Warm Words

There’s a climate conference beginning today in Poland — not that the world takes much note.  The theme so far for the 10,000 delegates from 190 countries: Don’t let the economy distract you. "All of us are today concerned with the financial crisis," said Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, as quoted by AP. "But we must understand that financial crises happened in the past and will happen in the future, but our work for the environment should be timeless." Meanwhile, couldn’t help noticing, amid other issues, that global climate change kept coming up when President-elect Obama announced his national-security team this morning.  Mr. Obama: "From our public health to our climate, we must act with that understanding that now more than ever, we have a stake in what happens across the globe."   He’s reiterated his stance on climate change in this VIDEO. Sen. Clinton, nominated to the State Department: "I thought of the daunting tasks ahead for our country.  An economy that is reeling, a climate that is warming.  And as we saw with the horrible events in Mumbai, threats that are relentless." Susan Rice, the nominee for U.N. Ambassador: "With your election, Mr. President-elect, the American people have signaled to the world that our nation is on the path to change.  Now, we must fulfill that promise by joining with others to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the 21st century to prevent conflict, to promote peace, combat terrorism, present the spread and use of nuclear weapons, tackle climate change, end genocide, fight poverty and disease." VP-elect Biden: "As was mentioned earlier, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the emergence of China, India, Russia, Brazil, and the unifying Europe as major powers, the spread of lethal weapons to dangerous countries as well as dangerous groups, the shortage of — and scarcity of energy, water, and food, the impact of climate change, economic dislocations, persistent poverty." I happened to hear these mentions as the briefing was in progress, and found them in the transcript by searching for the word "climate."  If someone used the term "global warming," I missed it.  I did not find references from Robert Gates (Defense), Eric Holder (Justice), Janet Napolitano (Homeland Security) or Jim Jones (National Security Adviser), though global climate probably wouldn’t fall much to them. Mr. Obama answered a reporter’s question about how he hoped his people would get along: "I assembled this team because I’m a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions.  I think that’s how the best decisions are made.  One of the dangers in the White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group think and everybody agrees with everything and there’s no discussion and there are no dissenting views.  So I’m going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House." ===================== UPDATE, Tuesday, 10:30 a.m.: Lawrence, you posted a comment this morning about carbon dioxide and the Permian extinction, 251 million years ago, and you were looking for an article on it.  Take a look HERE.  Is this it?