Hysteria

At the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change conference in Nairobi, UN chief Kofi (oil-for-food) Annan demanded that world leaders give climate change the same priority as they did wars and curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

Annan declared: “The message is clear. Global climate change must take its place alongside those threats -- conflict, poverty, the proliferation of deadly weapons -- that have traditionally monopolized political attention.”

“Climate change is also a threat to peace and security,” he warned. “Changing patterns of rainfall, for example, can heighten competition for resources.”

At the Framework conference the United States is being scrutinized for any gesture towards the Kyoto pact after last week's US elections.

Former US veep Algore described the US and Australia as the “Bonnie and Clyde” of the global climate crisis for failing to ratify the Kyoto Protocol. Australian Prime Minister John Howard who had seen Algore’s movie “An inconvenient truth” said it smacked of a “peeved politician” sniping at the Bush administration.

Mr. Howard urged Australians to think more positively about nuclear power which is expected to become more economical as the cost of reducing CO2 emissions makes coal-fired electricity more expensive. Australia's huge uranium deposits are the world's largest. Environmental activists hate nuclear power even more than global warming.

Back in Washington, there's a new environmental boss in town who scowls a lot, and two of her favorite phrases are “global warming” and “extensive hearings.” Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-CA, is set to take over leadership of the important Environment and Public Works Committee from Sen. James Inhofe.

Inhofe, R-OK, rejects the consensus that human use of fossil fuels is largely responsible for climate change, calling it “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” But Boxer said that her priority will be to begin “a very long process of extensive hearings” on global warming.

Boxer wrote a letter to President Bush urging him to fight global warming by putting mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions. She cited California's legislation requiring automakers to reduce emissions as “an excellent role model.”

Meanwhile, back at the Nairobi conference, air pollution might be just the thing to fight global warming according to climate scientist Paul J. Crutzen of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. The Nobel laureate said a layer of pollution deliberately spewed into the atmosphere could act as a “shade” from the sun's rays and help cool the planet.

Crutzen’s solution is a man-made version of the huge volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in 1991 that poured so much sulfurous debris into the stratosphere that it cooled the Earth by 0.5 degrees Centigrade for about a year. A massive dissemination of sulfurous pollutants would be needed every year or two, as the sulfates precipitate from the atmosphere in acid rain. Wait, I thought we hated acid rain, and largely eliminated it.

This weekend at Moffett Field, California, NASA's Ames Research Center hosts a high-level workshop on the global haze proposal and other “geo-engineering” ideas for fending off climate change.

I’ve got an idea.

Los Angeles water officials yesterday announced an agreement to expand its dust control effort on dry Owens Lake. The project would construct dust control berms on an additional 12.7 square miles of lake bed by 2010, and result in an overall price tag of about $520 million.

STOP!! Don’t sign the check, LA, until we find out if the dust will serve as the sun shade without the nasty acid rain. The environmental activists will be conflicted, to be sure, but it’s about time they put up or shut up.