Climate change issue heats up in Washington
By Sharon Collins
CNN Headline News
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(CNN) -- Just how bad a problem is climate change? And if it is a problem, are humans to blame?
These questions are at the heart of an international debate that has found its way to the Oval Office.
In 2001, President Bush withdrew the United State from the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty calling for reductions in the kinds of pollution believed to cause global warming. Aside from the economic factor, Bush said there just wasn't enough science to support the fact that climate change is even an issue.
But environmentalists say the scientific community has already done its homework.
"A lot of questions about global warming have already been asked and answered," said Dan Lashof, the science director for the Natural Resources Defense Council's Climate Center. "We know enough to know that it's time to start fixing the problem."
The National Academy of Sciences confirmed that global warming is in fact a real problem in 2001 in a report requested by the White House. It confirmed the conclusions of a similar study conducted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
But not all agree.
"If you look at the IPCC report and the National Academy of Sciences, what doesn't get reported -- because the alarmists don't want the public to know this-- are all the caveats," said Charli Coon, environmental analyst for the Heritage Foundation. "They like to report worst case scenarios. The bottom line is that we don't know what's going on."
The White House agrees, and on Thursday, revealed 10-year research plan to among other things, measure how burning fossil fuels could impact the climate.
The 364-page plan has five main goals related to understanding climate change, including reducing the uncertainty of climate forecasting, to how climate change could affect humans and wildlife.
Lashof doesn't buy it. "I think the main concern is that the administration is trying to highlight it's science plan because it wants to distract attention from its lack of a plan to reduce the pollution that causes global warming," he said.
The Bush administration, however, is moving full steam ahead. The research effort will be included in the president's budget proposals for 2005 and 2006.
