The boys in Brazil

National Review, June 22, 1992

No INCREASE in environmental concern, authentic or orchestrated, can alleviate science's ignorance of the reality underlying global climate change. Subtle in its chemistry, chaotic in its flow, the atmosphere defies the attempts of computer modelers to provide certain answers upon which policy can depend.

So beware those who claim the gift of prophecy and the right to dictate a macroeconomic agenda at the Rio Ecosummit--no scientists these. Prominent among them is Prime Minister Gro Brundtland of Norway, who just happens to be vice president of the Socialist International. By the merest coincidence she and her crew at Rio are demanding the redistribution of the First World's wealth to enable the underdeveloped nations to catch up on energy efficiency, and a carbon tax to compel the wicked West to cease its profligacy.

One is unlikely to glean from the televangelism of the Summit's supporters that here in America, [CO.sub.2] emissions per constant dollar of GNP have declined by a whopping 27 per cent since 1973. Yet such statistics, together with a growing lack of scientific consensus, have forced many ecopundits to try a bait-and-switch. Instead of global warming, in which [CO.sub.2] plays a role, but an unquantifiable one, they have changed the subject to ozone depletion--all the while still muttering darkly about [CO.sub.2].

This is not to counsel indifference to [CO.sub.2] bracket creep, but the dystopic prospect of doubling its concentration is generations away. Still, here and now, investing wisely in the development of the high technology of energy efficiency is to be commended--when fuel is saved, money is made. And as a further reminder to our posterity that conservatives invented conservation, we can plant a bounty of trees. President Bush's call for forestry programs was not a joke. Whatever the reason, he got it right.