To: Bill Jackson who wrote (152600 ) 6/12/2001 8:19:01 PM From: jlallen Read Replies (3) | Respond to Maybe the sky isn't falling: In Monday’s Wall Street Journal, Richard Lindzen, a professor of meteorology at MIT who was a member of the National Academy of Sciences panel, asserted the report made clear "there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends and what causes them." But -- and I cannot stress this enough -- we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future. That is to say, contrary to media impressions, agreement with the three basic statements tells us almost nothing relevant to policy discussions. One reason for this uncertainty is that, as the report states, the climate is always changing; change is the norm. Two centuries ago, much of the Northern Hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. A millennium ago, during the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling....My own view, consistent with the panel's work, is that the Kyoto Protocol would not result in a substantial reduction in global warming. Given the difficulties in significantly limiting levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, a more effective policy might well focus on other greenhouse substances whose potential for reducing global warming in a short time may be greater....
