Thanks.
I think there are two or three things I'd like to say on this. I spend a lot of time on the climate change issue
First, technical adaptation and also social adaptation--how we adjust to the climate change that's going to happen no matter what we do--are key problems. Then obviously there is how we lessen the change.
With respect to Kyoto, you're absolutely right that it doesn't require you to do one approach or the other. But those approaches are available to you. You're right that just buying credits doesn't necessarily solve the problem over the long term. We're talking probably 60% to 80% reductions over the next 50 or 100 years.
In the north, we have major infrastructure problems. We need investment in technology and new technologies, because as people said, the ground is actually changing underneath us. Our foundation is changing. We have to understand the processes that are going on, and we need science to understand it.
I don't think people understood a hundred years ago that the polar regions were huge drivers of the climate systems on the globe. It's not just that the north is changing, but that the north can actually accelerate the system on a global basis. Methane release and all these kinds of concepts could make all our other efforts useless if we don't understand what's going on in the north.
We also have to understand that as part of adaptation there are issues of self-sufficiency, issues about how people in the north sustain themselves--sustainable communities--because in reality the technologies and the things we count on now may not be the most climate change friendly approaches to doing things. You know, with regard to bringing in orange juice from wherever we bring in orange juice, or even worse, bringing in fresh oranges, maybe there are ways of taking advantage of a change in climate to make northerners more self-sufficient and less dependent on pursuing climate unfriendly approaches.
Thanks.