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Mr. ROHRABACHER. Thank you very much, Mr. Gardiner. I am tempted to ask what this will do to the shape of the waves and rideability of the surf, but I will not do that. I will wait until later when we get off the record.

But let me ask you this. All of these predictions are projections that you are making here. My staff is telling me that this is not based on computer models. You are not setting this up and putting this into a scenario and working it through in a computer? Is that right?

Mr. GARDINER. I think the description that Mr. Guerrero gave you at the end of the first panel was an accurate description.

What we did, basically, was to take the existing large climate models that were the subject of the first panel. We taken those estimates, including those that the IPCC has used. We then invited in-they give us projections of changes in global temperature.

We then invited in the 20 reviewers that I had mentioned to not only provide comments on what they thought of that, but also to provide additional estimates on other factors that affect sea level rise particularly such as thermal expansion, the rate of melting of Antarctica, Greenland, of other glaciers, those kinds of factors were considered.

We then ran a separate basically computer exercise known as a Monte Carlo exercise to measure probabilities, and the product of that is a curve that looks like, or several curves, actually, that look like the one on that chart there that show a range of probabilities of possible outcomes.

That is not the only one that we came to. That just in our mind seemed to be that is the one that looks at the year 2100 and shows the range of possible outcomes which could occur

Mr. ROHRABACHER. [continuing]-of a catastrophic outcome? Mr. GARDINER. Well, depending on what your definition of "catastrophic" is

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Right. Okay.

Mr. GARDINER. [continuing] -what we show is different probabilities for different possible outcomes.

So for an 8-inch sea level rise, we believe there is a very high probability, a 90 percent probability, that that would occur.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. Okay.

Mr. GARDINER. For a larger sea level rise such as an 18-inchand we believe there is a 50 percent chance that that would occur and we leave it to decision makers to make their own judgments as to which they feel most comfortable with.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. We will go back to that. Thank you very much.

Dr. Moore?

STATEMENT OF THOMAS GALE MOORE, SENIOR FELLOW, HOOVER INSTITUTION

Mr. MOORE. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It is a great honor to be here today to give you my views on this important subject.

As an economist, I have been studying the effects or researching the effects of global warming on humanity. My research has taken two routes.

One, I always find that I am much better at predicting the past than the future, so I have looked at the past to see what it could tell us about the future.

Then I have also been doing some statistical analysis which has not yet been published, but I will come back to that in a minute because it deals with health effects.

Mr. ROHRABACHER. It was interesting, Doctor, that in communist countries there was a saying that here we have trouble predicting the future, but an historian in a communist country said there was someone who could accurately predict the past, because there was so much politics in making those determinations. I just thought I would throw that in.

Go right ahead.

Mr. MOORE. Well, of course there is always some uncertainty about the past as well as the future, but I think we do have more information.

Basically you asked for the bottom line up front. The bottom line is. Since the last Ice Age around 10- to 12,000 years ago, there have been two periods on earth where the globe is significantly warmer than today.

The first period, about 3000 to 6000 years ago, was a period where the average temperature has been estimated that it was about 4 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than today, about the level that is the upper level now with the predictions for global warming in the year 2100.

So we have already experienced that on this Earth. And it was a time of great prosperity for mankind. At the start of that period, agriculture was invented literally around the world, within a very short period of time, depending on how long you archaeologists differ on how long modern man has been around, some people say 120,000 years, some people say 45,000. In any case, for most of that history mankind operated as a hunter- gathered and was not a farmer.

With the development of the warming, everywhere man developed agriculture which meant we could develop cities, we could develop parliaments, congresses, for better or worse, and legislation, and writing, and music, and all these things.

During this first warm period, which I said was so warm, not only was agriculture invented but the first cities were established. The first empires, big government enterprises, trade flourished, mankind moved from the Stone Age to the Bronze Age, writing was developed, it was a very prosperous period.

Then, the climate cooled about to roughly what it has been in the last couple of hundred years now, and then there was another warming.

That warming occurred-it started in Asia around 800 A.D. and by 1000 A.D. it was affected Europe and North America, and that warming lasted roughly around 300 years.

In Asia, the economists who studied Asia economics show that income, or rather I should say real wage rates, rose steadily through that warming period and reached a peak at the warmest period, and then declined sharply afterwards and not until the latter part of the 20th Century have wage rates in China equalled what they were in that earlier period.

That earlier period was a period of great artistic endeavor, activity. Some of the greatest art came out of China at that period of time. It was a very inventive period of time.

Trade flourished. It was the only time the Chinese ever sent merchant ships out around, and they got as far as East Africa.

It was not just China but the whole Southeast Asia was prosperous. There were large sea-going merchant empires. Anchor Watt was built at this time. All sorts of temples were constructed all around Asia. It was a very thriving period of time.

