An article in the Science Times section of today's New York Times quotes Ralph J. Cicerone, chairman of a National Academy of Sciences panel on climate change. The Times reports, "He said there was no longer any ambiguity about whether humans were significant contributors to global warming, and he noted that in the opening line of its report to the White House, the panel stated plainly that 'greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise.'"
It is true that that was the opening line of the report to the White House by the panel of the National Academy of Sciences. But Mr. Cicerone and the New York Times omit the third line of that report: "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability."
It's a bit of fast footwork by Mr. Cicerone and the New York Times to quote that opening line of the report without also quoting, or at least mentioning, the third line. The panel may have stated something plainly in the opening line, but the third line states it significantly less plainly, using words like "likely mostly." The recent reports of warming in the climate of Mars, where greenhouse gases generated by human activities are scarce, would seem to support the "natural variability" camp.
Taming China: A column by Nicholas Kristof on the op-ed page of today's New York Times calls for American "engagement" with North Korea. "The only practical measure I can see is to press ahead on engagement with North Korea. That helped tame another Asian Communist regime, beginning in 1972 when an earlier Republican president showed the courage to initiate a real, high-level dialogue with China."
This argument has at least three glaring flaws. Nixon's opening to Communist China in 1972 was probably a mistake. But the case for it rests largely on the fact that, at the time, America was fighting a Cold War with the Soviet Union. The argument was that it was to America's strategic advantage to try to play the Chinese Communists off against the Soviet Communists. Now, unlike in 1972, America is the world's sole superpower. So there's much less reason for us to be "engaging" -- Times-talk for appeasing -- brutal regimes like those in Red China or North Korea. They need us more now, and we need them less.
Second, Red China hasn't been tamed, despite 30 years of bipartisan American appeasement. Just ask the Dalai Lama or the Chinese Christians or those trying to organize free labor unions there. Of course, it may be hard to ask them, because they are either in exile or stuck in prison camps. Or they have been shot dead by the Communist government. Some of them, as the Times itself has reported, have been shot dead after having their organs harvested for resale, or have been killed by the organ-harvesting. The "tamed" China was as recently as January shipping surface-to-air missiles to the Axis theocracy of Iran, another country that the Times types are proposing to "engage" with.
Finally, "engagement" is never defined. If engagement means trying to overthrow the evil Axis government and help the people to freedom and democracy, that is one thing. But if "engagement" means sending American diplomats over to negotiate "arms control" agreements with the dictators, creating an illusion of security while doing nothing to help those stuck under the boot of the regime, then that is another thing.