Jerry Adler – Senior Editor Newsweek

December 8, 2009

Jerry Adler – Senior Editor
Newsweek
251 West 57th Street
New York, New York 10019-1894

RE: How yesterday is Global Warming?

Mr. Adler,

I enclose a copy of the letter dated 1/28/08 that you sent to me. I also enclose a copy of a letter I sent to the Miami Herald on 12/7/09.

About your letter…

The Kyoto treaty was neither ratified nor was it rejected. The President never submitted it to the Senate for its advice and consent as the Constitution requires. The fact that the Senate had just voted 95 to 0 against the general terms of the treaty may have had some effect on its quick trip to the memory hole.

T.E. Lawrence said that very little could be gained from a certain victory but that much could be gleaned from a certain defeat. If ever a Non-Profiles in Courage is published I suggest it could be Chapter 1.

You say that Bush “reversed a commitment in principle” to abide by the treaty.

I seem to recall that President B.O. was signing his Executive Orders undoing Bush’s Executive Orders on the trip from the Capitol to the White House after his inauguration. If you could explain the difference I would be most grateful.

I’ll spare you any homilies on the Rule of Law but I remember Paul Begala, trusted Clinton advisor and a law professor, saying he loved executive decisions. “A flick of the wrist and it’s law.”

Further, your note includes phrases such as “depending on how you read the data”, “believe it is more likely”, “perhaps the effect will be offset”, and “most climatologists see no reason to take that risk”.

Not exactly words and phrases that you will find on a Chemistry or a Physics final, are they?

You said that a lack of food is not a problem.

I immediately reached for my 1969 edition of “The Population Bomb” by Paul Ehrlich, Ph.D. To the wild applause of the chattering classes and even Johnny Carson this faker told us that it was a race between starving to death or freezing to death by the year 2000.

My calendar tells me it is 2009 and, if truth be known, I am a bit calorically challenged. Do you think Professor Ehrlich fell for the hockey stick graph before it became popular?

Facts are hard things

That’s why Pi isn’t 3.0. If it were I would have done better in Geometry. The down side of that is that if I built any bridges they would have long since fallen down.

The edges of ancient maps said “Terra Incognita” or “Sunt Leones”.

I thought Ptolemy’s view of the earth, the sun, and the universe was the first great example of “settled science”. I am glad that those original explorers didn’t believe it.

U.K. Prime Minister gave the world 50 days to live beginning with the end of October. I wrote to him asking if he could stretch it a few more days because I wanted to see my family in Texas. I also asked him if he could toss in at least one BCS game.

I haven’t heard back from him.

Do you think I should go to Dallas?




Kevin Smith