Also today, the National Academy of Sciences and the scientific academies of 12 other countries issued a joint statement calling on world leaders to address global warming by boosting energy efficiency, promoting a shift to less-polluting energy sources, and intensifying research into new energy technologies that produce no emissions.

"Increasing energy efficiency is a first crucial step toward solving the climate-energy problem," the statement said. It emphasized the importance of developing financial mechanisms for encouraging such investments and on sharing technology and information that could spur such changes.

I see the girls go by
dressed in their summer clothes.  
I have to turn my head,
but still my darkness grows.

A statement this strong by this set of institutions whould be front page news and a topic of editorial attention, not a sentence in an article about G8 politics.

The public needs to know how unambiguously we are in trouble. People need to know that the problem is soluble but is getting more difficult with each passing day.

The academies have done their part. It is the press's turn. The almost infinitesimal attention to this document in the press is totally out of proportion to the importance which it should be taking in public discourse.

The press plays a crucial role in democracy. When the world's scientists go to this much trouble to agree on the facts, it is pretty hard to accept that the press is so happy to ignore it altogether.

mt

So far that's all I've found. They were prompt and appropriate, but I suppose it isn't a moment of greatness when Scientific American pays attention to scientists.

Has anybody seen anything else in the professional press?


mt

This will force the very wealthy 3% to pay an extreme price for their abundant waste of energy and increased contribution to pollution.

Therefore Sandra Bullock, David Letterman and Leonardo di Caprio would pay an extreme penalty for heating and cooling their mansions.

At the same time, Dad, Mom, Bobby and Sasha, living in their energy efficient suburban quadrant home, will be afforded low rates so long as they do not exceed normal efficient usage.

Let's face it -- all the CO2 is coming from the permafrost melting...it's nothing to do with us.  And who cares anyway since Global Heating is the best thing since sliced bread.

Would it have been too hard to get these guys to agree to phase out coal, without which, Hansen tells us, we will probably commit the Earth to a runaway greenhouse effect?

I'm afraid these scientists want us to hang ourselves, but with a silk rope.

I read about the JSAS on the Royal Societies' website and via Reuters: they included specific quotes from Martin Rees, the President of The Royal Society, and links to PDFs so people could read all the documents as published in their entirety.

Other countries' academies translated the JSAS into local languages and made them available as HTML for readers, provided press releases, press contacts and named experts (photos too).  The statements were even covered in their entirety by Yahoo! in French, and mentioned on TV and radio news updates on the day.

It is great that Andy Revkin mentioned the NAS, but the NYT infrastructure around his story means anyone interested in the statement he referred to has to go looking for it themselves on the NAS site.  (The NYT link to its own articles on NAS gives pretty slim pickings.)

In summary, I do not think it is entirely the press at fault, as I think the National Academy of Sciences did not do its bit to draw attention to these JSAS.  Even in countries where the academies were well-prepared to meet the press, the JSAS points were not exactly the talk of the town!

For the record, here is the final section verbatim from the Joint science academies' statement on growth and responsibility: sustainability, energy efficiency and climate protection:

Conclusions

We call on all countries of the world to cooperate in identifying common strategic objectives for sustainable, efficient and climate friendly energy systems, and in implementing actions toward them.

G8 countries bear a special responsibility for the current high level of energy consumption and the associated climate change. Newly industrialized countries will share this responsibility in the future.

We call on world leaders, especially those meeting at the G8 Summit in June 2007, to:

   
• Set standards and promote economic instruments for efficiency, and commit to promoting energy efficiency for buildings, devices, motors, transportation systems and in the energy sector itself.

   
• Promote understanding of climate and energy issues and encourage necessary behavioural changes within our societies.

   
• Define and implement measures to reduce global deforestation.

   
• Strengthen economic and technological exchange with developing countries, in order to leapfrog to cleaner and more efficient modern technologies.

   
• Invest strongly in science and technology related to energy efficiency, zero-carbon energy resources and carbon-removing technologies.

and if anyone wants the entire text of the Joint science academies' statement on growth and responsibility: sustainability, energy efficiency and climate protection in HTML for reposting, I took it directly from the PDF and posted it in a blue speech bubble on my blog post here.