By Clyde Noel
Town Crier Correspondent
Global warming is one of the most partisan issues in the United States, with liberals and conservatives fighting bitterly over it.
Former U.S. interior secretary Bruce Babbitt’s June 15 appearance at the Celebrity Forum speaker series showed the fight is continuing. He expressed outrage that President Bush is dismissing the Kyoto Protocols, which mandate caps on carbon dioxide and fossil fuels in Europe and the United States.
“I am dismayed and have quizzical feelings that Bush turned his back on 12 years of work on global warming,” Babbitt said. “He tossed it aside as a trivial matter because science is suspect.”
Babbitt claims that when President Bush took office, he dismissed the Kyoto Protocols and instead ordered a new National Academy of Science (NAS) report on climate change. The NAS report acknowledges that the global mean temperature is up from a century ago and atmospheric levels of CO2 have risen over the past 100 years.
Former President Clinton appointed Bruce Babbitt Secretary of the Interior in January 1993.
During his 12-year tenure, Babbitt used old tools to open new chapters in conservation history and breathe new life into the Endangered Species Act with innovative uses of habitats. His recovery plans resulted in bringing back from the brink of extinction the peregrine falcon, Aleutian Canada goose, bald eagle and gray wolf.
His political adversaries have referred to Babbitt as an “extreme environmentalist,” but at Flint Center, Babbitt concentrated on what the global warming process could do in California.
Evidence of global temperature increases since the 19th century is a rise in sea level of 10 to 25 centimeters (about 4 to 10 inches), the shrinkage of mountain glaciers, a reduction of northern hemisphere snow cover (1973 to present), and increasing subsurface ground temperatures.
“The sea level rises about 1/10 of a centimeter every presidential term,” Babbitt said. “During the ice age, the global temperature was 10 degrees lower, and by 2050, the Arctic will be a blue ocean.”
Babbitt explained the precarious position of the California Delta. It is at sea level and has more than a million acres of farmland surrounding it. As the sea level rises, it will wipe out that land by putting salt water in the Delta.
In the Sierra today, the snow piles up in winter and melts in the spring and summer, filling the dams.
With snow disappearing in the Sierras, because it will turn to rain, we will turn Sierra dams into flood control dams.
“The problem we need to address is the regulation of carbon dioxide,” Babbitt said. “It’s a tough nut to crack because you can’t filter it out because it is caused by burning fossil fuels.”
Carbon dioxide is produced when coal, oil and natural gas (fossil fuels) are burned to produce energy used for transportation, manufacturing, heating, cooling, electricity generation and other applications. The use of fossil fuel currently accounts for 80 to 85 percent of the carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere.
“There is no feasible way of changing the equation. We must start reducing the consumption of fossil fuels,” Babbitt explained. “America needs to lead the world, but we are denying it exists. It is time our leaders make us proud.”
Babbitt said given the scientific facts and conclusions, both liberals and conservatives can conclude that while it may not be time to panic, it is time to begin curbing CO2 emissions. This can be accomplished through the president’s actions and a public obligation to put pressure on the system.
In another comment, Babbitt explained his reasoning for tearing down dams. “It’s time to un-dedicate some of those dams by removing them and letting the rivers run free and stop blocking salmon runs. We have too many of these dams, some 75,000, the equivalent of one every day since Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. Along the way I am asking questions: Is this dam still serving its purpose? Do the benefits justify the destruction of fish runs and drying up rivers? Can’t we find a better balance between our needs and the needs of the river?
“I take pride in breathing life into the Endangered Species Act and taking those wolves back into Yellowstone and restoring the salmon in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest,” Babbitt said. “However, I am in the early twilight of a long career and you got to leave some disputes for the next generation.”
