Climate change talk draws expert panel

SANDPOINT - When it comes to issues such as global climate change, Dr. Clay Nichols is not easily stampeded.

Nichols, a retired chief scientist at the Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory, has spent an entire career picking assiduously away at scientific evidence before coming to conclusions. Long before Al Gore was making movies about the subject, Nichols was working the globe with other high-level experts who conducted their research like detectives assigned to what a growing number of people believe is the biggest case in the history of Planet Earth.

The mystery at hand is twofold: Is the world climate changing and, if so, whodunit?

On Dec. 4 at 7:30 p.m., Nichols will act as moderator for group of scientists who have investigated the matter both regionally and internationally during a panel presentation titled "Global Climate Change: A Scientific Examination." (see sidebar) The discussion, which will be held at the library in Sandpoint, is being sponsored by the Friends of the East Bonner County Library.

"I want to make the focus of this presentation about getting to the scientific basis for climate change," said Nichols. "And our biggest goal is to communicate this in layman's language."

Members of the panel plan to offer the "clues" they have encountered so far in their exploration of the climate change mystery. 

Nichols - who retired in 2003 and moved to Sandpoint full-time - will make his case from the viewpoint of geology.  His father was an oilman and leading figure in drilling technology who also instilled a love of the land in his young son. Nichols was learning about geology by age 10 and went through college rubbing elbows with many of the country's top geologists.

But it wasn't until his best friend became a science advisor for the Clinton Administration that he was pulled into the question of what, if anything, was going on with the state of the world's climactic health.

"The favorite thing I ended up doing was working on the climate change initiative," Nichols said.

Through his work in the field, he crossed paths with ice core expert Dr. DeWayne Cecil.  At the time, Cecil was measuring radioactive contamination to determine where it originated.  The same core data, however, read like a historical record of the Earth's ice core temperatures, a finding Nichols was eager to share.  He took an international group of scientists to Washington, D.C., to present the information to elected officials.

"Both DeWayne and I have spent our careers working with both Republicans and Democrats and giving whatever administration was in place at the time pure scientific information," Nichols said.  "Al Gore wasn't there for our presentation, but we were told he stayed up all night going over the data because he had no idea that there was such a record of the Earth's temperatures over such a long period of time."

As the then-vice president was thinking ahead about what the core samples might mean, the scientific community began to look backwards in a process called "hindcasting" - taking scientific theory and backing into an answer using data from the past.

Climate change has moved from a stage of politicization to one of humanization as data continues to pile up.

"It can be said that the majority of well-regarded scientists in the world are in agreement on the issue of whether change is occurring," the geologist said.  "We want to acknowledge that there is a man-made contribution and that you can quantify - better every year - what level of CO2 come from humans.

"The issue now is, 'What is the human contribution to natural activity?'" he added. 

Like the proverbial pebble that can start a landslide, humankind's overall contribution to the climate conundrum might prove to be minimal compared with the chain of events it could set off.  As the planet warms, Nichols said, "you have an interaction of several phenomenon" that can affect ocean currents, the atmosphere and the way the planet reacts to heat energy from the sun.

At that point, the amount of pollution humans spew out could prove insignificant in the face of changes the Earth begins to make to itself.

"The natural changes that could be set off by warming would probably dwarf the impact of the Industrial Revolution," said Nichols.

Bipartisan by nature and objective by disposition, the geologist refuses to be cornered when asked to state whether he believes humans are behind climate change climate.

"There are advocates on both sides of the issue, but I haven't cast my vote yet," he said.  "Getting the public to a science level of understanding - so they can question their own motives - is my objective for this panel discussion.

"I hope people walk away with a feeling for the complexity of the issue," he went on.  "And I want to challenge them to face their own biases and separate the truth from the fiction."

FOL President Ilene Bell talked several months ago with Nichols about hosting a scientific panel at the library.  She was surprised when he came back with a list of preeminent experts who were ready to travel to Sandpoint to participate.

"I was floored that people of this stature are willing to come and talk to us," Bell said.  "The caliber of these scientists is absolutely stunning."

A couple of things made that possible, according to Nichols - the promise to keep the panel de-politicized and the prospect of skiing at Schweitzer.  Another draw is the fact that the world - scientists included - has become focused on the topic.

"There is an overwhelming swing in the attention to climate change," Nichols said.  "The whole geo-science community is also swinging to that."

But it has been a very slow swing, he noted; a cautious pace that scientists have adopted in order to avoid running afoul of those on either side of the philosophical fence.

"There are a lot of jokes about how geologists work at glacial speed and I've been accused of that myself," he said.  "But when you encounter people who believe that the geologic age of the Earth is only 4,000 years, you learn to tread lightly."