Jerry Adler, Newsweek

January 23, 2008

Jerry Adler

Newsweek

P.O. Box 2120

Radio City Station

New York, New York 10101-2120

RE: “Ending the Holdout” – Newsweek [January 28 issue]

Mr. Adler,

Two things – both which are “owed to the ledger”.

#1 – You say that Bush renounced “the existing greenhouse-gas treaty, the Kyoto Protocol”. It is my understanding, and please, please correct me if I am wrong, that for any international agreement to have the force of law in this country it must be approved by the Senate. The Kyoto Protocol was never submitted to the Senate as the Constitution requires. How could the President “renounce” something that never was?

We are now hectored that it is a “moral issue”. If it is so now it was so then. Why didn’t the Clinton Administration send it to Senate for its consideration? It would have been the right thing to do.

Let me share a secret with you.

I don’t care about polar bears drowning.

They eat baby seals.

On my warm and fuzzy scale baby seals are much higher than polar bears.

How many bears are worth one seal?

#2 – “If”, as you say in tones that rival Jeremiah, “the majority of climate scientists are right, it won’t be the just an ‘opportunity’ lost, it may be the last opportunity.”

About the coming of “the end of days” – Are you a fan of Huckabee? –I would usually tell you to relax. Rising temperatures makes land more arable. That means people eat better. When people eat better they get smarter. About 1000 years ago there was an upward spike in temperature in Europe. We got the Renaissance.

“The upturned neck awaits the ax.”

Do you have a problem with Dante?

The obverse is obvious.

Don’t buy any green bananas.

Because you are so smart you confused correlation with causation.

Sometimes people are so smart they are dumb.

Even if your name didn’t begin with an “A” you would still be at the head of the class.