Conference participants take sides in global warming debate
 

LBJ School Professor David Eaton (left) chats with
conference speaker John Gibson, international policy
liaison with the White House Task Force on Global
Climate Change.

photo by María de la Luz Martínez

A large group of scientists, engineers, economists, and government officials gathered at the LBJ School in March to debate scientific and political issues related to global warming. At the center of the discussion was the issue of whether the United States and other nations should ratify the controversial Protocol on Global Climate Change adopted at the world summit in Kyoto, Japan.

The one-day conference, which was open to the public, began with a debate between two leading climatologists with opposing views on global warming. Speaking on behalf of the view that global warming is a scientific reality with long-term consequences was Michael MacCracken, executive director of the U.S. Global Climate Change National Assessment Coordination Office in Washington, D.C. Taking the view that global climate change cannot be proved scientifically was Patrick J. Michaels, Virginia state climatologist and a professor of environmental science at the University of Virginia.

The afternoon session offered opposing views on the Kyoto Protocol, focusing particularly on whether ratifying the agreement is in the United States' best interest. On the pro side of the debate were John Gibson, international policy liaison with the White House Task Force on Global Climate Change, and Eban Goodstein, economics professor at Lewis and Clark College and author of a recent book on the Kyoto Protocol. Speaking against ratification was Floy Lilley, program manager of the Clint W. Murchison Sr. Chair in Free Enterprise at UT Austin, and Peter Wilcoxen, UT Austin associate professor of economics.

Among the LBJ School faculty members who participated in the conference were David Eaton, who helped coordinate the conference, and Jurgen Schmandt, who was on one of the discussion panels. LBJ School Diplomat-in-Residence Eleanor Savage-Gildersleeve also participated in one of the panels.

The conference was cosponsored by various units of UT Austin and Island Press. The UT groups included the LBJ School, College of Natural Sciences, College of Engineering, College of Liberal Arts, Center for Environmental Resource Management in Latin America of the Institute of Latin American Studies, Clint W. Murchison Sr. Chair in Free Enterprise, and Center for Inter-American Policy Studies.

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