[JerseyHighlander]

This is the source document that the New York Times is reporting as the reversal by the Bush administration on Global Warming. This report has been in production since before Bush was elected. Matt Drudge is using this to pump ratings tonight, June 2nd 2002. A few months ago, if I recall correctly, the Bush administration, through Christy Whitman, stalled the production of this report.

There is a link to the preliminary reports open comment period, Here which has some further info that should be aired.

[Pokey78]

Climate Changing, U.S. Says in Report

But while the report says the United States will be substantially changed in the next few decades — "very likely" seeing the disruption of snow-fed water supplies, more stifling heat waves and the permanent disappearance of Rocky Mountain meadows and coastal marshes, for example — it does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases.

It recommends adapting to inevitable changes. It does not recommend making rapid reductions in greenhouse gases to limit warming, the approach favored by many environmental groups and countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, a climate treaty written in the Clinton administration that was rejected by Mr. Bush.

[rintense]

...it does not propose any major shift in the administration's policy on greenhouse gases.

I wonder how many times this will get over looked.

[JerseyHighlander]

It is my belief that the NYT's report on June 3rd will focus on language used in chapters 5 and 6.

Now what does this report create in term of precedence, or what would this report mean this election cycle if the media didn't stir it up at this point? Or what will this report and follow up reports do to solidify scientifically shaky climate change projection techniques during the next Democratic administration, 6, 10, or 14 years from now?

If this report had slid under the radar, a few thousand scientists in the climate change community/industry would have known of its existence. With this wide open airing (curteous NYT), it becomes a great foil to sow doubt in Bush's base as the the president's commitments on politically charged issues.

[pierrem15]

Another example of the EPA bureaucracy out of control.

What's the use of an election, if we can't force these agencies to reflect the policy changes made by our elected leadership? They always seem to have the ability to pull an end run around any elected officials or appointees by going to the press and/or a cabal of unelected NGO's and lawyers.

[rwfromkansas]

In citing the document, the intro pages say we should cite the STATE DEPARTMENT. It appears the EPA and the State Dept...i.e...Powell's Bowels....are responsible for this. Not really Bush. If this is true, my anger is really directed at Bowell and the EPA. But, if it is found Bush signed off on this report....like Drudge was trying to make it sound, I will be very angry....directly at the WH and thus, Bush himself.

[Senator Pardek]

Good work.

[mrsmith]

Thanks!

From the intro:
"While current analyses are unable to predict with confidence the timing, magnitude, or regional distribution of climate change, the best scientific information indicates that if greenhouse gas concentrations continue to increase, changes are likely to occur.
The U.S. National Research Council has cautioned, however, that “because there is considerable uncertainty in current understanding of how the climate system varies naturally and reacts to emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols, current estimates of the magnitude of future warmings should be regarded as tentative and subject to future adjustments (either upward or downward).”
Moreover, there is perhaps even greater uncertainty regarding the social, environmental, and economic consequences of changes in climate. "

Sure, but they'd have to increase an impossibly large amount in an impossibly short time.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Laz! It's you!!"

[Russell Scott]

Hmm, I am still waiting for us to act on the global cooling reports the nature cults where spouting 20 years ago. Of course, if the nations start a big time thermo-nuclear, all global warming bets are off.

Of course, knowing what is really coming, none of this causes me serious concern. When the water canopy is restored around the earth, and the curse is removed from the ground, this entire planet will be a paradise beyond description. And you thought Jesus died just for your sins. He died to completely restore EVERYTHING we lost in the fall. Yes!!!

[5by5]

I wonder if we've found the price of Europe's cooperation for the war on terror.

[Lancey Howard]

Thank you for your efforts on this.
The other thread, which was based on the phoney, sensational Drudge headline, which in turn was based on a story to be published in the Gray Old Whore, got so polluted with pathetic "I'll-never-vote-for-Bush-again" morons that many of the legitimate posters missed the part where Drudge was thoroughly debunked. Hats off to Nick Danger for that.

By the way, I never saw a thread get "locked" by a moderator before. Is this done when the premise of a thread is phoney, like with the "Bush U-turn" thread?

[My Identity]

Kyoto Paradox I:
Climate is an extremely complex, chaotic, coupled, non-linear, time-dependent system
with massive, external, naturally-occuring inputs and wide variability in measurables.
Therefore,
To say we can control it by tweaking a small set of factors is ridiculous on its face.

Kyoto Paradox II:
Climate is an extremely complex, chaotic, coupled, non-linear, time-dependent system
with massive, external, naturally-occuring inputs and wide variability in measurables.
Therefore,
You can no more successfully predict the outcome of doing something than you can of
not doing something. In other words, the impact of trying to "fix" a climate problem
is as unpredictable as the impact of ignoring it.

[Wonder Warthog]

Bump for later perusal and comment.

