Fear of climate change, and of-ill conceived policies to halt it, are well founded. Climate change may have catastrophic consequences and prevention is critical. Alternatively, changes might be small, or even beneficial. Or, natural forces could overwhelm human impacts so nothing we can do will matter.

Whichever position is correct, the costs of error are huge. If climate change arrests the Gulf Stream's flow, northern Europe will freeze. Fear and political opportunism may spawn feel-good but foolish policies with serious adverse consequences for the world's poor, those least resilient to change.

Clearly, these problems are serious and complex. To help sort them out, I recently hosted a five day seminar on climate change. The featured speakers included two internationally distinguished experts, climatologist Dr. Jerry Mahlman, director of NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Lab at Princeton University and economist Tom Schelling from Harvard and the University of Maryland.

Participants were from places lower and warmer than Montana. Several came from Louisiana where the elevation, ambient temperature, humidity, and body temperatures commonly coincide. We can appreciate their concern with global warming and rise in sea levels.

We have an immense amount of data on world climate. The Princeton lab has 300 trillion bits of data in its model of climate change. The mathematical models relating the variables are so huge it takes America's fastest super computer three days to run a single experiment. Still, much data is missing.

In the U.S., the cost of reducing CO2 emissions could reduce the projected budget surplus by 90 percent in the coming decade. Substantial federal sums are directed toward climate change, $1.2 billion in 1992 and over $4.4 billion proposed for FY 2000. Responsible policy requires better knowledge so much of this money is allocated to research.

When scientists compete for grants they face strong incentives to exaggerate problems and their competence at dealing with them. For example, world-wide there are only about 100 to 300 scientists with the qualifications to be considered experts in the field. An even smaller group have produced the majority of credible, peer-reviewed scientific papers.

Because the policy consequences of cutting greenhouse gases are huge, all sides in the debate have stakes in the outcome. Coal produces and users, for example, minimize the dangers. Greens seeking reasons to mandate a sustainable culture and economy, exaggerate the problem. If the problem is immense and imminent (and if we can do anything about it), drastic action gains more support than if danger is dim and distant.

At our conference I learned that qualified scientists are 99 percent confident about several facts. Each has important implications for public policy, human welfare, and ecological systems. Here are a few.

First, global greenhouse gases are increasing due to human activities.

Second, regardless of what America and other developed nations do in the next decade, there is no reasonable scenario in which atmospheric CO2 will not double. It will probably quadruple. The consequences, however, will not become evident for several decades due to the buffering capacity of the oceans.

Third, the earth is warming slightly and CO2 is a major contributor.

For Americans, all of this is not nearly as grim as it sounds. We will have considerable time to adjust. Unless drastic as a new ice age, climate change is of little direct importance to people in the developed world. Aside from agriculture, there is no significant economic activity much affected by climate, certainly not by the relatively minor changes scientists anticipate during the next century. Most projected changes are far smaller than we find when traveling between Burlington, Vermont and Burlington, North Carolina.

I fear, however, for many species on the ecological edges of their range. Constrained from adapting through migration by habitat conversion, they are at risk. For example: grayling in Montana's Big Hole country and grizzlies in Yellowstone.

For people, the best defense against adverse consequences of warming is wealth. In this arena as in so many others, wealth buffers adversity. When comparing neighboring places with identical climates but differing wealth, for example Singapore and Malaysia, wealthier is healthier, safer, and far more resilient.

The great grandchildren of the world's poor are those most likely to be adversely effected by global warming. Their greatest danger is premature policies which stifle third world wealth creation. This great truth is often ignored in the debate over climate change. Advocates of any policy should consider it.