why does George W. Bush rely on such hacks for the basis of his policy on global warming? Most probably it is because they are telling him som ething that he is already inclined to believe. There are two possible reasons for this predisposition. One is that, as an article of his Christian faith, the president believes that God created planet earth for man’s dominion and, therefore, would not per mit environmental changes that threaten the existence of the species. If this is the case, Bush’s belief is at odds with that taught by mainstream Christianity, which admonishes believers to be good stewards of the earth. 

The other explanation is that Pr esident Bush sees no political upside to changing his position, as his two strongest constituencies support him. Economic conservatives favor business as usual; they don’t want to pay for the changes that would be necessary to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. Social conservatives, particularly apocalyptic Christians, simply don’t care. They believe that we are in the “end times;” they expect that the final judgment, the “rapture,” will happen in the next couple of decades and, therefore, concerns about global climate change are irrelevant. 

Whatever his reasoning, President Bush is doing Americans and the planet a great disservice with his ostrich-like posture on global warming. It’s as if he is betting that the full extent of this catastrophe won’t become apparent on his watch, thereby forgetting a lesson that most of us learned in school: It isn’t smart to mess with Mother Nature. 

Bob Burnett is a Berkeley writer and activist. He can be reached at bobburnett@comcast.net. 

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