’I believe this whole human-induced climate change issue is a huge fraud and really a non-issue,’ says UWI lecturer Reynold Stone.

Dr Stone, a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Science and Agriculture, is not some lone kook. There are leading scientists around the world insisting that many of the common beliefs about climate change and its effects are media-fuelled hype, abetted by scientists and politicians.

Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider, one of the leading spokesmen about global warming, admits, ’We have to get some broad base support. That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified dramatic statements, and make little mention of doubts we might have.’ But money and status are also factors: climate scientist Richard Lindzen of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says, ’Scientists who dissent from the alarmism have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and themselves labelled as industry stooges, scientific hacks, or worse.’

Climate change will be a major topic at this week’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) and, in Trinidad and Tobago, politicians have suddenly jumped on the environmental bandwagon, even though the Government’s industrialisation policy goes against emissions standards.

In October, the Ministry of Planning, Housing and the Environment arranged a panel discussion on climate change at which Minister Emily Gaynor Dick-Forde asserted: ’We are concerned as a Government that the global response is slow and well behind what is required in the light of the already damaging impacts of climate change on small islands,’ citing as an example the loss of coastal areas. She also claimed there has been a change in rainfall patterns in Trinidad, with ’heavier rains in some areas, less rain in other areas.’

But Stone observes that many people aren’t even sure what the term ’climate change’ means. ’They interpret extremes in weather as climate change but this is obviously incorrect,’ he says. ’To add to the confusion regarding this term, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) uses one definition while another definition is found in the treaty of the United Nation’s Framework Convention on Climate Change.’ The IPCC’s definition acknowledges that climate change may be caused by natural factors and not human activity, whereas the UNFCCC definition confines climate change to human factors.

Climate can be simply defined as the average weather over a long period of time. On that basis, can it be said that climate change has begun to affect the Caribbean? Retired biologist Julian Kenny, who has an interest in environmental issues, in an e-mail response on this query said: ’It’s difficult to state with certainty. Coral bleaching is supposedly one indicator of climate change (rise in sea water temperatures) but coral bleaching may be caused by other factors such as disease or freshwater runoff. As to rainfall our local Met Office when queried will usually say that it is all within the long term average.’

Stone is more dismissive of climate change claims. ’I have statistically examined several claims of climate change in the Caribbean reported in the peer-reviewed literature and found that the claims are not supported by the data used. As far as I know, no one has convincingly demonstrated with accurate and reliable data that there has been any climate change in the Caribbean.’ As for the supposed changes in rainfall patterns in Trinidad mentioned by Dick-Forde, Stone says, ’The first person I know to make the claim was Prof Bhawan Singh who actually published his findings in the peer-reviewed literature in 1997. I examined his claims and found that his statistical methodology was flawed.’ He adds, ’I challenge anyone to provide the data to support the claim of climate change in the Caribbean.’

This doesn’t mean that the Caribbean in general, and Trinidad and Tobago in particular, should ignore environmental challenges. Kenny and Stone prioritise the following issues:

1. Stream and river pollution.

2. Air quality standards.

3. A national wastewater handling and recycling system.

4. Proper watershed management in view of activities such as deforestation, unplanned urbanisation, and quarrying.

5. Preserving coastal wetlands.

6. Protecting animal and plant species.

7. Dealing with toxic or hazardous wastes.

Given this list, should the Government be spending money on climate change initiatives? ’Yes,’ says Kenny, ’if only to ensure that the use of the wasting resource is spread over a longer period of time so that future generations can have access to energy supplies that are necessary to continued civilisation.’ Stone, however, disagrees. ’Spending money on the non-issue of human-induced climate change is a colossal waste.’

Environmental myths

Myth#1 Hurricanes have increased in frequency and intensity in the last century.

The 1995 IPCC Report says: ’Overall there is no evidence that extreme weather events have increased throughout the 20th century.’ Prof Kenny observes, ’The one long term record of interest is that of Caribbean tropical storms/hurricanes for which there is good tracking records as well as frequencies over the past century. The average decadal frequencies of tropical storms/hurricanes range from lows of 9 to highs of 27 with a mean of 15.2. Curiously, the two extreme highs were 19 (1935-45) and 27 (1995-2005) but since 2005 there has been a marked reduction in frequency of annual projected and actual storms.’

Myth#2 Rising carbon dioxide levels are responsible for global warming.

In Super Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner, climate scientist Ken Caldiera asserts that carbon dioxide can’t be the culprit. ’A doubling of carbon dioxide traps less than two per cent of the outgoing radiation emitted by the Earth,’ he points out. Astrophysicist Lowell Wood says water vapour is the major greenhouse gas, not carbon dioxide, but current climate models can’t handle water vapour and various types of clouds, which means that predictions about global warming are unreliable.

Myth#3 Rising sea levels will drown and displace millions of human beings within the next century.

Statistician Bjorn Lomborg in his book Cool It writes: ’In its 2007 report, the UN estimates that sea levels will rise about a foot over the rest of the century. While this is not a trivial amount, it is also important to realise that it is certainly not outside historical experience. Since 1860, we have experienced a sea-level rise of about a foot, yet this has clearly not caused major disruptions.’ As for Trinidad, Prof Kenny notes that ’With regard to sea level rise in T&T, projection is based largely on historical tide gauge data from Port of Spain and Point Fortin, hardly indicative of anything in a seismically active area.’

Myth#4 Most of the world’s forests are declining.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations’ most pessimistic estimate shows only a 20 per cent decline to 2100, and most of its scenarios show constant or increasing forest cover. (FAO Production Yearbook 2001.)

Myth#5 Half of the world’s species will be extinct within 100 years.

The best estimates arrive at a mere 0.7 per cent in 50 years, including fungi, worms, and beetles. But even this figure is problematic, since only 1.6 million species have been counted and estimates range from two million to 80 million. (Species loss revisited by Julian L Simon and Aaron Wildavsky.)