VICTIMLESS CATASTROPHES

The world of scientific instruments is developing an embarrass-ing discrepancy between computers and thermometers. Political activists like the NCAR's (Ntl. Ctr. Atmosph. Res.) Schneider are running programs to show how we will all fry if we do not de-industrialize; but that is not what the thermometers say. A federal study released in February says that temperatures in the south eastern US have dropped by 1øF over the last 30 years, which is consistent with the US record of no change in temperature over the last 100 years, and Prof. Lindzen's point that the global record of temperature over the last 140 years has a margin of error as large as the alleged warming. By itself this is not a refutation of global warming, a theory which has very little left to support it. But I suspect that the Florida citrus growers, whose crop was ruined by the greenhouse effect this winter, are likely to believe the ther-mometers rather than the computer simulations.

Testifying before the Subcommittee on National Parks and Public Lands on Jan. 25, Prof. S. Fred Singer pointed out that there is no evidence of global warming in the temperature record, that all predictions of such warming are based on theory and com-puter modeling, that greenhouse warming, if it does occur, would benefit forestry and agriculture by reducing nocturnal cooling and lengthening the growing season, and that even extreme measures at extreme cost would delay the doubling of greenhouse gases from perhaps 2040 to 2045.

Significant warming may nevertheless set in as early as the com-ing summer in the Carolinas, Va., N.J., Del., Md., lower Florida, the D.C., and Long Island, N.Y. It will, however, not be due to greenhouse gases as much as to the absence of air conditioning by lack of electrical capacity (see WSJ 2/28, p.B8).

The air pollution and environmental damage now being revealed in the former Soviet colonies and in the USSR itself is truly dreadful and an excellent exhibition of what happens to the environment in the absence of property rights. But air pollution in the US is rapidly becoming a minor problem in merit, though jumbo-sized in politics. Even in Los Angeles and other big cities the problem is not overwhelming: the air pollution episodes as a fraction of time (rather than the number of times when standards are violated) are not very impressive. Although from 1973 to 1988 coal use has increased by 45%, sulfur dioxide emissions have declined by 23%, and nitrogen oxides have declined by 14% since their peak in 1978.

Surprised? You should not be. None of this in any way con-tradicts the Ntl. Acad. of Sci. report [AtE May 85], which pointed to the contradictory evidence, drew no definite conclusions, and was abused by the media, who knew that few people would read the original report, and falsely claimed that it established power plant emissions as the cause of acid rain. The Earth Day pagans will nevertheless press for the annual $5 to $10 billion to be paid by the tax payer; it is no longer fashionable just to sacrifice a goat.

Finally, among these catastrophes with no victims, no damage but astronomic costs, I am getting sick and tired of child leukemia around Sellafield, a nuclear plant in Britain. Every so often a Royal Commission is appointed to investigate, reports statistically insig-nificant data, and no possible connection with radiation levels. Whereupon some medical journal comes along with yet another of these gossipy findings. As noted before, in judging rare events, such as child leukemia, you need enormous samples to make any valid judgments: a single case (or its absence) can formally boost the likelihood ratio to double or even to infinity. As a counterexample consider the following statistics from a study by two obstetricians in a nearby hospital, reported last year in the J. Roy. Soc. Medicine. (and Nucl. News Dec. 89). Among 212 women living near the plant and giving birth in the hospital, the following were recorded (expected value in parentheses): prema-ture births 6 (11); stillbirths 0 (2); congenital malformations 0 (3); neonatal deaths 0 (2); low-weight babies 4 (7). Unlike child leukemia, these defects are not rare events; but they are still not statistically very significant, and I would never dream of using them as a pro-nuclear argument. But the rituals will continue, not only at the expense of the British taxpayer, but at that of the scientists who are distracted from their real work by having to answer the eternal banter by publicity-hungry scare mongers with an M.D. to their name.

[More: S.F. Singer, "The answers on acid rain fall on deaf ears," WSJ, 3/6/90 (available in Fort Freedom); "US to siphon billions for acid rain hoax," CFACT newsletter ($25/yr), Box 65722, Wash., DC 20035; W. Brookes, "Acid Rain Fakers?" and "On gold-plated ponds," Wash. Times, 8/10/89 and 10/26/89 resp.; see also Global Climate Change in "Good Reading."]