Department Of The Obvious Department

Not to be confused with the department of redundancy department. Nancy Pelosi is attempting to influence American policy by stating the obvious: "Climate change is a reality."

What she leaves out of that is that climate change is the norm – not the exception.

After meeting with German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel, Pelosi praised Berlin for its leadership on the issue.

Her trip comes ahead of next week's Group of Eight summit and a climate change meeting next month involving the leading industrialized nations and during a time of increased debate over what should succeed the Kyoto Protocol, a 1997 international treaty that caps the amount of carbon dioxide that can be emitted from power plants and factories in industrialized countries. It expires in 2012.

President Bush rejected that accord, saying it would harm the U.S. economy and unfair excludes developing countries like China and India from its obligations. Pelosi, who strongly disagrees with that decision and many other of Bush's environmental policies, said Friday she said she wants to work with the administration rather than provoke it.

Pelosi said she hoped Bush would be open to considering a "different way" in the future.

The California Democrat pointed to her delegation's weekend stop in Greenland, "where we saw firsthand evidence that climate change is a reality; there is just no denying it."

"It wasn't caused by the people of Greenland — it was caused by the behavior of the rest of the world," she said.

Scientists have noticed that Greenland's output of ice into the North Atlantic had increased dramatically, doubling over the decade that ended in 2005.

"We hope that we can all assume our responsibilities with great respect and that our administration will be open to listening to why it is important to go forward perhaps in a different way than we have proceeded in the past," she told reporters.

Gabriel and Chancellor Angela Merkel have made the fight against global warming a key point of Germany's presidencies of the G-8 and European Union. Still, Merkel has said that progress at the June 6-8 summit in Heiligendamm is not assured.

According to comments on a document released by the environmental group Greenpeace, the Bush administration is preparing to reject new targets on climate change at the summit. The White House declined to confirm the comments were from U.S. officials.

"We regret very much that we must so far have the impression that it is difficult to reach concrete results with the American administration," Gabriel said after meeting Pelosi.

Gabriel said industrial nations must take joint responsibility for the global warming that has occurred thus far.

So the West must assume responsibility for the last global warm period when Greenland got that name because it was actually green? Even though there was no burning of fossil fuel? Even though there was no industry worth mentioning? Even though the original inhabitants died off completely when the ice came back? Do we also get credit for that "little ice age" not all that many years ago as well?

Kyoto was – and is – a farce. The signatories to it have not met the grandiose targets. There is NO stasis in the climate of this planet and no perfect climate. The majority – the vast majority – of greenhouse gas is water vapor, not CO2. Not man-made water vapor, either. To gut the West's economies and send all industry to the completely unregulated – and frankly uncaring – countries like China is a recipe for national suicide.

Yet that is exactly what people like Pelosi are demanding.