A chilling debate surrounds global-warming issue

Further proof of global warming arrived on newsstands this week in the form of Sports Illustrated's annual swimsuit edition. The eight supermodels on the cover vividly demonstrate how uncomfortably hot it was in 2005 by stripping down to nothing but their bikini bottoms.
While a two-piece suit was once more than adequate ventilation at the beach, SI's recent swimsuit covers have shown a definite warming trend, with bikini tops receding almost as fast as those polar ice caps we keep hearing about. As recently as 2002, SI's cover model was able to wear both parts of her bikini, but by 2003, the poor girl was so uncomfortably hot, photographers caught her trying to untie the string of her bikini bottoms. By 2004, the bikini top was off and held in the model's hand, and in 2005 the model held the untied straps of her top up in an apparent show of modesty — which, like the temperature, may fluctuate seasonally.
I've been chided by some members of the Sierra Club that writing about global warming with a lighthearted tone is inappropriate. ("Mentioning a topic of such import and connecting it to something as trivial as the Winter Carnival is frankly insulting,'' is how one reader put it.) But, gosh, if you can't laugh about a few drowning polar bears. … OK, I see their point.
Even so, there's something so absurd about the current debate about climate change that if you didn't laugh a little, you'd have to cry.
Take for instance the recent charges from NASA's chief climate scientist James Hansen, who says he was told by NASA officials there would be "dire consequences" after he gave a speech that warned, "If we don't get off our 'business as usual' scenario and begin to reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions, we're going to get big climate changes."
One official who tried to muzzle Hansen has since resigned after it was learned that he fictionalized his resume, but another fiction author appears to have the president's ear on issues of global warming.
Michael Crichton, famed global-warming dissenter, dinosaur fantasist and author of perhaps the most compelling scene in fiction featuring weaponized monkey poop, had an hour-long discussion last year with the president, arranged by Karl Rove. According to Fred Barnes, who reported the meeting in his recent book, Crichton and Bush were "in near total agreement" on the topic. In his heavily footnoted novel "State of Fear," and in recent testimony to the Senate, Crichton suggests that global warming remains unproven and that environmentalists have overstated fears. For his efforts, he was bestowed with a journalism award from the American Association of Petroleum Geologists earlier this month.
What I don't understand about Crichton (and all the global-warming doubters who have advised me to read his book) is what the downside would be to try to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, or to challenge ourselves, as Sweden recently has, to end our dependence on oil. While the argument is always that such regulations will cost us jobs, it could create them, too. A University of Michigan report found that imposing higher mileage standards on American automakers would create 15,000 new jobs by 2020, and save consumers $35 billion at the pump each year. California's tough policies on fuel efficiency mean its residents use half as much energy per capita as the rest of us and have saved themselves $56 billion. How would saving such resources be a bad thing?
Even the evangelicals who helped elect Bush have begun to see things this way, with 86 Christian leaders signing their names to a major initiative that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms." They say their faith compels them to do so because "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."
That's a good reason, but I can think of another: If we don't do something to turn back global warming, next year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit models won't be wearing a darn thing.
Laura Billings can be reached at lbillings@pioneerpress.com or 651-228-5584.
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