His invitation follows complaints that he had not been prepared to appear before the Environmental Audit Committee, to talk about his role as the UK representative in the recent climate change talks in Rio.

BBC: Week ahead in committees

Not only is it farther north than you might expect to find a desert (it's at approximately the same latitude as Medford, 220 miles to the west), but it's also more representative of the Pacific Northwest's climate and ecology than is the fogbound coast.

FORBES: A Desert Where?

Timothy Wirth later became undersecretary of state for global affairs for the Clinton-Gore administration, U.S. representative to the 1992 UN Rio de Janeiro Climate Summit that set Kyoto Protocol carbon regulations in motion, and president of the UN Foundation.

FORBES: Magazine Article