WITH understandable reluctance, Prime Minister John Howard
recently donned the political hair-shirt of a carbon trading
system. On the same day, NASA chief Michael Griffin commented in
a US radio interview that "I am not sure that it is fair to say
that (global warming) is a problem that we must wrestle with".
NASA is an agency that knows a thing or two about climate
change. As Griffin added: "We study global climate change, that
is in our authorisation, we think we do it rather well. "I'm
proud of that, but NASA is not an agency chartered to, quote,
battle climate change." Such a clear statement that science
accomplishment should carry primacy over policy advice is both
welcome and overdue. Nonetheless, there is something worrying
about one of Griffin's other statements, which said that "I have
no doubt . . . that a trend of global warming exists". Griffin
seems to be referring to human-caused global warming, but
irrespective of that his opinion is unsupported by the evidence.
The salient facts are these. Fi