What's New December 11, 2009

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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