[BOBPARKS-WHATSNEW] What's New December 11, 2009
Bob Park
WHAT'S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 11 Dec 09 Washington, DC
1. WARMER: THE TREND SHOWS NO SIGN OFF ENDING.
At the Copenhagen climate talks, Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the
international weather agency, told a news conference that the period from
2000 through 2009 will almost certainly be the warmest decade in the 150
years of modern record-keeping. And with just a few weeks remaining,
2009
will likely be the fifth warmest year on record. But what about those
hacked emails from the climate research unit at the University of East
Anglia? Jarraud replied that there is no evidence that independent
estimates showing a warming world are in doubt. The more interesting
question is who was behind the break-in and why? The use of dirty tricks
to
cast doubt on the reality of global warming began with Kyoto.
2. KYOTO: THE PROTOCOL WAS ADOPTED 12 YEARS AGO TODAY.
It?s awkward that the United States, alone among major nations, declined
to
ratify the Kyoto protocol calling for reduction of greenhouse gases.
Without the United States, which is responsible for 1/3 of the world's
greenhouse emissions, the Kyoto accord was meaningless. To convince
Congress and the public that scientists have serious doubts about global
warming, a petition was launched. The only return address on a massive
mailing to academic scientists was a P.O. Box. The only name was Fred
Seitz. A famous condensed matter physicist in his earlier years, Seitz
headed the ultra-conservative George C. Marshall Institute in Washington.
Seitz was also a permanent paid consultant of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco
Company. Although he conducted no tobacco research, Seitz used his
scientific reputation to cast doubt on medical evidence showing that
secondhand smoke is dangerous. Now he was doing the same for global
warming. The petition mailing included a Wall Street Journal op-ed that
said we have an ethical responsibility to burn as much fossil fuel as
possible to get carbon out of the ground and into the air where it can
create life. According to NBC news correspondent Ian Williams this week,
the life C02 is helping to create in Malaysia includes the Aedes Aegypti
mosquito that multiplies more rapidly as the temperature rises. Aedes
transmits dengue fever.
3. NATURALLY: ALTERNATIVE MEDICINE IS IN THE HEALTH REFORM BILL.
Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat also known as Senator Bee Pollen, could
not let the Health Reform Bill go through without a provision mandating
that insurers reimburse alternative medicine providers. It was Harkin,
you
will recall, who was responsible for creation of the National Center for
Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), forcing Harold Varmus to
resign as head of NIH. NCCAM hasn't found any cures, but it has done a
credible job of using rigorous placebo-controlled double-blind studies to
demonstrate that one herbal remedy after another is totally ineffective.
Presumably the alternative medicine providers will be reimbursed for
applying the placebo effect.
THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND.
Opinions are the author's and not necessarily shared by the
University of Maryland, but they should be.
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