Watching the World Stop global warming-- but not just yet

With David Knott
from London

I can't remember which biblical character was supposed to have said, while lamenting his sinful ways, "Make me good, Lord, but not just yet."

I remember that plea when global warming is mentioned.

The biblical sinner came to mind recently when the European Commission (EC) approved funding amounting to 217 million ECUs ($167 million) for 318 projects to research climate change and ozone layer depletion.

One project, called Epica, will form part of the current Greenland ice core program. To complement findings in Greenland, Epica will involve drilling and analysis of a 3.5 km long ice core in Antarctica.

EC said Epica's objective is to "examine further the major climate shifts which have occurred over the last half million years and to address some of the fundamental questions on the functioning of the climate system." Among the projects is one designed to help understand past climatic changes in a bid to help predict changes.

Seven studies will cover depletion of the ozone layer and how reductions in this barrier to the sun's ultraviolet radiation can affect health and the environment.

Monitoring

Three projects will examine the effects of ultraviolet radiation on natural terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, while a network of ultraviolet radiation monitoring stations will be established from Greece to Sweden.

While EC expresses concrete concerns over climate links with pollution, the European Petroleum Industry Association (Europia) maintains that the jury is still out on global warming.

Yet some of the evidence Europia cited in a recent newsletter to support its argument might be viewed by Northwest Europeans as suggesting that global warming might not be entirely a bad thing.

Europia Gen. Sec. Hubert Knoche said, "Since the middle of the last century a general warming has taken place, and glaciers have receded. The average temperature has risen 0.7 C. since 1860."

Knoche said the warmest years since 1860 have occurred from the end of the 1970s to the 1990s, yet as recently as the early 1970s scientific articles were being written suggesting a general cooling of the earth.

Knowledge weak

Knoche said, "General scientific knowledge is still too weak to deduce a basic scientific law which might explain these different climate changes. If there is a climate change, it might be difficult to single out the causes from all the natural influences."

Knoche said that from about 1500 to 1850 there was a cold period: glaciers came well down the valleys of the Alps, and there was terrible famine in central and northern Europe due to cold weather.

But before that were more congenial times: "At the start of the millennium the weather was very temperate, with vineyards widespread in England and Greenland ice-free when discovered by the Vikings."

Any permanent climate change could have serious implications for the health of future generations, and I am as concerned as anybody about this.

Yet there is a part of me-the part that likes to eat barbecue and drink wine and resented Britain's recent Siberian weather-that says: "Stop global warming-but not just yet."