DALLAS – President Clinton has pledged U.S. commitment to an internationally binding Global Climate Treaty, but his lack of specifics during Thursday's speech to the United Nations Earth Summit enraged radical environmentalists. U.S. citizens should all be enraged at the President's failure to take a strong stand according to National Center for Policy Analysis Environmental Expert H. Sterling Burnett.
"Environmentalists are right. President Clinton missed an opportunity to take a bold leadership position on the important issue of global climate change, but not for the reasons they state," Burnett said.
To support his position, the President could have cited the fact that the best scientific temperature evidence available – global satellite systems – shows no evidence of warming in the last 20 years. Weather balloons, released twice-a-day around the world have also measured no warming.
Burnett said, "even if Clinton believes that global warming is occurring, the treaties now on the table will do nothing to stem global temperature rise. Developing countries, which already produce more than half of the world's human-caused greenhouse gases, will not be bound by the treaty due to the Berlin agreement signed in 1995."
Scientific study finds the government could wait up to 25 years to take action with no appreciable negative effect on the environment. Climatologists T.M.L Wigley, R. Richels and J.A. Edmonds found that government can cut emissions now to about 9 billion tons per year or wait until the year 2020 and cut emissions by 12 billion tons. Their conclusion: delaying action until 2020 would yield a temperature rise of only .2 degrees Celsius by 2100.
"The government needs to provide more time to gather sufficient data, and the affected industries need to be allowed time to devise new ways of lessening greenhouse gas emissions," Burnett concluded.