Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.

Whopper of the Week: George W. Bush

Timothy NoahPosted Friday, March 16, 2001, at 11:55 AM ET

"[W]e must be very careful not to take actions that could harm consumers. This is especially true given the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change. ..."
--March 13 letter from the president to Sens. Hagel, Helms, Craig, and Roberts, explaining why he no longer favors mandatory reduction of CO2 emissions from power plants

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Q: One follow-up. Does the president personally believe that carbon dioxide emissions lead to global warming?

Ari Fleischer: Evidence does suggest that CO2 does play a role in global warming. But that's separate from it being a pollutant.
--White House press briefing, March 15 (should be available in a day or two at this site)

"Careful measurements have confirmed that CO2 is increasing in the atmosphere and that human activities are the primary cause. CO2 measurements have been taken directly from the atmosphere over the past few decades. CO2 trends for earlier times have been derived from measurements of CO2 trapped in air bubbles in glacial or polar ice.

"The 30% increase in atmospheric CO2 observed since pre-industrial times cannot be explained by natural causes. CO2 concentrations have varied naturally throughout Earth's history. However, CO2 concentrations are now higher than any seen in at least the past 450,000 years."
--The Environmental Protection Agency's Global Warming FAQ

Got a whopper? Send it to . To be considered, an entry must be an unambiguous lie paired with an unambiguous refutation, and both must be derived from some appropriately reliable public source. Preference will be given to newspapers and other documents that Chatterbox can link to online.

Whopper Archive:
March 9, 2001: Russ Freyman, spokesman, National Association of Manufacturers
March 2, 2001: Paul O'Neill
Feb. 23, 2001: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Feb. 16, 2001: Oscar spokesman John Pavlik
Feb. 9, 2001: Lynne Cheney
Feb. 2, 2001: Bobby Thomson
Jan. 26, 2001: Denise Rich

E-mail Timothy Noah at .

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