Open notebook: My interview with Andrew Revkin :: CEJournal

In the last few years, society has reached something of a consensus that global warming is real, and that humans are largely to blame. While there are still some skeptics, for the most part the simple global warming ‘yes or no’ debate is over. But this raises problems too. “Presumably, the basis for action lies in an understanging of the risks. And understanding the risks comes from a clear view of the science, including what we don’t know about climate change.” In Revkin’s opinion, that clear view of the science is “terribly lost in the distillation that comes with saying that there is no more denying it.”

Another dubious claim

Scientists now know that melting in Greenland and Antarctica is lubricating the base of ice sheets, in many areas hastening the flow of ice into the sea. This contributes to sea level rise. How much can we expect? White says we just don’t know for sure.

This argues for adopting the precautionary principle and reducing our emissions so we will do no more harm. But White isn’t even sure whether that would work: “Once you’ve lubricated the base of these ice sheets, as we know is happening now, can you unlubricate them? Can you refreeze them? Are these things just going to naturally do what they do under a warming scenario, and there’s not much we can do about it?” White even wonders whether a colder climate will be able to stop them.

Op-Ed Contributors: John Bolton and John Yoo - Restore the Senate’s Treaty Power - NYTimes.com

On a broad variety of issues — many of which sound more like domestic rather than foreign policy — the re-emergence of the benignly labeled “global governance” movement is well under way in the Obama transition.

Candidate Obama promised to “re-engage” and “work constructively within” the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Will the new president pass a new Kyoto climate accord through Congress by sidestepping the constitutional requirement to persuade two-thirds of the Senate?

Draconian restrictions on energy use would follow. A majority of the Congress would be much easier for Mr. Obama to get than a supermajority of the Senate. A scholar at the Brookings Institution has already proposed that a new president overcome objections to this environmentalists’ holy grail by evading the Treaty Clause.