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Hacked E-mails Give Inhofe Fuel for Climate Change Debate
Kent Garber
Climate Change: An Ethical Question ...
(c) David Horsey
A slew of hacked E-mail snippets are rolling around the Internet. Posted earlier this month, the E-mails were swiped from a server at the Climate Research Unit of the
This controversy is growing, as one might expect.
But the reality is much less clear. In fact, in recent weeks, there have been some encouraging, if tentative, signs for climate advocates--signs that have been largely overshadowed by all the fuss over the E-mails.
Last Wednesday, President Obama announced that he will go to
Neither pledge was particularly ambitious, at least from the point of view of the scientific community, which has called for much more aggressive efforts to prevent the worst of global warming. Nor were European leaders satisfied by the U.S. and Chinese announcements. But the pledges are nonetheless important. They indicate that the world's two largest polluters,
Originally the goal for the
Inhofe and his supporters, however, are trying to make things more difficult. Some of the hacked E-mails were written by scientists who were involved, in one way or another, in writing the major 2007
Last week, Inhofe sent letters to federal agencies and some U.S. scientists, warning them not to delete any E-mails that might be linked to the controversy. Now he's considering holding hearings on the issue in his
The scientists involved have understandably pushed back. "My colleagues and I accept that some of the published E-mails do not read well,"
As Jones and others note, the scientific evidence for climate change is broad and deep, coming not just from temperature data but also from the shrinking of glaciers, rise in sea levels, reductions in snow cover, and shortening of the freezing season in many parts of the Northern Hemisphere. The result of all these findings, the IPCC concluded, is that the evidence for human-caused climate change is "unequivocal."
With the E-mails in hand, Inhofe thinks he has found a way to challenge that finding. 'This will just escalate as we get closer and closer to
Top 5 Issues at the Copenhagen Climate Conference
Kent Garber
Many of the world's economic powerhouses and biggest polluters, including the United States and China, have said they're serious about hashing out an agreement. Of course, 'success' can mean different things to different people: Some want a political agreement; others want a legally binding treaty. Here are five things that could determine the outcome
Climate Change Bill's Murky Battleground: Assumptions and Statistics
Kent Garber
On one side of the table were the Democrats. On the other side, where the Republicans normally would have been, there were only empty leather chairs. This was the strange scene in a hearing room on Capitol Hill, where Senate Democrats were trying to take the next step on their climate change bill by passing it through the Environment Committee.
Why Some People Go Green and Others Do not
Matthew Bandyk
Why do some people love the Toyota Prius, but others couldn't care less about driving a hybrid vehicle? Why do some of your friends spend hours trying to reduce their carbon footprint, while others wonder what's the point of even recycling?
Conservation Group Sees a Win for Obama on Climate Change
Paul Bedardn
Despite pessimistic signs on Capitol Hill and internationally regarding action by the United States on climate change initiatives, the head of the World Wildlife Fund today predicted that the December climate summit in Copenhagen will draw up a framework for action that will prompt Congress to move on the critical issue
Hacked E-mails Give Inhofe Fuel for Climate Change Debate | Kent Garber
(c) 2009 U.S. News & World Report