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TODAY Monday 6 October 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: You Don't Need A Weatherman...

Yesterday morning in the Tucson airport, killing time, we watched about fifteen minutes of CNN. On the big screen was Bernard Kalb, moderating his media-discussing-the-media show, "Reliable Source." He was flanked by four of the usual suspects, print reporters, Washington Post to American Spectator, straining for zingers.

The topic under discussion was the media and global warming. The reporters were arguing about two questions of propriety: President Clinton's invitation to about 100 TV weather forecasters to come to the White House and CNN's decision to not run advertising on the disadvantages of a putative climate control treaty. There was consensus that the invitation to the weather forecasters was transparently propagandistic but Business as Usual. About CNN's decision to cancel the advocacy ads of a coalition of oil, coal, and auto interests, the panelists were more divided, and heatedly. Did CNN make a strictly business decision (ha!)? Should CNN feel obliged to carry ads that the big networks wouldn't touch? There was much back-and-forth and thrusts and parries.

What's significant about this little-watched encounter lies less in the opinionizing of the panel than in the fact that global warming has risen to the top of the insider journalist agenda -- one of the reporters actually said that global warming had already been "covered to death" -- two months before the international treaty conference in Kyoto. Every day this issue reaches new salience.

"Clinton Campaigns on Global Warming Before Treaty Written," read the headline in Saturday's Arizona Republican. The article, by John Cushman of The New York Times, described the efforts of the President and the White House staff to excite public interest in global warming before the Administration has to present specific targets for greenhouse gas reductions. Cushman quotes Todd Stern, a "senior White House aide who is coordinating climate policy," to this effect: "If anybody tells you this is not a tough issue, they are lying. We have to put together options for the president that are economically viable, that are environmentally viable, and that are politically viable -- both in the international and domestic context."

Well summarized, Todd (are the affairs of state really being determined by people named Todd?). There's a long, rocky road ahead. But it is immensely consoling that Bill Clinton appears to have decided to go down it. He was perfect with the TV weather people last week. This morning he convenes a meeting at Georgetown of what Cushman calls the "greenhouse glitterati" to further raise the prominence of this issue and, thereby, strengthen his hand with both officials at Treasury next week and the US Senate next spring. As he told the weather forecasters, "I really believe as president, you know, one of my most important jobs is to tell the American people what the big issues are that we have to deal with." Leadership!

Even more gratifying, perhaps, is the cohesion of the American environmental movement on this issue. Greens presented a united front at a special before-Kyoto meeting with the president a few weeks ago, and today the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the Environmental Information Center launch a joint program of advocacy ads, public conferences, and campus organizing.

By 20 October the Administration is expected to gulp hard and put some specifics on their heretofore theological positions. The runup to that day -- and the fights before, during, and after Kyoto -- should prove especially enjoyable to anyone who relishes the contact sport of politics.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE:

Last Thursday, 2 October, we experienced some technical difficulties in transmitting an on-the-scene report from the picturesque city of Bisbee, Arizona. Anyone interested in reading that report -- "The Copper Queen" -- is invited to leap backwards.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

10/03: Cochise County, Arizona
10/02: The Copper Queen
10/01: Pesticides in California
9/30: Climate Policy: No Pain, No Gain
9/29: Climate Policy: No Pain, Much Gain
9/26: Darwin and Bug Spray
9/25: The Cooling of Los Angeles
9/24: The Boy Who Stalks California
9/23: Fire!
9/22: More Logging and Fishing

To access more "Today" columns, click "Archives" below.