Greenhouse quotes: Believers

"We are all in this together. No country can opt out of global warming, or fence in its own private climate" British Prime Minister Tony Blair at UN General Assembly -- June 1997

"The science is clear and compelling; we humans are changing the climate. No nation can escape its responsibility’ US President Bill Clinton, at UN General Assembly special session, June 1997

"Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are at their highest level in more than 200,000 years and climbing sharply" -- US President Bill Clinton, at UN General Assembly special session, June 1997

"There can be no question but that the findings meet the highest standards of scientific integrity" -- US Under-Secretary of State Timothy Wirth at UN climate conference, July 1996.

"There must be tough, binding targets in Japan and no industrialized country must be allowed to duck its responsibilities" John Prescott, UK Deputy Prime Minister, UN Gen ASS. 07-97

"We have grown rich on pollution. Our standards of living have been secured by the very processes that now threaten to destabilize our climate" John Gummer, former UK Environment Secretary, June 1997

"No generation has a freehold on this Earth. All we have is a life tenancy -- with a full repairing lease" -- Margaret Thatcher, former UK Prime Minister, 1988

"Rising sea levels could annihilate our islands as effectively as an atomic bomb." -- Marshall Islands foreign minister Tom Kijiner at UN conference of small island states, 1994

Greenhouse Quotes: Skeptics

"The risks of global warming are speculative; the risks of global warming policies are all too real." Fran Smith, Consumer Alert Executive Director

"Not only does no one know for sure whether man-induced global warming is taking place, no one knows for sure what the long-term consequences would be if it did -- even whether those consequences would be harmful. In their prognostications of catastrophe, the scientists were not speaking scientifically, but politically. They were trying -- shamefully, it seems to us -- to scare people into embracing the sorts of environmental measures they favor. Our advice is to remain calm, cool and skeptical." -- Jay Ambrose

"The whole idea of a 'scientific consensus' betrays a misunderstanding of science itself. Scientific truth is not determined by a vote. The history of science shows that widely held opinions among scientists are often overturned by research and observation. Last month the Nobel Prize was given to Stanley Prusiner for his theory on brain disease that was once greeted with derision by a majority of his colleagues. "Global Hot Air From the Oval Office,"The Washington Times, 07/30/97

"Observation is the test of scientific truth. So far, observations of the earth's temperature has not revealed signs of a human-induced global warming." -- George C. Marshall Institute "Is There a Scientific Consensus On the Causes of Global Warming?" November 5, 1997

"Based on present knowledge, the best way of coping with warming -- if it happens -- would be to adapt to it. Change would probably occur over decades. If sea levels rose because oceans warmed, coastal areas would erect retaining walls -- or more people would move. Farmers would adjust crops to new weather" Robert J.Samuelson

"A few years ago, a leading climate model -- developed at the British Meteorological Office's Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research, in Bracknell -- predicted that an Earth with twice the preindustrial level of carbon dioxide would warm by a devastating 5.2 degrees Celsius. Then Hadley Center modelers, led by John Mitchell, made two improvements to the model's clouds -- how fast precipitation fell out of different cloud types and how sunlight and radiant heat interacted with clouds. The model's response to a carbon dioxide doubling dropped from 5.2°C to a more modest 1.9°C. "Don't Hold Your Breath: Global Warming Promises to Become a Large and Gushing Source of National Hypocrisy" Newsweek, July 14, 1997

"'There really isn't a persuasive case being made' for detection of greenhouse warming, argues Brian Farrell of Harvard University, who runs models to understand climate change in the geologic past." -- Richard A. Kerr "Greenhouse Forecasting Still Cloudy" Science , Vol. 276, May 16, 1997

"Although President Clinton has spoken eloquently about the need to stop the transfer of American jobs to foreign economies, the US would take an unnecessary economic beating from such a treaty, and working people would suffer the most. If developed nations act alone to reduce emissions, the huge cost imposed on energy intensive industries will result in the export of much of their industrial base to countries with less stringent controls." -- Mary L. Walker "Global Warming, No One Is Off the Hook" The Christian Science Monitor, March 24, 1997