The Kyoto Protocol

of the volcanoes and ozone depletion (effects unrelated to fossil fuel emissions) is not easily done.

I believe some minor warming due to increasing greenhouse gasses will occur, though untangling that component from the natural variability will be extremely difficult. Even drastic actions at this point will have a miniscule effect on whatever the present course of the climate is. We do know that a CO2-enriched atmosphere is beneficial to all our carbon-based ecosystems. However, at this point, we simply do not know whether the CO2-enriched climate of the next century will be made more difficult or more benign or even noticeably different for our country or for the world. The research is really just beginning.

I will close with a personal observation. Some activists cultivate the notion that they are taking the High Moral Ground by putting global warming on the same "Save the Earth" platform as preserving wildlife, saving the rain forests or cleaning the Earth's rivers and oceans.

Serving as a missionary in Africa in the early 1970s gives me a different perspective on proposals to combat global warming. The artificial rise in fuel and energy costs created by the Arab oil embargo was a crushing blow to many, but in particular to the world's poorest peoples. Many people in Africa suffered or died when gasoline prices soared beyond their meager ability to pay, halting transportation and other energy-related activities that preserved both life and property.

In addition, many of the life-saving activities supported through the benevolence of wealthy countries, such as ours, were curtailed due to rising costs and slumping economies.

Disrupting the lives of those whose existence is too often literally hanging by a thread causes the kind of suffering that the average policy maker or activist never sees. I have seen it. It is real and it is devastating.

That is why my own view, based on personal experience as both an atmospheric scientist and a missionary, leads me to a different High Moral Ground: When it comes to global warming, save the Earth but not before you reduce the scientific uncertainties and not by sacrificing the poor. Thank you.