We’ve received questions from several of you about the proposed Global Climate Change Card.
To answer that, I’d like to first give some background: Three AAPG members on the Public Outreach Committee (Bill Pollard, Ray Thomasson and Lee Gerhard) prepared material for a Global Climate Change card. Their intent was to distribute the card to all AAPG members.
They first submitted draft material for the card at the AAPG Annual Convention in Calgary in June 2005. As committees and members reviewed the card, wide differences in opinion on the card’s content emerged.
Last year’s AAPG Executive Committee decided to display the card on AAPG’s Web site and invite member comment. That period ended Oct. 1, but it provided an active forum on global climate change in general and the card in particular.
Based on member comments, AAPG will probably not reach a consensus on recommended policy options to reduce global climate change. However, we probably could reach a consensus on pertinent facts on the subject.
As this year’s Executive Committee deliberated over the card’s fate, we realized that it essentially represented AAPG’s position on global climate change. Furthermore, not all position papers should contain directives on government or public policy. Some topics would be best written in the form of “Fact Sheets.” Individual members could use Fact Sheets to enlighten fellow citizens, speak in public or convey information to government officials.
As individuals, members may choose to recommend policies to public officials.
Obviously, the topic of global climate change would be best as a Fact Sheet.
The EC decided to appoint a balanced committee to write AAPG’s Fact Sheet on global climate change. Committee members will represent diverse views on the topic. A small, pocket-size card would provide a good medium for members to distribute.
Ultimately, the EC must approve of the Fact Sheet and card’s contents, but this topic deserves another round of public comment by members on the Web site.
Our goal is to prepare a revised card for distribution before the end of the fiscal year.
I think the topic of global climate change is important to members, because we realize the need for scientific facts within public policy debate -- and especially on this topic. AAPG can and should facilitate the distribution of those facts. It will be up to individual members to utilize the facts to shape public policy.
Commentary by Lee Gerhard
Climate Statement a Result of Study
AAPG has a climate change policy statement that is dramatically different from all other professional societies, so much so that others criticize AAPG for its differing stand.
Recent comments have questioned the process by which AAPG arrived at its position statement. AAPG put more research, member involvement and study into its policy development than any other group. AAPG’s policy statement is science-based; others appear to be opinions.
First, the AAPG organized two public panel discussions of climate change at the 1996 and 1998 annual meetings – both extremely well attended. The panels provided presentations that both support and critique anthropogenic climate influence. The first panel consisted of Robert Watson, of the World Bank, in support of human influence, and Fred Singer, a noted and well-versed critic of the concept. I was the third member of the panel, and came down more on the critic side, based on climate history.
The 1998 panel, included Richard Lindzen and Michael McCracken, U.S. Climate Program, among others. In 1997 AAPG Past President Bernold “Bruno” Hanson was asked to form a study group, the Ad Hoc Committee on Global Climate Change, which I co-chaired with him. Membership consisted of scientists who were asked to prepare reports about climate change in their areas of interest and specialty.
Over a year-long study period, a voluminous report was prepared and presented to the AAPG Executive Committee. In turn, the Executive Committee requested that the Government Affairs Committee prepare a position statement about climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, based on that study.
The Government Affairs Committee laboriously prepared a statement, after extended debate and discussion. The statement was forwarded to the Executive Committee for its review, modifications made by their request and the final statement was approved in October 1999.
Concurrently, two consecutive formal scientific sessions were held at national AAPG meetings.
♦ First, organized by William Harrison in 1999, was an all-day session with prominent speakers from many points of view, but focused on the science of past climate drivers and their possible roles in current change.
♦ The second, an afternoon session held on Wednesday (the last day) of the 2000 annual meeting, drew a full crowd who stayed almost the entire afternoon. The papers were summary papers for the most part. They reported on scientific studies that evaluated past climate history in context of modern climate changes.
The AAPG book “Geological Perspectives of Global Climate Change” (2001) resulted from these sessions, as have several recent papers and responses in the AAPG BULLETIN. Members had multiple opportunities to comment or question.
No other society has given this issue comparable thought and study. I am proud of the way in which AAPG has conducted its business, as a true scientific society. Some have argued that geologists should not be in this debate. However, geologists own the study of past climates, and past climates are the rocks upon which the supertankers of computer models dealing with general circulation have foundered.
This is not a time to simply express opinions, it is a time to bring data to the table and address science. Our interest should be to defend the integrity of science in the face of contrary social agendas.