The Clinton administration makes minor concessions in a global agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and the conservative voices are immediately raised in shrill alarm. With only slightly less consensus, they consider it very probable that globally we will experience increased precipitation, melting of ice caps and glaciers, and a rise in sea level that will flood low-lying areas.
Science is a structured discipline.
Its credible practitioners suggest possibilities from available data, and those hypotheses are repeatedly scrutinized and tested for falsity. When the data continue to indicate fidelity to the suggested concept, it becomes accepted as theory. In a simple experiment carried out in a test-tube, it is easy to prove theory and make it fact. However, the scale of planetary events is so large that when certainty is finally undeniable the effects will continue long after any corrective measures are instituted. The inescapable truth is that Americans use energy wastefully and that the U.S. has contributed significantly greater amounts of greenhouse gases than any other nation.