Stealing a page from the recurrent speeches of his Second-in-Command, President Clinton declared that "our most fateful new challenge is the threat of global warming," stating that "1998 was the warmest year ever recorded" and that "last year's heat waves, floods and storms are but a hint of what future generations may endure if we do not act now."  And, of course, the action he proposed was "to reduce greenhouse gases."

With respect to the President's claim that 1998 was the warmest year ever recorded, it is important to note that the era of recorded temperatures only extends back a couple of centuries or so, and that only the last half of this record has anything approaching good global coverage.  Proxy temperature data enable us to infer temperatures much further back in time, however; and they suggest that much of the earth experienced a "Medieval Warm Period" during the 10th to 14th centuries, as well as an even warmer "Holocene Climatic Optimum" 5,000 to 10,000 years ago.

It should also be noted that atmospheric CO2 concentrations during these earlier warm periods were approximately 100 ppm less than they are today.  Consequently, since the warmth of these earlier eras clearly was due to something other than high CO2 concentrations, there is no compelling reason to attribute the increasing warmth of the last century or so (and 1998 in particular) to the concommitant rise in the air's CO2 content.  In fact, most scientists believe that the record warmth of 1998 was the result of the strong El Niņo conditions that persisted throughout much of the year.

As for the President's proclamation that last year's heat waves, floods and storms are but a hint of what we may expect if we do not act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we note after thoroughly reviewing the science of the subject, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change had no choice but to conclude that "there is no evidence that extreme weather events, or climate variability, has increased, in a global sense, through the 20th century," when we know it has warmed by a significant amount.  And in our Volume 2, Number 3 issue, we report the results of a study that also debunks claims that severe droughts are likely to increase with global warming (see our Journal Review A 2000-Year History of Drought).  In analyzing two millennia of proxy drought data for the central United States, the authors of this study too were forced to conclude that the 20th century has been characterized by droughts of only "moderate severity and comparatively short duration, relative to the full range of past drought variability."

Without question, President Clinton is barking up the wrong tree when he parrots the predictions of Al Gore.  Irrespective of right or wrong, however, his bark is often followed by a solid bite.  And in this case, that bite would be applied to the hand that feeds us; for as we have documented profusely in many places on our web site, more CO2 in the air helps plants grow bigger and better and utilize water more efficiently.  Consequently, in suppressing CO2 emissions, the bioshere's potential to produce the food, fiber and timber products that are used to feed, clothe, and shelter the people of the world would be needlessly diminished.

Clearly, no one is well served when the science of politics turns science political.