THE HEAT IS ON: The High Stakes Battle Over Earth’s Threatened Climate.<i> By Ross Gelbspan</i> . <i> Addison-Wesley: 278 pp., $23</i>

Forty years ago, Vice President Al Gore’s environmental mentor, Roger Revelle, warned that “human beings are now carrying out a large scale geophysical experiment . . .” on Earth. Burning coal, oil and natural gas to produce electricity, drive automobiles and power industry was causing a buildup of carbon dioxide that traps heat in the atmosphere that would otherwise escape into space. Would the result be a significant warming of the global climate?

Initial results on the “experiment” are now available. “The balance of evidence suggests that there is a discernible human influence on global climate,” according to the 1996 report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a worldwide body of 2,500 scientists assembled to advise governments on the scientific facts of life on global warming. This outcome was based on detailed analysis of historical records and super-computer simulations of temperature that show the characteristic fingerprint of human activity superimposed on the normal background of climatic variation.

To many scientists, the conclusions of this report came as no surprise because, in the decades since Revelle’s warning, research has provided ample evidence that humans were inexorably changing the atmosphere. Among the key findings are that the atmospheric level of carbon dioxide has increased by 30% since the Industrial Revolution and that the Earth has warmed about one degree Fahrenheit since the latter part of the 19th century. Furthermore, samples of air trapped in ancient ice show that at earlier times, natural climate variations were closely associated with natural variations in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases, which have now attained their highest atmospheric levels in more than 200,000 years because of human emissions.

Ross Gelbspan, formerly a reporter and editor for the Boston Globe, has monitored the progress of global environmental issues for 25 years, and “The Heat Is On” bears the mark of someone who has reported on the environment for a long time and brings to the subject a deep perspective. But Gelbspan’s focus is less on the details of the scientific experiment than on the sociopolitical experiment that has begun as governments attempt to grapple with solutions to the problem. In 1992, after 18 months of wrangling, governments of the industrialized countries--including the United States, Europe and Japan--agreed to make attempts to return emissions to 1990 levels by 2000. The treaty, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, was signed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. But negotiations continue because the initial limits were insufficient, and most countries, including the United States, are expected to fail to meet the objective of the accord in any event.

A fracas that had been brewing slowly for several years broke out as fossil-fuel interests--both oil and coal companies and oil-producing nations--realized that their lifeblood was threatened: One way or another, slowing global warming means slashing fossil fuel use and replacing it with renewable sources like solar energy. Various industry combinations, dominated by fossil-fuel interests, geared up for battle. One industry group has retained its own representative, who attends the negotiations as a supposed observer but, in fact, appears to orchestrate the negotiating positions of the Saudi and Kuwaiti delegates. As oil-producing nations, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait are not thrilled about the prospect of an energy transition away from fossil fuels.

The inside glimpse at how these interests go about the business of influencing policy on an issue where global habitability is at stake is both revealing and appalling. The most troubling episode occurred when those opposed to emissions limitation launched a full-fledged public relations war that included a nasty attack on the integrity of scientists doing the fundamental research on the climate fingerprint.

Gelbspan is particularly insightful on the effectiveness with which this campaign has obfuscated the issue and dazed the body politic by deploying arguments of a handful of scientists whose views conflict sharply with the rest of the scientific community. Yet their arguments have generated columns of ink in great disproportion to their numbers and their influence among other scientists. Gelbspan blames the industry groups, who provide resources for public relations efforts that amplify fringe science in the public arena. He also takes the press to task for its well-intended adherence to a “fairness” model that is more fittingly applied to political arguments because it provides equal time to all sides. With science, unlike politics, there is usually only one truth.

The author presents a disturbing replay of a series of hearings held after the Republican majority took control of the Congress in 1994, hearings that saw the scientists with fringe views treated with great deference and saw the views of respected mainstream scientists derided with such retorts as Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Rocklin): “I’m not going to get involved in a mumbo-jumbo of peer-reviewed documents.” (For readers who don’t follow science, peer review is the process that filters out the credible from the indefensible before it is published.) And consider what Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) asserted about global warming: “At best it’s nonproven, and at worst it’s liberal claptrap.” Such uninformed rambling would be merely humorous if the result had not been significant reductions in the science research budget for this issue.

People need to read this book, whether they are concerned about slowing global warming or about the use and abuse of science in the political arena or about the struggle in the world between the haves and the have-nots, a struggle that repeats itself over issues of population limitation to trade to disarmament. The chapter “After Rio: The Swamp of Diplomacy” is particularly insightful; it will no doubt make some readers deeply skeptical that negotiation-as-usual can produce a solution in time to avert disruptive climate changes.

But readers should be aware of a few significant shortcomings in the book. The presentation of scientific details is far from the best available. In more than a few instances, the descriptions confuse rather than clarify the issues and misrepresent the level of scientific understanding by using “will” rather than “may” in projecting potential outcomes of warming or, in a few instances, are just incorrect. For example, Gelbspan argues that “the recent weather record has been marked by stronger hurricanes . . .” that are “nature’s expressions of the early stages of the heating of the atmosphere.” In fact, the average strength of North Atlantic hurricanes has decreased since the 1940s, and there is little evidence of a trend in hurricane frequency. There was a large number of such storms in 1995 and 1996, but it came after several decades of unusually low hurricane incidence. As for the future, a credible argument can be made that strong hurricanes may get stronger in a warmer world, but there is not yet a scientific consensus on the matter. The author also leaves the impression that all extremes of climate are bound to occur more frequently. To the contrary, some extremes, like the frequency of extreme cold, are likely to become less common at most locations.

His proposed solution--essentially a public takeover of the energy sector accompanied by a massive public relations campaign to quickly convert the public--is draconian and unlikely to attract many adherents. It seems to reflect Gelbspan’s understandable impatience with the fact that the future of the world is tied up in the vagaries of international diplomacy and the unruliness of the market. Others have argued more persuasively and realistically that the solution to the problem--implementing high-efficiency technology and solar energy sources--would be better achieved using incentives and disincentives than technology mandates and confiscation.

Some observers disagree about the pace of the negotiations, arguing that progress has been rapid indeed, compared to work on other international issues such as nuclear weapons testing. Nevertheless, greenhouse gases keep building up, the climate is beginning to change and the consequences will be largely irreversible. Can we really blame Gelbspan for being impatient?