Inconvenient Truths
Nineteen climate scientists interviewed by the Associated Press gave Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, two thumbs up for scientific accuracy. There were some minor errors, but those errors were "far, far fewer and less significant than the shortcoming in speeches by the typical politician explaining an issue," according to Michael MacCracken, the chief scientist at the Climate Institute in Washington.
In a June 22nd report, the National Academy of Sciences told Congress, "the last few decades of the 20th century were warmer than any comparable period in the last 400 years." The report also included evidence that recent warming is caused by human activity and is in excess of any similar warming in the past 2,000 years. These conclusions strongly support the chart presented by Michael Mann, Raymond Bradley and Malcolm Hughes in the late 1990s, which showed that the Northern Hemisphere was the warmest it has been in two millennia.
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Forcing the Government to Do What's Right
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to hear a case that will determine whether the federal government must regulate emissions of new cars. The plaintiffs in the suit charge that the EPA must control greenhouse gasses, but the EPA insists that carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, is not defined as a pollutant and therefore should not be regulated. Federal officials have called the lawsuit against the EPA "speculative" and claim that the science behind them is not conclusive enough to require action.
The Sierra Club, a prominent environmental organization, plans to shift over a quarter of its campaign fund from Congressional races to state and local elections. Carl Pope, the executive director of the Club, announced last Tuesday that state races would receive about a third of the fund, which he anticipates will total $5 million to $10 million. Pope said state and local governments are increasingly responsible for environmental issues, since partisan Washington is deadlocked on environmental legislation.
At a summit in Vienna on June 21, United States and European Union representatives agreed to "act with resolve and urgency to reduce greenhouse gas emissions." The two sides pledged to increase funding for lower-emission fossil fuels and renewable fuel sources. While the declaration did not pinpoint any specific emissions targets, it said the two bodies would hold an annual strategic review of their energy cooperation.
Alternative Sources
The Sierra Club has filed a suit against the Pentagon, charging the Department of Defense with blocking the construction of wind power plants. The Department of Defense had barred placement of wind farms within line of sight of military radar. In response, Congress mandated that the Department of Defense conduct a study to determine if wind farms actually do pose a problem for radar systems. Even though the deadline for that study has come and gone, the Defense Department still provides no indication of when it plans to complete the study.
The House Resources Committee approved legislation that would allow oil and gas drilling in waters more than 50 miles offshore. The bill's sponsors say it is likely to pass in the House but will face an uphill battle in the Senate. Opponents of the legislation say that the bill sets back protection of US coasts and could harm states whose neighbors choose to drill.
Opponents of the 2001 federal ban on stem cell research said a new bill promoting alternative methods of obtaining stem cells will not deter them from trying to repeal the ban. Alternative methods could allow for the creation of embryonic stem cells without the destruction of viable human embryos, but these technologies are largely untested. Most researchers say they believe these alternatives are not likely to be as successful as the methods President Bush banned.
Too Wet, Too Dry