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Subject:	=?UTF-8?B?V0hBVOKAmVMgTkVXICAgUm9iZXJ0IEwuIFBhcmsgICAgRnJpZGF5LCA=?= =?UTF-8?B?NCBEZWMgMDkgICBXYXNoaW5ndG9uLCBEQw==?=
Date:	Sat, 05 Dec 2009 08:50:36 -0600

WHAT=E2=80=99S NEW Robert L. Park Friday, 4 Dec 09 Washington, DC

1. CLIMATE CHANGE: WHICH SIDE IS BOB ON IN THE CLIMATE WAR?
I=E2=80=99m getting a lot of mail asking where I stand on climate change.=
You=E2=80=99re
entitled to know. But first, I=E2=80=99ve gotta own up: I'm not a clima=
te
scientist. I rely on information gathered and interpreted by other
scientists, everybody does. My source on climate is the Intergovernmenta=
l
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) established by the United Nations in 1988,=

soon after I began writing WN. Along with most scientists, I concluded
that anthropogenic warming is real and dangerous; 20 years later I still
do. If warming is caused by human activity, and we have taken no steps =
to
modify our behavior, the result will be catastrophic. A long-term soluti=
on
calls for two changes throughout society: higher efficiency and lower
fertility. If warming turns out not to be caused by humans, we will stil=
l
have left our progeny with a better world.

2. CLIMATEGATE: WHAT ABOUT THE PEOPLE THAT DID THE HACKING?
Last week someone broke into the e-mail files of the Climate Research Uni=
t
at the University of East Anglia, and posted the results on the web for t=
he
world to see. The Wall Street Journal and Investors Business Daily are
having a field-day writing about "criminal conspiracy" and "scientific
blacklisting." There were a few embarrassing comments about global warmi=
ng
deniers in a mountain of e-mails. I would hate to see some of my private=
e-
mails on the web. The suffix was added to invite comparisons to the
infamous break-in at the Watergate Hotel by Nixon's goons, but in this
story the unnamed burglars are treated as heroes. No one wrote even a
line about what was probably the only criminal offense in this sordid
affair: hacking into private files. There are angry demands in Congress
for an investigation of the affair. So far the only effect has been to
shift the focus away from bad news about rising oceans and stranded polar=

bears to climate scientists more interested in scoring points than
advancing science. All that's left is to figure out who paid for the bre=
ak-
in. That book has already been written.

3. FUEL : THE MOST IMPORTANT BOOK YOU HAVEN=E2=80=99T READ.
When the ClimateGate story broke I immediately began digging through pile=
s
of paper on my desk to find my copy of "Doubt Is Their Product: How
Industry's Assault on Science Threatens Your Health," a 2008 book by Davi=
d
Michaels, an epidemiologist at the George Washington University School of=

Public Health. When scientific evidence of a threat to public health
becomes overwhelming, government intervention can still be delayed for
years by simply manufacturing uncertainty. That's where of the global
warming debate is right now. The fossil fuel industry is doing a job on =
us.

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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