A climate change crusade is underway. We are all being called upon to stop Global Warming’s (GW) assault on Gaia. It’s the biggest Green movement since the first Earth Day in April of 1970. Earth Day has garnered widespread support by incorporating a full spectrum of causes. In Boston, they may rally around “sludge,” dioxins and other such noxious substances. While here in Bozeman, we’re more concerned with the romance side of the Green equation: parks, wilderness, riparian habitat, bison, etc. Because it combines sludge and romantic concerns, GW has in itself created a Green crusade with wide appeal. This was evident at MSU on March 5th.

The University’s Leadership Institute hosted Australian ecological scientist Tim Flannery, author of “The Weather Makers.” The announcement read, “Flannery does not just tell his audience what is happening to our planet. He very clearly lays out a game plan for halting current warming trends and beginning the long, but entirely achievable project of reversing the damage we have done. His goal is to mobilize his listeners—both personally and politically—to recognize that we are all "weather makers" and that the only choice, both logically and ethically, is to begin to address this problem before it's too late.”

With this promise, it’s no wonder that when I urged an economist friend to buy a ticket to join me at the talk he found the event sold out. GW really is a popular crusade. Flannery told a packed house, “Ultimately, global warming is a moral problem rather than a purely scientific or economic one.” But, crusades against some generalized moral enemy have a sorry history. Issues that involve morality, science, and economics are prone to error, acrimony, and censorship. Censorship of dissidents, now labeled heretics, has already begun. This will hurt the GW movement for efforts to force consensus will alienate smart, independent scientists.

FREE has held several conferences for federal judges on climate change, for example “Understanding the Ecology, Economics, and Ethics of Climate Change.” Further, our new program, “Environmental Stewardship for Religious Leaders,” considers GW. Featured speakers are natural scientists and economists from top universities including Harvard, Illinois, MIT, Princeton, and Yale. I was in comfortable territory listening to Flannery’s talk—and heard no surprises.

His take home message was simple: GW is real, huge, and rapidly approaching. He told us, artic ice is melting, glaciers retreating, and aridity increasing. (Only the last claim is contentious among climate scientists.) We are, Flannery warned, likely to enter a new Dark Age.

Flannery is one scientist who’s IQ doesn’t immediately converge with his body temperature upon entering the policy arena. He strongly supports a global market, a trading system for carbon emissions, and may even appreciate the importance of institutions. Flannery, however, neglects an important consideration; some nations, regions, and industries quite reasonably expect to substantially gain from GW.

Nearly all of humanity has benefited substantially during the past 10,000 years of warming and glacial melting. Europe flourished during the medieval warmth of 1000 to 1400, when the Vikings settled Greenland. If the projected warming of the next two centuries occurs, Russia, Canada, and parts of the U.S.A. are likely to prosper while other places decline or disappear underwater. It’s naïve to expect those who expect huge gains from GW to support costly initiatives to stop and reverse it.

Global warming theory says higher global temperatures are inevitable. Even the sunniest reform assumes decades of additional greenhouse gas accumulations and a warmer world. The climate change process is relentless; denying this is irresponsible. Thus, adaptation to climate change has a high value. This includes changes in crops, buildings, and demography.

Most Greens neglect adaptation as it implies accepting a warmer world. However, surely we’ll be ahead if, universities, businesses, investors, and entrepreneurs soon address this critical opportunity for change. Silencing critics of the crusade, or of crusaders like Al Gore, is not a responsible strategy for reform.

The GW crusade offers both great positive potential and great peril. As is said of the Christian crusades, "High ideals were besmirched by cruelty and greed. The Holy War was … a long act of intolerance in the name of God.” Let’s not repeat this in the name of Gaia.