May 6, 2003
THE POLITICS OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE
Discovery of 'Asian Brown Cloud' Over Indian Ocean Sets Off Fight (John Fialka, Wall Street Journal, 5/6/2003)In 1999, Indian scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan led a team of researchers that discovered one of the largest bodies of pollution ever measured.
Using planes, ships, balloons and satellites, his multinational team of 200 scientists tracked a gritty brown blanket of soot, dust and smoke that was nearly two miles thick. It hung over an area of the Indian Ocean roughly the size of the U.S.
Quickly dubbed the "Asian Brown Cloud," the discovery opened a new frontier in atmospheric study....
The study and subsequent research showed such clouds could blow thousands of miles, contributing to global warming and spreading harmful pollutants such as mercury and acid far from their point of origin. Last August a United Nations agency warned the cloud could lead to "several hundreds of thousands of premature deaths" from respiratory disease, as well as droughts and crop failures.
But now the research -- and prospects for further funding to advance it -- have been shrouded by a cloud of international squabbling.
Indian officials, angry their country was fingered as a source of the pollution, say the findings are a "scientific fraud." In February, they helped persuade the United Nations Environment Programme, or UNEP -- the same agency that warned of the cloud's dangers -- to drop further major research assistance....
"My colleagues told me when I got into this that global warming is not really pure science -- politics is mixed in with it," says the slim, boyish-looking scientist. "I was always deep in my trench working on the science. Then I came out of my trench and got caught in the middle of this."
There was never a scientific basis, other than a simple correlation, for attributing global warming to carbon dioxide: it's a symmetric linear molecule with few absorption lines in the infrared and a small dipole moment, so its ability to absorb infrared radiation is thousands of times smaller than that of water vapor, an asymmetric nonlinear molecule with a large dipole moment (and which is more abundant in the atmosphere as well). Soot, on the other hand, can have dramatic effects. Dr. Ramanathan appears to be on to something.
But the politics is quite different. The United States, which burns fossil fuels cleanly, is the world's biggest emitter of carbon dioxide. Thus, fingering carbon dioxide was convenient for those eager to attack the U.S. economy. The Kyoto Accords, which would require the U.S. to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than a quarter in 2010 but give developing countries unlimited emissions and allow Europe small reductions, were the concrete outcome of this attack on the U.S.
Soot, on the other hand, is primarily produced by developing countries such as India, China, and Brazil. Blaming soot for environmental problems holds no attraction for anti-Americans. And agencies like the U.N. can be expected to drop funding for research that doesn't further their political agenda.
Best of luck to Dr. Ramanathan and may the truth win.