Scientist criticises U.S. climate 'loonies'

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Scientist criticises U.S. climate 'loonies'

Reuters Friday September 23, 03:44 AM

 

 

LONDON (Reuters) - A leading British scientist said on Friday the

growing ferocity of hurricanes hitting the United States was very

probably caused by global warming and criticised what he termed U.S.

climate loonies over the issue.

 

Sir John Lawton, chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental

Pollution which advises the government, made what the Independent

newspaper said was a thinly disguised attack on the stance of U.S.

 

President George W. Bush's administration.

 

" The increased intensity of these kinds of extreme storms is very

likely to be due to global warming, " Lawton told the newspaper in an

interview.

 

" If this makes the climate loonies in the States realise we've got a

problem, some good will come out of a truly awful situation, " said Lawton.

 

Less than a month after Hurricane Katrina devastated large areas of

the U.S. Gulf coast, a new hurricane called Rita was roaring through

the Gulf of Mexico towards the centre of the U.S. oil industry.

 

Climate change policies sharply divide Bush from many other world

leaders who have signed up for caps on emissions of greenhouse gases

under the U.N.'s Kyoto protocol. Bush pulled out of Kyoto in 2001,

saying it was too expensive and wrongly excluded developing nations

from a first round of caps to 2012.

 

In July this year, Bush launched a six-nation plan to combat climate

change with Australia, China, India, Japan and South Korea focussed on

a shift to cleaner energy technology. Unlike Kyoto, it stops short of

setting caps on emissions.

 

Asked what conclusion the Bush administration should draw from two

powerful hurricanes hitting the United States in quick succession,

Lawton said:

 

" If what looks like is going to be a horrible mess causes the extreme

sceptics about climate change in the U.S. to reconsider their opinion,

that would be an extremely valuable outcome.

 

" There are a group of people in various parts of the world ... who

simply don't want to accept human activities can change climate and

are changing the climate. I'd liken them to the people who denied that

smoking causes lung cancer. "

 

Lawton said hurricanes were getting more intense, just as computer

models predicted they would, because of the rising temperature of the sea.

 

" Increasingly it looks like a smoking gun, " he said.

 

" It's a fair conclusion to draw that global warming, caused to a

substantial extent by people, is driving increased sea surface

temperatures and increasing the violence of hurricanes. "