Daniel in Brookline

It is altogether proper that we debate our policy in Iraq. It should be a debate that is as serious as the situation in Iraq and that reflects the powers the Constitution gives to Congress in matters of war.

But that, sadly, is not the debate that the Warner-Levin resolution invites us to have. I am going to speak strongly against this resolution because I feel strongly about it. I do so with respect for my colleagues who have offered it, but I believe its passage would so compromise America’s security, present and future, that I will say so in the clearest terms I can.

The resolution before us, its sponsors concede, will not stop the new strategy from going forward. As we speak, thousands of troops are already in Baghdad, with thousands more moving into position to carry out their Commander’s orders. This resolution does nothing to alter these facts.

Instead, its sponsors say it will send a message of rebuke from the Senate to the president, from one end of Pennsylvania Avenue to the other. But there is a world beyond Pennsylvania Avenue that is watching and listening.

What we say here is being heard in Baghdad by Iraqi moderates, trying to decide whether the Americans will stand with them. We are being heard by our men and women in uniform, who will be interested to know whether we support the plan they have begun to carry out. We are being heard by the leaders of the thuggish regimes in Iran and Syria, and by Al Qaeda terrorists, eager for evidence that America’s will is breaking. And we are being heard across America by our constituents, who are wondering if their Congress is capable of serious action, not just hollow posturing.

[. . . ]

For the Senate to take up a symbolic vote of no confidence on the eve of a decisive battle is unprecedented, but it is not inconsequential. It is an act which, I fear, will discourage our troops, hearten our enemies, and showcase our disunity. And that is why I will vote against cloture.

Debate Over On What Caused Global Warming, Australian Expert Says

Australia must abandon the United States and join all the other developed countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol on reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change, leading environmental lobby groups said Friday.

"If we don't cut greenhouse pollution now and get on board the global fight against climate change we will be knowingly committing a crime against our kids," Don Henry, executive director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said in response to the release of a report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Australia, along with the US, has refused to sign Kyoto saying that mandatory targets would reduce Australia's economic growth. It also argues that China, India, Brazil and other big polluters should share the burden of curbing climate change.

The United Nations-sponsored IPCC warned that, unless modified, human activity would cause global temperatures to rise by as much as 6.4 degrees by the end of the century.

"The world's best scientists have said climate change is a really big, serious problem," Henry said. "It's happening and it's going to get far worse unless we act."

He urged Australian Prime Minister John Howard to join with every other rich country except the US and ratify the Kyoto Protocol that commits governments to greenhouse gas reduction targets.

Prominent scientist Tim Flannery, who was last week named Australian of the Year for his campaigning on environmental issues, said the IPCC report forecast "catastrophic" consequences.

Flannery said that the consequences of global warming, regardless of action now, could last for 1,000 years.

"There's a 10-per cent chance of truly catastrophic rises in temperature of 6 degrees or so," Flannery told national broadcaster ABC. "That would be a disaster for all life on earth. We will lose somewhere between two out of every 10 and six out of every 10 species living on the planet at that level of warming."

Anote Tong, the president of the tiny South Pacific island nation of Kiribati, said world efforts to curb global warming may come too late. He told the ABC that the people of Kiribati, which is mostly barely above sea level, would be forced from their homes. Tong said seaside homes in Kiribati had already been washed away by the rising sea level in the Pacific.

What about a carbon tax? In principle, it might be an okay idea -- though I note that claims that it will spur technological advance are iffy, as Europe, which has very high gas taxes, hasn't been a hotbed of innovation in automotive efficiency. What's more, I worry that the advocates of a carbon tax are in fact often more excited about the "tax" part than the "carbon" part. If something like this is enacted, it should be revenue-neutral, with offsetting cuts elsewhere. Eliminate the income tax in favor of carbon taxes? On that, we can talk.

At any rate, Kyoto -- despite the way it has been misrepresented in the press -- could never pass even when the Democrats were in charge, and wouldn't make much difference even if the U.S. was a party, and if Europe wasn't engaged in rampant cheating. ("In truth, Europe's CO2 emissions are rising twice as fast as those of the U.S. since Kyoto, three times as fast since 2000. ") The fastest-growing producers of CO₂ are in Asia, and won't slow their economic growth significantly in order to fight the greenhouse effect -- and they would have difficulty in doing so even if they wanted to. Short of Bush nuking the Saudi and Iranian oil fields (defunding terrorism and stopping global warming in one blow!) no single change we can make is going to make a big difference. I'm all for more research on more efficient technologies, but that takes time.

One thing that I think is important: Energy conservation needs to be something positive. Nothing sells on a "suffer for the future" model very well. Too many environmental activists are hair-shirt types (at least when the hair-shirt is for other people) and that stuff is poor salesmanship. Martin Eberhard, of Tesla Roadster fame, is right when he says that many early electric cars were "punishment cars," predicated on the notion that driving was inherently suspect. Make electric cars fun, and useful, and people will want them. This lesson applies to lots of other things, too. Neo-puritanism, on the other hand, has a certain personal and political appeal to some people, but it doesn't sell beyond its niche. The less scold, the more sold.

Of course, none of this is to say that a ban on private jets wouldn't help, too . . . .

The document that caused such a stir was only a short policy report, a summary of the full scientific report due in May. Written mainly by policymakers (not scientists) who have a stake in the issue, the summary was long on dire predictions. The press reported the bullet points, noting that this latest summary pronounced with more than "90% confidence" that humans have been the main drivers of warming since the 1950s, and that higher temperatures and rising sea levels would result.

More pertinent is the underlying scientific report. And according to people who have seen that draft, it contains startling revisions of previous U.N. predictions. [. . .]

While everyone concedes that the Earth is about a degree Celsius warmer than it was a century ago, the debate continues over the cause and consequences. We don't deny that carbon emissions may play a role, but we don't believe that the case is sufficiently proven to justify a revolution in global energy use. The economic dislocations of such an abrupt policy change could be far more severe than warming itself, especially if it reduces the growth and innovation that would help the world cope with, say, rising sea levels. There are also other problems--AIDS, malaria and clean drinking water, for example--whose claims on scarce resources are at least as urgent as climate change.