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OVERHEATED TIMES TWO [Jonathan Adler]
A front-page New York Times story claims that the U.S. government has officially acknowledged the coming greenhouse apocalypse. Last week, the administration submitted the 2002 Climate Action Report to the United Nations. This report summarizes recent national and international syntheses of climate science, and describes some of the "likely" and "possible" impacts of increased emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate changes.
As is to be expected from any document produced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of State, the report accentuates the negative. (For a more balanced presentation of the science see here and here .) At the same time, however, the report time and again reiterates the uncertainty of climate science. The Times nonetheless opens its story by claiming the report "detail[s] specific and far-reaching effects that it says global warming will inflict on the American environment." Not quite. The report outlines some specific potential scenarios, but it carefully states all of its predictions in probabilistic terms and reiterates the National Academy of Sciences' conclusion that specific predictions about climate change are, as yet, impossible. More importantly, the report notes (and the Times acknowledges) that global warming is likely to increase agricultural and forest productivity and that insofar as some climate change is inevitable, current policies should embrace adaptive measures, not crash energy diets. There's no need to wait to see how the report will be spun. The Times was ready this morning with an editorial calling for congressional action to regulate greenhouse gases. No doubt Senator Jeffords will do his best to oblige.
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52 posted on 6/3/02 11:48 AM Eastern by VinnyTex
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