[Lazamataz]

But now I've been to the EPA site and read the introduction. No, this is no Clinton holdover. Nor is it what the New York Times says it is. This report has been totally re-worked by Bush's people. Drudge's characterization of it, and the New York Times' as well -- if he is quoting them accurately -- is way off base.

Maybe I am way behind the curve here, but this is the first time that Drudge has pretty much lied (or quoted a lying source). I'm aware he sensationalizes for his Sunday show, but I wasn't aware he'd taken to lying.

[FreeTheHostages]

Glad to meet you!! Some times I felt so alone on this topic.

The question of whether human activity is primarily responsible for global warming is a science question, not a political question. The question about what to do about is is a political question. It's the latter that conservatives should get excited about.

I think this report is fine and no big deal. The science is pretty clear now, no sense turning environmental activitists into presicent Galileo-like saints. If the sciene says this, then so be it.

But the Bush administration, while *sagely* in my view not bucking science (sheesh, the only people who don't think CO2 has a big role now are the auto & gas companies), wisely says let's let the free market and not Kyoto help us with the solution. America's the biggest, bestest, baddest at this: our economy will have better cheaper faster solutions long before Kyoto makes a wit of difference in our atmosphere.

The scientific question should not be a conservative touchstone issue like abortion. Because unlike abortion, we could be proven wrong scientifically. We should focus on the policy response and not fight science.

I'm also pragmatic: if this makes it more likely we can take back the Senate, I say go for it.

[NittanyLion]

It would appear the State Dept. has continued on the course set by the Clinton Admin. Perhaps it's time to clean house - no doubt a midlevel bureaucrat slipped this through to embarrass the administration.

[Valin]

Bump and bookmark for a later read.

Some say the world will end in ice,
and others say by fire.But what I've tasted of desire,
I think I'd rather fire.

[Right Wing Professor]

I decided to getaway from the 'Bush sucks' 'No, Bush rules, you suck' , and actually read the content of the report. My first impresion is that it's sloppy, poorly written, and poorly thought out.

Just starting with the Intro.

• (p3)... President Bush recently announced a commitment to reduce greenhouse gas intensity in the United States by 18 percent over the next decade through a combination of voluntary, incentive-based, and existing mandatory measures. This represents a 4.5 percent reduction from forecast emissions in 2012..
  Scientifically, this is utterly meaningless. As a working scientist, I have no idea what a 'greenhouse gas intensity' is; we don't use intensity as a measure of a quantity or rate of change of a quantity. When you say 18% of something without properly defining what that something is, you say nothing.
• (p5)Several classes of halogenated substances that contain fluorine, chlorine, or bromine are also greenhouse gases, but for the most part, they are solely a product of industrial activities.
  For the most part, they are solely...? What the heck does that mean? FWIW, most halogenated organics in the environment are produced by bacteria and marine algae.

And so on.

This reports seems largely an attempt to cast Bush's program in the language of the environmentalists. As such, I think it's misguided, though not a betrayal. Some good will certainly come from the research he proposes, but the left will be able to pitch it as 'Bush fiddles while the world burns'. Much of the science is sloppily described - whether that's becuse the EPA is staffed by scientifically illiterate biologists (it is) or whether the report was worked over by political types after it was written is anyone's guess. But the report, in that it doesn't question the central premises behind Kyoto and the like, will fail it its aim.

What I would have released is something that says

• Climate change is one thing about climate we can be sure of, no matter what we do.For example, entirely without human intervention, the Northern Great Plains in the last 10 million years (an instant of geologic time) have several times gone from a savannah supporting camels and rhinos, to a million square mile glacier, and back.
• Anthropogenic effects are probably warming the climate, althoug even worst case predictions for the next century involve far smaller changes than have occured in the last million years. We don't know if, on balance, warming will be bad or good for us and for the world, but the balance of evidence suggests that the earth is on average rather colder now than it has been for most of its history, and a little warming may be a good thing.
• In any case, the Kyoto cure is far, far worse than the disease. We don't know how significant global warming is likely to be, we certainly don't know if it should be feared or welcomed, so adopting a drastic change in the way the world's people live their lives is crazy at this stage. The money spent implementing Kyoto, as the 'Skeptical Environmentalist' points out, would be far better spent doing other things.
• Where there are clear unfavorable consequences of climate change, we should work on a case-by-case basis to ameliorate those consequences. However, it's a sign of how insubstantial the evidence of climate change really is, that we have no good evidence yet of any consequences.

You can't win an argument if you let the other side define the premises.

[finnman69]

From the summary : "Greeen house gasses are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activity, causing global mean surface temperature and subsurface ocean temperature to rise.While the changes over the last several decades are likely due mostly to human activities, we cannot rule out that a significant part is also a reflection of natural variability"

[KayEyeDoubleDee]

BTTT