This started out as a post about how our Secretary of State treats valued allies but it’s turned into a post on comparative media sources.

But first, what did our chief diplomat do this week during her visit to Spain?

Something my children certainly would have known better than to do in public, much less while appearing as an official representative of the US government. Certainly something that I don’t expect to see during a joint press conference with Spain’s Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Meeting with reporters after a long session, Moratinos and Rice tried to play down their differences by noting that they shared the goal of a democratic government for Cuba. But when Moratinos defended the Spanish approach of engagement with the Cuban government and suggested that eventually Rice would see the method’s merit, Rice rolled her eyes, turned to US reporters and silently mouthed, “Don’t hold your breath.”

What? Does she think she’s in 6th grade? That she can get away with making funny faces to her friends in the class when the teacher isn’t looking? As one colleague of mine noted, “Quick, someone get her a gift certificate to Ferragamo before she destroys our relationship with any more countries.” <!-more-> The Washington Post reported this behavior in the article, “Rice’s Stop in Spain Signals Thaw; Chill Over Cuba Persists”. And the Boston Globe carried the same story which noted that Rice’s visit is the highest ranking official visit since the election of Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero who “openly rooted for a John Kerry victory in the 2004 election, calling the occupation of Iraq “a fiasco” and saying he looked forward to a period of “no wars for oil” during a Kerry administration. Bush refused to accept a congratulatory phone call from Zapatero after the election.”

The Washington Times omitted reporting the eye-rolling but did note the silent mouthing:

Mr. Moratinos countered that engaging the Castro regime is much more effective than isolating it. He said the Spanish Embassy in Havana has regular contact with political dissidents and has helped free some from detention. “I’m sure that after some time goes by, [Miss Rice] will probably be more convinced that the Spanish approach can have its results,” he said. But the secretary silently mouthed what appeared to be the phrase, “don’t hold your breath.”

The AP story which was picked up by ABC News did mention the incident sans eye-rolling but buried it in an article titled “Rice: U.S. Not Preparing for War Vs Iran”. Yep, just the article I’d look in to find out how the Secretary of State’s visit to Spain was going… Not. The last quarter of the article on page 3 had details about the visit to Spain, so it was there but well-buried.

When Moratinos predicted that in time Rice would see the value of his approach, Rice, listening to his remarks by translation on a headset, looked amused and unconvinced. As Moratinos continued to speak, she looked at the crowd of reporters and silently mouthed what appeared to be the phrase, “Don’t hold your breath.”

I looked for video of this press conference at MSNBC.com and CNN.com. No video and the articles also omit any mention of Dr. RIce’s performance. So then I checked further, no mention of Dr. Rice’s theatrics in the New York Times, UPI, and the AFP report.

CBS omitted the eye-rolling and silent-mouthing but saw fit to include the following nugget in their report.

Despite the harsh words, the two senior diplomats were all smiles at a joint press conference, calling each other “Condi” and “Miguel” and kissing each other on both cheeks. Both stressed that relations between the United States and Spain remain fundamentally positive.

So, the lessons from today’s venture into the news are as follows:

1 – Our Secretary of State needs some lessons on appropriate diplomatic behavior when visiting a foreign country as a representative of the United States of America.

2 – Choose your news sources carefully.

Finally, I did find some video that related to Dr. Rice’s visit to Spain though it was on a topic that I suspect she’d rather not discuss.

 

Following in the footsteps of a long line of Bush’s nominees, Michael Griffin, director of NASA, embarrassed himself with his inability to acknowledge that human-caused agents might have anything to do with climate change and global warming on NPR on Thursday. (Check out this ABC news story for reaction to his verbal gaffe.)

Despite the ignorance displayed by the director, NASA along with the Columbia University Earth Institute announced on Wednesday “that human-made greenhouse gases have brought the Earth’s climate close to critical tipping points, with potentially dangerous consequences for the planet.”

From a combination of climate models, satellite data, and paleoclimate records the scientists conclude that the West Antarctic ice sheet, Arctic ice cover, and regions providing fresh water sources and species habitat are under threat from continued global warming. The research appears in the current issue of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics.

Tipping points can occur during climate change when the climate reaches a state such that strong amplifying feedbacks are activated by only moderate additional warming. This study finds that global warming of 0.6ºC in the past 30 years has been driven mainly by increasing greenhouse gases, and only moderate additional climate forcing is likely to set in motion disintegration of the West Antarctic ice sheet and Arctic sea ice. Amplifying feedbacks include increased absorption of sunlight as melting exposes darker surfaces and speedup of iceberg discharge as the warming ocean melts ice shelves that otherwise inhibit ice flow.

The researchers used data on earlier warm periods in Earth’s history to estimate climate impacts as a function of global temperature, climate models to simulate global warming, and satellite data to verify ongoing changes. Lead author James Hansen, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York, concludes: “If global emissions of carbon dioxide continue to rise at the rate of the past decade, this research shows that there will be disastrous effects, including increasingly rapid sea level rise, increased frequency of droughts and floods, and increased stress on wildlife and plants due to rapidly shifting climate zones.”

<!-more-> The article goes on to describe in a little more detail some of the study covered and its conclusions:

Based on climate model studies and the history of the Earth the authors conclude that additional global warming of about 1ºC (1.8ºF) or more, above global temperature in 2000, is likely to be dangerous. In turn, the temperature limit has implications for atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), which has already increased from the pre-industrial level of 280 parts per million (ppm) to 383 ppm today and is rising by about 2 ppm per year. According to study co-author Makiko Sato of Columbia’s Earth Institute, “the temperature limit implies that CO2 exceeding 450 ppm is almost surely dangerous, and the ceiling may be even lower.”

The study also shows that the reduction of non-carbon dioxide forcings such as methane and black soot can offset some CO2 increase, but only to a limited extent. Hansen notes that “we probably need a full court press on both CO2 emission rates and non-CO2 forcings, to avoid tipping points and save Arctic sea ice and the West Antarctic ice sheet.”

Why is saving the Arctic sea ice and the West Antarctic ice sheet critical?

Well, here’s a crib sheet on Climate Change produced by Seed Magazine that I think does a great job of summarizing critical points in the various factors which feed into the climate change equation in a simple graphic style. Yes, sometimes a picture is worth a 1000 words.

Click for larger image

You can see there that the ice sheets are critical for reflecting light (and heat) back into space.

Maybe someone should send this graphic to Mr. Griffin. Looks like it might be straightforward enough.

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  Sidenote: For those who appreciate a brush up on their various science classes, Seed has put together some good crib sheets on other topics as well. Check them out.