13 Jun 2005 Global Warming Insurance Policy

Physicist Gerald Marsh, a National Center Science Advisor, has a letter in the UK’s Financial Times today. It responds to a June 9 FT editorial buying in to the “humans cause climate change” theory.

Marsh says, in part:

While the majority of climate scientists may believe there has been some slight warming of the globe, there is no consensus that the primary cause is due to emissions of carbon dioxide by human activity.

To claim that the status of the science has now exposed “the remaining sceptics as an extremist rearguard” is unjustified and insulting.

Marsh has a recommendation, however, for those who do believe human beings are causing global warming:

For those who believe that cost-effective steps to reduce carbon dioxide emissions are justified in the current climate of scientific uncertainty, there is a cheap insurance policy: vastly increase the use of nuclear power to replace coal-fired electricity generating plants…

Contrary to popular misconceptions, nuclear power is safe, environmentally benign and sustainable for many thousands of years.

Read it all here.