The New Straits Times, April 22, 2001
By Professor Dzulkifli Abdul Razak
TODAY is Earth Day 2001. The theme this year, ‘Safe Power - Against Nuclear Energy', has a special significance vis-a-vis the 1997 Kyoto Protocol for a cleaner and safer environment. Nuclear power though presenting itself as a "cleaner" energy source is not, unlike wind, geothermal and solar power, safer, because of radioactive waste.
Hence simplistic solutions to construct nuclear power plants can generate intractable environmental problems.
More immediately, however, the 2001 Earth Day is presented with an urgent dilemma following the apparent US rejection of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol to control carbon dioxide emissions, a worldwide initiative to check impending global warming. This is even now more urgent since some countries willing to dump the Protocol are already calling for a new process following Washington's rejection.
Barely a decade ago, many were still unsure if global warming was a result of irresponsible human activities. Evidence then was rather thin, and the passing of heattrapping gases like carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere from various man-made outlets: automobiles, factories and even farms continued unchecked. Now we have been rudely awakened to the fact that the damage is far worse than anticipated.
In short, as mentioned by an advocacy group, Environmental Defense, "the science is so much more solid that humans are not going to sit by and foul their own nests" as the changes will certainly culminate in dramatic upheavals in the world's natural ecology.
This notion has recently got the backing of a United Nations-sponsored group, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), established in the late 1980s. Warmer climate is no longer in dispute.
Reportedly, mountain glaciers are rapidly receding, polar ice caps are melting, devastating weather is now more frequent, coral reefs are dying off in the warmer seas, a diversity of plant and animal species are being disrupted, and disease-carrying vectors become more prevalent.
All these allegedly are related to rising temperatures, and it will continue to get worse if things continue as they are. Even if the emissions are stabilised today, "the concentration will continue to go up for hundreds of years. Temperatures will rise over that time", said the IPCC chair, Robert Watson.
Here is where the move by Washington to disregard the Kyoto Protocol drafted four years ago becomes a hotly debated issue. More so because, in this case, the US has been dubbed the world's worst polluter. Although Americans make up only four per cent of the globe's population they are responsible for a quarter of the earth-warming gases produced.
To add insult to injury, US President George W. Bush saw it fit to abandon Kyoto now after pledging to curb emissions during his run-up to be president.
While Bush cited some parochial (economic) reasons for the about-turn, this does not change the hard facts that citizens of Mother Earth will suffer regardless.
His statement, "We will work together, but it's going to be what's in the interest of our country, first and foremost", demonstrates that he has both underestimated and dismally failed to understand the ultimate ill-consequences which will not distinguish Americans from the rest of the world (despite what Bush wants to think!).
For example, according to a lead author of the IPCC report, once the warming goes beyond a certain temperature, like all countries in the temperate zones, "US crop yields would start to decline".
When nature hits back, it does not care much whether you are an American or not! Similarly in public health terms, the suffering will invariably be of similar dimension, that is, independent of geopolitical status, be it due to ozone depletion, or disease-carrying rats or mosquitoes. Although the less developed ones may be worse off initially, in a borderless world, everyone will eventually be affected.
Even in the US, Time magazine recently reported (April 9) that "many other pieces of the global-warming solution seemed to be falling into place", citing positive CO2reducing actions and successes at state and local government levels as well as from among the "sooty" industry.
Indeed, the same issue of Time carried an open letter to Bush from prominent American citizens such as Jimmy Carter, John Glenn and the infamous George Soros; and others including Mikhail Gorbachev and physicist Stephen Hawking, urging that "it is time for consensus and action".
"We urge you to develop a plan to reduce US production of greenhouse gases. The future of our children, and their children, depends on the resolve that you and other world leaders show", the letter asserted.
But will Bush take heed or behave like ‘the Toxic Texan'? After all, abandoning the Kyoto Protocol will amount to poisoning the planet, much like the chemical weapons of mass destruction he is so afraid of that he decided to bomb Iraq yet again! Mr President, come the next meeting on this issue in July, the world will rule on which presidential league you will be in!
Recommended website for Earth Day, http://earthday.net
