21F R I DAY, NOV E M BER 20, 2009T H E E X A M I N ER
COMMENTARY
Irwin M. Stelzer
SOURCES: 1. DC.ABOUT.COM/OD/THEATERS/A/SHAKESPEARETHR.HTM
2. THINGSTODO.COM/STATES/DC/THEATERS.HTM
3. SHAKESPEARE-ONLINE.COM/FAQ/GENERALFAQ.HTML
4. ABSOLUTESHAKESPEARE.COM/TRIVIA/FAQ/FAQ.HTM
5. ABSOLUTESHAKESPEARE.COM/TRIVIA/FACTS/FACTS.HTM
PRIME NUMBERS
The holidays are a good time to enjoy Shakespeare ...
8
Plays D.C.'s Shakespeare
Theatre Company per-
forms annually
Seats in the
Shakespeare Theatre
Shakespeare plays
with settings
in Italy
Number of plays Shakespeare wrote
Stop asking questions
THE DAILY OUTRAGE
O
bama has failed the
world on climate
change," Der Spie-
gel announces after
it turns out that the president was
unable to persuade the Chinese to
accept firm emission reduction tar-
gets or his own Senate to pass his
cap-and-trade bill. A serious mat-
ter, if you believe scientist/activist
James Lovelock's warning, "Human
survival itself is at risk."
So when about 20,000 United
Nations bureaucrats, repre-
sentatives of nongovernmental
organizations and world lead-
ers from 192 nations descend on
Copenhagen, Denmark, in a few
weeks for the 15th Conference of
the Parties to the United Nations
Framework Convention on Climate
Change, they will not be able to sign
off on a legally binding substitute
for the expiring Kyoto Protocol.
The delegates are to consider
a 181-page draft that calls for
developed countries to pay an
"adaptation debt" to developing
countries to the tune of somewhere
between $70 billion and $150 bil-
lion per year. This would achieve a
goal of U.N. bureaucrats from well
before they heard of global warm-
ing: the redistribution of wealth
from richer to poorer nations.
If German Chancellor Angela
Merkel prevails, the European
Union, eager for all nations to set
the sort of emissions targets it set
for itself and then failed to meet,
will contribute about $50 billion,
leaving about $100 billion for
other developed nations to cough
up. But the EU's 27 members are
deadlocked over how much each
member country should contrib-
ute. There is agreement on one
thing: The stumbling block to a
final treaty is the United States.
Barack Obama might be popular
in Europe as the non-Bush, but
on this issue America remains
Europe's favorite pi�ata, and not
only in Der Spiegel.
"President Obama has cre-
ated great expectations around
the world. Now we expect the
U.S. to contribute," says Andreas
Carlgren, Sweden's environment
minister.
Adds Connie Hedegaard, his
Danish counterpart, "I remind
the U.S. that ... the expectation
out there worldwide and among
populations and the young [is for]
the U.S. to deliver."
Unable to sign a binding treaty
in Copenhagen, the president
called for "an accord that covers all
of the issues ... and has immediate
operational effect." The only way
he can sign a deal with "immediate
operational effect," without con-
gressional approval, would be to
have the Environmental Protection
Agency accomplish by regulation
what he cannot by legislation, a
step he just might take if he takes
the Senate's decision this week to
postpone consideration of cap and
trade until next spring as a signal
that it won't act then, or ever.
Meanwhile, China, the world's
largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a
principal greenhouse gas, and India
have refused to agree to emission
reduction targets. As the Chinese
undoubtedly patiently explained
once again during Obama's stop-
over, their position is that the
industrialized world created the
warming problem and so is poorly
placed to ask emerging economies
to slow the economic growth that
is at long last raising the living
standards of their impoverished
masses.
By the time the delegates recon-
vene in Mexico City in December
2010, Obama hopes to restore
his international authority by
pushing through cap and trade,
and setting firm ceilings on U.S.
emissions. That, the delegates
heading toward Copenhagen say,
is essential because only American
leadership by example -- accep-
tance of tight curbs on its own
emissions, and willingness to fund
a hefty portion of the wealth and
technology transfers demanded by
poorer countries -- can produce a
meaningful treaty.
For now, the delegates have
to content themselves with the
president's decision to show up,
presumably by strolling across the
Skagerrak strait to Copenhagen
immediately after accepting his
Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
Surely, he can convince the 20,000
delegates that the half-loaf emerg-
ing from their meeting is sufficient
to sustain them for a year or so.
Although recent climate data
suggest that the herdlike response
of environmental absolutists might
be plain wrong, low-probability
risks with high-magnitude conse-
quences cannot be ignored. But
Obama's task of getting the Senate
to act has been made more difficult
now that it is clear that he might
use cap and trade as a first step
to signing on to an international
agreement that would transfer
substantial enforcement power
to the U.N. and large amounts of
U.S. taxpayer funds to developing
nations.
Meanwhile, the inability of
Obama to deliver on his promises
means that the Copenhagen meet-
ing has become merely a step on
the road to a yet-to-be-drafted
treaty that will replace the Kyoto
Protocol. But don't underesti-
mate the staying power of the
environmentalists -- they are
marathoners, not sprinters.
Obama's uncertain climate change future
WHO: National Science Foundation
WHAT: NSF funded a Univer-
sity of Michigan study of
2- to 5-year-old children
in conjunction with the
Eunice Kennedy Shriver
National Institute of
Child Health and Hu-
man Development.
WHY IT'S AN OUTRAGE: Research-
ers wanted to know why young children
asked so many "why" questions. Their
conclusion, as reported in the Novem-
ber/December 2009 issue of the journal
Child Development: "Young children
are motivated to actively seek explana-
tions." In other words, they ask "why"
questions because they want to know
the answer. Duh!
WHERE TO VENT: Call NSF Director
Arden L. Bement at 703-292-8000.
Number of Shakespeare
plays we know to be lost
451
13
37
1
PHOTOS.COM
PHOTOS.COM
"
Examiner Columnist Irwin M. Stelzer is a senior
fellow and director of the Hudson Institute's Cen-
ter for Economic Studies
AP FILE
Obama's record on climate change continues to sink after failing to persuade the Chinese to accept emission reduction targets.

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