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  Straits Times 11 Aug 07
Sunny forecast on global warming leaves me cold
By Warren Fernandez

CLEARLY, Al Gore believes in recycling. He delivered a string of well-worn one-liners in his keynote address here on Tuesday at the Global Brand Forum, dubbed by some as the Davos of branding.

'I am Al Gore, I used to be the next President of the United States,' he dead-panned, to laughter. 'You find that funny?...I don't find it funny,' the 45th vice-president of the US followed up, without missing a beat.

The bon mots were delivered with aplomb to warm up the crowd.

Then, he launched into a version of his by-now famous slide show on the causes of global warming. Noting that his audience was made up largely of business leaders, he added a twist: Joining the effort to tackle the 'climate crisis' would be good for business, not just the right thing to do, he argued.

How so? Well, the world is on the cusp of a major change in public opinion, he said. Consumers are starting to ask questions about where the products they buy are made, who the suppliers are, and how much environmental damage was done in the process.

Voters are asking their governments what they were doing to frame policies which would deal with the impact of changing weather patterns, which they are increasingly noticing on their television screens, or right outside their windows.

Most of all, children are starting to wonder and ask their parents: What is all this talk about climate change, and what is being done about it?

He recounted the story of Wakim, a son of a mayor in Mexico. After the mayor's town was badly hit by a typhoon recently, the boy demanded of his dad: What are you doing about global warming?

The father reacted, and summoned Mr Gore to meet business and civic leaders to deliberate on a response, he recounted.

Mr Gore's audience at the forum here clearly warmed to him. Several stood up later to thank him for an 'inspiring' speech. Some urged him to run for president when the US goes to the polls in November next year, to further his cause.

He clasped his hands, Asian-style, and modestly thanked them for their kind words.

If his message was powerful, it was only because he had a secret helper, he said. It was called 'Reality'.

Indeed, consider the following recent developments: As many as 50 million people in South Asia have been hit in the past weeks by devastating floods, which United Nations officials have called the 'worst in living memory'. Some 1,900 people have died.

Officials have declared these to be linked to climate change.

Vast swathes of the United Kingdom were inundated in the wettest May to July period since records began in 1766. The waters left in their wake nine dead, US$6 billion (S$9 billion) in damage and 350,000 without running water. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown pointed to a link between the deluge and climate change.

China has also blamed global warming for the extreme weather this year, which has seen parts of the country lashed by torrential rains, affecting 13.5 million people, while others faced sweltering heat, severe drought and water shortages. Reality bites.

More people are now beginning to realise that this is what the much talked about impact of carbon emissions is going to look like - melting glaciers, surging flood waters, stronger typhoons, devastating droughts and even famine.

And it's all happening in the here and now, rather than being some distant nightmare scenario conjured up by over-anxious scientists.

Recent studies, cited by Mr Gore and others, point to worse to come. Global warming is happening three times faster than the most pessimistic computer models had previously suggested. This could mean glaciers could be completely gone within 34 years, that is, within the lifetime of anyone under 45 today. The sea-level rise that would follow would be devastating.

There is a window of opportunity for the world to act to mitigate the impact, but perhaps only a decade in which to do so, he warned.

He posed some questions which bear thinking about: What will future generations say when they look back at the early 21st century? Would they wonder what their parents and grandparents were thinking, why they ignored the scientists who were warning about the dangers that future generations would face? Or would they marvel at the generation that plucked up the wit and the will to tackle the 'greatest challenge that mankind has faced' collectively, as Mr Gore put it.

Many in the audience, like me, must have wondered which of the two outcomes was more likely.

Mr Gore began by noting that while there had been a change in popular attitudes, this had not gone far enough, to prompt deep-seated changes in behaviour that might be needed to tackle the situation.

Part of the reason was the continuing effort by climate change sceptics to 'cast doubts on the science', so as to forestall action by government, businesses and individuals.

A feature in this week's edition of Newsweek magazine notes: 'As soon as the scientific community began to come together on the science of climate change, the pushback began ...to reposition global warming as theory rather than fact.'

The former vice-president, however, remains a politician at heart. Either that, or he has been spending too much time with his friends in Hollywood.

For all his dire warnings, he could not resist a rosy, feel-good ending to his address, declaring grandiloquently that he was confident that the world would somehow summon up the courage to respond to the 'climate crisis', making his second scenario more likely.

He summed up: The world has all it needs by way of technology and know-how to respond to the challenge. 'All that is needed is political will. And, political will is a renewal resource,'' he concluded, somewhat glibly.

His conclusion left me a little cold. It seemed to make light of the difficult changes to habits and lifestyles that would be needed - in the developed and developing world - if the worst effects of climate change are to be dealt with.

Contrast this with the response just the day before from Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's very own green advocate from way back in the 1960s, long before it became fashionable.

He was speaking at the launch of the Pioneers series, a string of dialogues with key members of the early generation of Singapore leaders, at the old Parliament building.

Someone asked him what he made of the threat of global warming. Not one to sugar-coat his answers, MM Lee sighed and replied that he had 'very serious reservations' about this global challenge. He could not see any government which was prepared to take the tough decisions needed to tell its citizens to consume less, cut back on travel, eat more vegetables, pursue less growth and so forth. 'That is not the way the world is going,' he said.

So, while life would go on, people will have to learn to cope with more misery from floods, drought, hurricanes and disease.

Which of these scenarios to believe?

How I wish Mr Gore, with his sunny American optimism, is right. But, alas, I fear that MM Lee's position is closer to the truth, inconvenient as that might be.
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