Captain Planet for veep

National Review, Sept 14, 1992 by Ronald Bailey, Danielle Allen, Lucian

In the 1980s, Gore found new and even scarier hobgoblins. He believes that the world is running out of food and non-renewable resources; that topsoil erosion is destroying America's farms; that an "ozone hole" threatens all life on earth; that carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere will inevitably lead to increases in surface temperatures. For Gore, all of these problems are manifestations of one great global ecological crisis--a crisis so grave that we must now "change the very foundation of our civilization." In his acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention, Gore declared that "the task of saving the Earth's environment must and will become the central organizing principle of the post-cold-war world."

Consider the "ozone hole." In February, NASA hyped reports that such a hole might open over the Northern hemisphere in the spring, allowing in damaging levels of ultraviolet rays. NASA's ozone scare was showcased on the front cover of Time, and Gore thundered on the Senate floor: "We have to tell our children that they must redefine their relationship to the sky, and they must begin to think of the sky as a threatening part of their environment." Gore demanded that the chemicals implicated in ozone destruction be phased out earlier than scheduled; his resolution passed the Senate 96 to O. Stung by the vote, President Bush rushed the ban of the refrigerants known as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) forward from the year 2000 to the end of 1995. Then in May, NASA admitted that no ozone hole had in fact opened over the Northern hemisphere. Time buried the admission in two lines in another story. And Gore was on to the next crisis.

Gore also firmly believes that the world is running out of non-renewable resources and food. The fact is that never before have mineral resources been so plentiful and so cheap. Since 1970, the average price of all metals and minerals has fallen by 40 per cent, even according to the leftish World Resources Institute. Proven reserves of oil, gas, and nearly every mineral increase each year. Food is also more plentiful and cheaper than ever before--the real prices of corn, wheat, and rice have fallen by more than half since 1950, even as the world's population doubled. As to topsoil erosion, at current rates of erosion and with no technological progress, it would be a century before American farmers' productivity would be reduced as much as 2 per cent.

No Time to Think

CENTRAL to Gore's catastrophist world view is global warming--"the most serious crisis we have ever faced." The theory behind global warming is that carbondioxide gas released by the burning of coal and oil will trap heat from the sun, causing the earth's atmosphere to warm up by an average of 9* F. by the end of the next century. And this crisis is allegedly so serious that we don't have time to think about it: we must act now. But as Lucian demonstrates (p. 45) Gore's figures are at least three times too alarmist.

Gore has lent credibility to infamous doomsters such as Jeremy Rifkin, Paul Ehrlich, the Worldwatch Institute's Lester Brown, and climatologist Stephen Schneider by showcasing their testimony in congressional hearings. He ignores the views of, e.g., economist Julian Simon, food and agriculture expert Dennis Avery, and MIT climatelogist Richard Lindzen. In fact, Gore wants to shut off debate over whether we actually face an ecological apocalypse. He flatly asserted in Time magazine's "Planet of the Year" issue (Jan. 2, 1989): "That we face an ecological crisis without any precedent in historical terms is no longer a matter of any dispute worthy of recognition." He claims that globalwarming skeptics are "hurting our ability to respond," and declares that press attention to the skeptics "undermines the effort to build a solid base of public support for the difficult actions we must take soon."