Climate change war heats up over the himalayan glaciers

First the news, and then the reaction.  The news is from the NY Times:

Leaders of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change apologized yesterday for making a "poorly substantiated" claim that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. .... Experts said the gaffes that came to light in recent weeks don't undermine the IPCC report's main conclusion -- that evidence for global warming is "unequivocal," and human activities are driving the climate shift.

Reaction #1:

IPCC Chairman R K Pachauri on Thursday declined to speak to the media on the Himalayan glacier goof-up issue amid questions being raised about the UN climate body’s credibility in the wake of the controversy.
“I would hold a press conference tomorrow on the issue.
This event is strictly confined to the energy security-related matter,” he said at an event organised by The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) which is headed by him.
Despite a barrage of questions from the media who insisted that the issue was of global importance and his reaction could clear the air on the matter, Pachauri remained evasive and refused to budge.
“I do not want to speak on the issue (controversy) right now,” maintained Pachauri who had vociferously dismissed a report last year by India’s senior-most glaciologist V K Raina that questioned IPCC’s claim as “voodoo science”.

Reaction #2:

V.K. Raina, the former Deputy Director-General of the Geological Survey of India -- whose research document on the Himalayan glaciers debunked the claims of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that these glaciers would disappear by 2035 -- is not satisfied by the regret expressed by the United Nations agency.

“I want a personal apology from the IPCC chairperson R.K. Pachauri who had described my research as voodoo science,” Mr. Raina told The Hindu over phone from Panchkula. “Forget IPCC, Dr. Pachauri has not even expressed regret over what he said after my report -- Himalayan Glaciers: a state-of-art review of glacial studies, glacial retreat and climate change -- was released in November last year.”

With over 100 scientific papers and three books to his credit, Mr. Raina said he had not read the Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC that made the prediction on melting of the Himalayan glaciers, but read the contents only from what was published in newspapers and magazine.

“But all along I knew that this was not based on facts. During my 50 years of research and several expeditions to the region, I never found anything as sensational as was predicted in the IPCC, but no one heard me then.”

It was only after he was asked by the Minister of Environment and Forests to come out with a report that a global debate was initiated on the issue.

So, who you gonna believe? Everyday something exciting, I tell ya :)

Obama, the movie

Choose the movie you prefer based on the following trailers :)

It is not merely Massachusetts. Remember Virginia and New Jersey?

Losing the seat held by a Kennedy since 1953 in a very blue state is, of course, a huge loss to the Democratic Party.  But, this is being seen as some kind of a one crazy shot out of nowhere.  Well, how quickly we forget other results that were not too long ago:
This is how the NY Times reported the results of the elections in Virginia--elections held just over two months ago, on November 3, 2009:

Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican and a former state attorney general, won a decisive victory in Virginia’s governor’s race Tuesday, a stark reversal of fortune for Democrats who have held control in Richmond for the past eight years.
Mr. McDonnell defeated the Democratic candidate, R. Creigh Deeds, an 18-year state senator from rural Bath County in western Virginia. With 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Mr. McDonnell had 59 percent of the vote, and Mr. Deeds 41 percent.
Republicans cited the victory as a repudiation of the Obama administration and the national Democratic Party’s agenda, especially that of departing Gov. Tim Kaine, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

And, there was one other election that same day, in New Jersey.  And what happened there?  Over to the NY Times again--after all, this was in their backyard:

In New Jersey, a former federal prosecutor, Christopher J. Christie, became the first Republican to win statewide in 12 years by vowing to attack the state’s fiscal problems with the same aggressiveness he used to lock up corrupt politicians.
He overcame a huge Democratic voter advantage and a relentless barrage of negative commercials to defeat Jon S. Corzine, an unpopular incumbent who outspent him by more than two to one and drew heavily on political help from the White House, including three visits to the state from President Obama.

The way I read the results is this: none of the election results was about Obama per se.  We Americans are less comfortable with one-party rule, and we way prefer divided governance.  Bush would have experienced similar situations, if not for the events of 9/11 and then the wars that got him and the Republicans the extra vote needed to win seats.

I am used to people expressing their preference for a divided government.  It used to happen all too often in the state, Tamil Nadu, where I lived until I came here to the US.  Electors routinely would send one party's candidates to the parilament but elect the other party's candidates for the state government.

So, as far as I am concerned, both the Republicans and Democrats are making a mistake when they interpret the election of Brown as some kind of a statement on healthcare, Obama, ..... whatever.
BTW, it also seems like voters are making a clear distinction between Obama's popularity and the issues on which they have to vote.  So, whether it is the Olympics, or NJ governor race, or the MA senate race, well, Obama might attract crowds, but if the proof is in eating the pudding, well, ....