In Europe, it was a period that was almost unparalleled in European history. Up to about 1000 A.D., the population in Europe had been stagnant. People were forced to live in hovels, and the cities had been depopulated. There were no people-the cities basically were places where the church had their headquarters, but there was really no economic activity going on.

Then, suddenly around 1000 the population started to expand. Trade expanded. During the next 300 years, virtually every major cathedral in Europe was started.

If you get a French Michlag Guide and go around Europe and look at their three-star cathedrals, almost every one of them was started during this period of time. It was an amazing building boom.

As you know, one of the things we economists know is if there. is a building boom going on, times are good. People are being fully employed.

And the art flourished. Trade flourished. It was the time when there were great trade fairs in Europe. It was a very extraordinarily prosperous time. There was a time when they were growing grapes 300 miles north of where they can now grow them.

It was, as far as I know, the first example of protectionism. The French tried to get the British to oppress their wine production— British wine production!

[Laughter.]

Mr. MOORE. Because it was competing too much with the French. As you know, Brits do not compete now in that area.

Scandinavia flourished. They were growing crops much further north than they can do now. In Greenland-there are bodies buried in Greenland in the permafrost from that period of time where you could not bury a body now. It was warm.

They were growing crops in Greenland. You cannot grow crops in Greenland today. It was significantly warmer.

In North America we also had the tremendous benefits. The Anastasi Indians built their Pueblo dwellings during this period of time. When the weather turned cold around near the end of the 13th Century, they abandoned those Pueblo dwellings.

The American Indians were growing crops in Iowa, and in areas where you could not grow a crop today. It was a very prosperous period of time for them.

So around the world it was a good period.

Now climate warming is not going to benefit everybody, and certainly if you get a rise in the sea level there are going to be places like the Maldive Islands which have an average height of something like three feet which are going to be in trouble. Fortunately,

there are not many people in the Maldive Islands and we can do something about that.

But at net, most people will benefit.

Now I want to mention, because Dr. Watson raised it, the question of health effects, because that is my recent research

Mr. ROHRABACHER. If you could, summarize.

Mr. MOORE. I will summarize.

First, on tropical diseases. If you get a statistical abstract and look at the back in the international comparison statistics, you will find that the place that has the longest life expectancy in the world is Hong Kong. It is in the tropics. Singapore is virtually on the Equator. It has a life expectancy equal to Western Europe or the United States. Hawaii of course is not known as an unhealthy place. So, the tropics. Warm weather does not mean people die of diseases. That is a poverty phenomenon.

Second, I estimate on the basis of statistical analysis, which is not through yet, but my preliminary numbers suggest that if we get a 2.5 to 3 centigrade warming in the United States, we would reduce deaths in the United States on average by about 40,000 a year. Thank you.

[The prepared statement and attachments of Mr. Moore follow:]

November 3, 1995

Testimony of
Thomas Gale Moore
Senior Fellow

Hoover Insitution
before

The Subcommittee on Energy and Environment

Committee on Science

November 16, 1995

I am Thomas Gale Moore, an economist and a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. My research has been on government regulation, focusing mostly on transportation issues. With the great progress that Congress has been made on reducing controls over trucking, airlines, and railroads, I have shifted my attention to the economics of environmental regulation. Recently I have published two papers "Why Global Warming would be Good for You" in The Public Interest, Winter 1995 and Global Warming: A Boon to Human and Other Animals — based on historical evidence that earlier warm periods were good for mankind. My current research deals with health effects and amenity benefits of a less cold climate.

If warming occurs, it is more likely to bring net benefits than losses to Americans and most of the world. Warmer periods in the past have brought benign weather. Milder temperatures will induce more evaporation from oceans and very likely more rainfall where it will fall we cannot be sure but the earth as a whole should receive greater precipitation. Meteorologists now believe that any rise in sea levels over the next century will be at most a foot or two, not twenty.1 History shows that around 6,000 years ago the earth sustained temperatures that were probably more than four degrees Fahrenheit hotter than those of the twentieth century, yet mankind flourished. The Sahara desert bloomed with plants, and water loving animals such as hippopotamuses wallowed in rivers and lakes. Dense forests carpeted Europe from the Alps to Scandinavia.

The evidence supporting the claim that the earth has grown warmer is shaky; the theory is weak; and the models on which the conclusions are based cannot even replicate the current climate. It is asserted, for example, that over the last hundred years the average temperature at the earth's surface has gone up by 0.5° Celsius or about 1° Fahrenheit. Given the paucity of data in the Southern Hemisphere, the evidence that in the United States, with the best recorus, temperatures have failed to rise; the British naval

1Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy [1991]. Policy Implications of Greenhouse Warming, p. 24; Environmental Protection Agency The Probability of Sea Level Rise 1995.

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