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Cato Daily Dispatch for June 10, 2002

Gore Criticizes Bush on Climate Change

Former Vice President Al Gore criticized President Bush on Saturday for refusing to accept a federal agency report that blames humans for global warming, according to Reuters.

The recently released Environmental Protection Agency report appeared to back the view of many scientists who believe global warming is caused mainly by emissions from automobiles, power plants and oil refineries.

Bush appeared to dismiss the report, calling it a product of bureaucracy, and said he would continue to press for voluntary efforts and financial incentives for U.S. companies to reduce emissions.

In "Flips, Flops, and Facts About Global Warming," Senior Fellow in Environmental Studies Patrick J. Michaels explains that, "The problem is that the core of the [EPA's] Climate Action Report was produced by the wrong administration. Chapter 6, the section on climate change effects on the U.S., is largely an outtake from the 'U.S. National Assessment' (USNA) of global warming, a politically inspired document rushed to publication some 10 days before the 2000 presidential election."

U.S. Strengthening Military Ties to India

When Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld arrives in India this week, he will have the ear of that country's senior political leaders in a way that would have been hard to imagine for most of the past three decades, according to The New York Times.

Military cooperation between India and the United States has remarkably quickened since Sept. 11, with a burst of navy, air force, and army joint exercises, the revival of American military sales to India and a blur of high-level visits by generals and admirals.

The fledgling relationship between American and Indian military leaders will be important to Mr. Rumsfeld in talks intended to put to rest fears of war between India and Pakistan.

"We can hope this translates into some influence and trust, though I don't want to overstate it," a senior American defense official said in an interview on Thursday. "I don't want to predict this guarantees success."

In "India as a World Power: Changing Washington's Myopic Policy," Victor Gobarev recommended such a tightening of relations and warned that Washington's shortsighted foreign policy had led India to pursue a Russia-India-China nexus aimed at preventing U.S. global domination. He wrote that "a foreign policy and national security strategy based on Washington's willingness to accept India's world power status, including accepting New Delhi in the nuclear club, is the only realistic way for a breakthrough in U.S.-Indian ties."

In "India in the Balance," Ted Galen Carpenter also recommended better U.S. relations with India.

Utah Attorney General Defends Concealed Carry

Utah's attorney general says he'll defend the right of citizens to bear arms. But with the Legislature insisting that right includes the right to carry concealed weapons into courthouses and college classrooms, he's facing unlikely opponents -- judges, professors, and even otherwise conservative sheriffs, according to the Associated Press.

"I can't ignore it," Attorney General Mark Shurtleff said. "My job is to uphold the law."

Gun rights are fiercely protected in Utah. Earlier this month, a petition drive to ban guns from schools and churches got only about half the signatures needed for a place on the November ballot.

In "Fighting Back: Crime, Self-Defense, and the Right to Carry a Handgun," an analysis of a 1987 Florida law that allowed citizens to carry concealed firearms in public, Jeffrey R. Snyder found that there was a decrease in violent crime, not the increase many people had predicted.

The Cato Institute hosted a book forum featuring legal scholar John R. Lott, Jr., author of More Guns, Less Crime. His updated book presents the most comprehensive analysis ever done on crime statistics and the right-to-carry laws. Video of the forum is available on the Cato Web site.