The confusion has been going on a lot longer than the past few weeks.
Editorial: A week of mixed messages on global warming
Published 12:00 am PDT Sunday, June 3, 2007
If you're confused by the babel about global warming coming out of the Bush administration, imagine how the rest of the world must regard it.
One minute last week there was news on National Public Radio that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said he wasn't sure whether global warming "is a problem we must wrestle with." He even wondered whether it was "rather arrogant" for people to decide that today's climate is the best for all other humans.
It felt like a FEMA moment. This guy heads the agency that studies global warming for the United States, the world's largest emitter of heat-trapping gases building up in Earth's atmosphere.
Almost simultaneously, NASA was making news with its co-authored report about human-made greenhouse gases bringing Earth's climate close to critical tipping points. "If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones," said lead author James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
