The following text is an article by Arnd
Bernaerts published 1993 in ‘L.O.S. Lieder’ of the Law of the
Sea Institute, William S. Richardson School of Law; University of
Hawaii.[1]
Lieder
Professional correspondence
from the
Law of the Sea Institute
William S. Richardson
School of Law,
University of Hawaii;
U.S.A., 96822
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WARMING UP - SCIENCE OR
CLIMATE
The climatic change issue has recently
become one of the most serious challenges facing humankind. As L.O.S.
Lieder insists on brevity, even though this issue deserves to be
discussed at length, I beg your forgiveness for formulating my thesis
directly and perhaps somewhat dramatically: climatic specialists and
those people who have contributed to recent debates are possibly as
much of a threat to the climate as the pollution caused by
industrialization. For almost one hundred years, science has failed to
realize that climate and the oceans are one and the same thing. As a
result, the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, the only true
treaty dealing with climatic change issues, was thwarted the moment it
came into effect over ten years ago.
Although climate should long ago have
been defined as "the continuation of the ocean by other means," the
Framework Convention on Climate Change of June 1992 came up with an
alternate definition: "The totality of the atmosphere, hydrosphere,
biosphere and geosphere and their interactions." What this all boils
down to is that climate is nature working in all its forms – a
nonsensical definition and useless as a basis for legal regulations.
As recently as 1990, the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) came to the conclusion
that CO 2 was altering the climate and that "understanding and
detecting the earth's climate system must surely be the greatest
scientific challenge yet to be faced by humankind. It is a worthy
banner under which the nations of the world can unite" (IPCC, Working
Group I, p. 328). Certainly not a bad thing for science. The 1992 Earth
Summit resulted in an unprecedented success for the scientists working
in the climatic area, forcing politicians to listen to them and paving
the way for greater financial backing in an effort to understand and
come to terms with the climate system.
Yet, what is good for scientists is not
necessarily good for the climate. The simple fact of the matter is that
meteorology has never been particularly inter ested in climate
except for statistical purposes, defin ing it as the average weather
over a given period of time. On the other hand, there are the
mathematic ians, physicists and chemists, who do little more than apply
their laboratory findings, theoretical conclusions and abstract
calculations performed on greenhouse gases to a real natural system
with little regard for the true essence of climate.
But while the seas continue to influence
the climate, science is staring into the air (or, to be more precise,
the atmosphere) in an attempt to find out what makes the climate tick.
What is more, scientists have misled the international community of
nations by claiming that greenhouse gases are the actual cause of
climate change. This may yet prove to be the real tragedy of the
climate change issue. After all, the oceans are still the part of the
world about which the least is known. There is neither an "inventory"
of the oceans nor an observation system. What is even sadder is that
climate is still far from being acknowledged as the blue print of the
oceans.
So beware of IPCC's call for unification
in its attempt to come to terms with the climate. The climatic change
issue is far too serious a matter to leave to those who should have
known better for many decades and who were not interested in or aware
of matters relating to the oceans. It is high time to enforce what is
by far the best convention for under standing and protecting the
climate — the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea — before it is
too late. After all, it is the first global constitution and would
therefore compel humankind to ensure that the planet remains a place
worth living in. There is no need to "detect the earth's climate" and
even less is there a need for a banner to serve IPCC's "greatest
scientific challenge".
Footnotes
[1] Arnd Bernaerts, “Warming
up --- Science or climate” , L.O.S. Lieder it 28, Vol. 5,
January 1993, Professional correspondence from the Law of the Sea
Institute, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii.
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