The American delegation to a United Nations conference on climate control tried Monday to defend its reluctance to commit to global policies on climate change, describing instead the ways it is countering global warming.
But what concerns your correspondent about this chapter is that it spends most of its time describing an apparently cheap, simple solution to climate change: a clever idea fermented in a small set of laboratories at Intellectual Ventures, a firm run by Nathan Myhrvold, who was once Microsoft's chief technology officer.
Meteorologist Lord (Julian) Hunt, who chaired the meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Climate Change, clarified that an abrupt methane release from the current warming was not inevitable, describing that as "an issue for scientific debate".