An American alternative to enviro-gloom. (Forward Observer).(Brief Article)

For the third time in a year, representatives of about 170 nations have gathered--this time in exotic Marrakesh, Morocco in late October and early November--to decide what to do about the earth's climate. Again, the subject is the Kyoto Protocol, which requires industrialized countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions below 1990 levels. In a resolution four years ago, the Senate voted 95-0 to reject any climate treaty that would do "serious harm" to the U.S. economy. Kyoto would certainly do that. According to a study by President Clinton's Energy Department, implementing the treaty would reduce our GDP by three to four percentage points, and the cost of gasoline and utilities would rise by $2,500 per family. Al Gore signed Kyoto anyway, but Bill Clinton never submitted it for ratification. In March, President Bush made the U.S. rejection official, calling Kyoto "fatally flawed."

Since then, the United States has been under enormous pressure--especially from European nations, which face a much lighter burden under Kyoto than does the U.S.--to do something about global warming. Bush says that drastically cutting carbon dioxide emissions, produced in the burning of all fossil fuels, is far too high a price to pay for a problem that exists so far only in unreliable computer models. He wants more research.

But research, while necessary, is not sufficient. The administration should bring a completely new approach to Morocco, an approach that could be expanded--especially in this new age of terrorism--to become a central pillar of U.S. foreign policy. America's focus over the next years shouldn't be carbon dioxide, but poverty.

First, some science: Throughout the earth's history--long before the appearance of humans--the planet has been heating and cooling in cycles. Over the past century, surface temperatures have risen 1 degree Fahrenheit, an increase that has probably caused more good than harm. The unresolved question is how much of this slight warming is the result of human C[O.sub.2] emissions and how much is natural--perhaps produced by variations in solar energy. Kyoto seeks to slash human emissions, but even if the computer models are right the effects of such expensive cutbacks on temperature will be tiny.

But Kyoto is more than a scientific prescription. It is a distinct political, social, and economic vision. Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish scientist who says he once held ...