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OCR for page 84
Page 84
Individual Statement by a Member of
the Synthesis Panel
JESSICA MATHEWS
Jessica Mathews, a member of the Synthesis Panel, disagrees with
the conclusions in Chapter 5 with the following statement. ''The
analysis does not support the conclusion that greenhouse warming
will be no more demanding than past climatic changes. If the change
is unprecedented in the experience of the human species, how can it
be claimed that people will have no more difficulty adapting to
future changes than to those of the past?
"The reasoning used here is that human economic activities are
largely divorced from nature and that modern technology effectively
buffers us from climate. Combined with assumptions of gradual
change, no surprises, and an olympian perspective on national
costs, the result is an unduly sanguine outlook. Even as a
portrayal of a best case scenario (rather than a most likely one),
this is a flawed analysis.
"First, it underestimates the extent to which human societies,
even affluent ones, depend on the underpinning of natural systems.
While recognizing that the pace of greenhouse warming will most
likely exceed the rate at which species and ecosystems can adapt,
the study does not go on to examine the resulting impacts of severe
ecosystem disruption on human societies.
"Also, the impacts of climate change on economic activities are
considered separately, sector by sector (farming, industry,
transportation, etc.). This is understandable given the difficulty
of analyzing the interactions, but here the compartmentalization of
impacts in both the natural and economic spheres seems to lead to
the distorted view that people, economic activity, infrastructure,
and natural context can be disassociated. The finding that
'expected climatic changes are within the range people now
experience … and to which those move usually learn to
adapt,' means nothing about adaptation to greenhouse-induced
change. The fact that one can move with
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Page 85
ease from Vermont to Miami has nothing to say about the
consequences of Vermont acquiring Miami's climate.
"Reasoning from the experience of past adaptations is risky
given that in the past societies could usually expect that climate
fifty years hence would be reasonably like that of the present.
This will probably not be the case during a greenhouse warming,
because of the difficulties of forecasting regional impacts, the
rate of expected change, and because we may be operating under
conditions with which mankind has no past experience.
"Finally, it may be strictly accurate that 'pluses and minuses'
will combine to produce 'small net change for a nation of our
size.' But the distribution of impacts in time and space matters
more than this treatment suggests. Costs that are indisputably
enormous (including human suffering) begin to appear deceptively
manageable when viewed solely from the perspective of their impacts
on a multitrillion dollar economy. For example, in the case of
cities, the study finds that while 'adaptation might be costly, the
costs would in most cases be lower than the cost of moving the
city.'"
OCR for page 86
Representative terms from entire chapter:
climatic changes
