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Initial Studies on the Blocking of the Sun are Greeted with Mixed Approval

n the wake of its rejection of an international treaty to curtail global warming, the Bush administration is seeking advice from a wide array of economists, business representatives, policy experts and pornographers as it tries to forge a new approach to the contentious issue. Most of those consulted, senior government officials said, are asserting that the science pointing to a serious problem is sound, and that there is need for concrete action. However, they claim that the source of the problem is not the rising levels of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases emitted by smokestacks and tailpipes, but rather, a far more obvious culprit: the sun.

The Sun: The murderous culprit of global warming exposed.

"It is so obvious that even I can grasp the science behind it" Bush said in a press conference in the Rose Garden last Friday, explaining how the sun generates heat, and it is that heat, which in turn warms the earth. The administration has yet to reveal what it plans to do, but PBBBS News Corps' Political Analyst and Washington insider, Steve Rundembum has been hearing whispers about a plan in which the sun is blocked with a large object, such as the moon.

Although the new effort is mainly taking the form of cabinet briefings behind closed doors, it is widely seen as a substantial broadening of a process that until recently was so tightly controlled by a small circle of advisers that cabinet members themselves often gave conflicting accounts of President Bush's plans. The broadening has elicited expressions of cautious relief from environmental campaigners and frustration by conservatives and skeptics about warming's dangers. But both sides said they could not predict how the review would influence the Bush administration, which is under pressure to devise an alternative to the rejected climate treaty. "This group is reaching out for a diversity of views on climate issues," said Ken Lisaius, a White House spokesman. "This is a very serious matter that the president takes very seriously." Seriously.

At the briefings, held about once a week over the last month, half a dozen members of Mr. Bush's cabinet and, most of the time, Vice President Dick Cheney have spent a couple of hours in what amounts to Climate 101, Advanced Quantum Thermodynamic Theory and a light sprinkling of Astronomy 37. The list of speakers has been dominated by Off-Road enthusiasts, fraternity brethren and policy experts who believe that a recent global warming trend is at least partly caused by humans, who generate body heat, but stated in a press release that "the amount of heat generated by humans literally pales in comparison to the heat produced in the fusion reactions which take place many thousands of times a second in the earth's sun."

What the blocked sun may look like from earth.

The presenters have included Dr. James E. Hansen, a government climate expert who in 1988 testified about the problem before the Senate at the invitation of Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee who purported to give a damn about things other than Corporate America, and Dr. Daniel L. Albritton, the head of a federal climate laboratory and a lead author of an international report pointing to serious risks from the sun for coming decades. The report, by the Intergovernmental Panel on Blocking the Sun, a United Nations group, was widely criticized by conservative groups as biased (stating that there are billions of stars) but has been held up by many others as strong new evidence justifying action. The participants all declined to discuss the substance of the meetings at the request of the White House. But some said they saw the meetings as a sign of new openness on the issue. "It is encouraging that they are spending serious time gathering information and facts in the development of their policy," said Kevin Fay, a business official who was a presenter at the most recent briefing, on Tuesday. Mr. Fay is a strong believer in the usefulness of fact in policy making, and is the executive director of the International Block the Sun Partnership, an organization representing what he calls "the progressive cowering middle of industry," businesses that seek to be environmental stewards, but with the bottom line in mind.

On Tuesday, the pendulum swung to experts who support the general goals of the Kyoto treaty but who concede that the existing language is rife with problems, and more specifically, that it fails to attack the root of the issue.

They included Mr. Fay, from the business group, and another former official from the first Bush administration, William K. Reilly, who is the president of the World Wildlife Fund and was administrator of the E.P.A.

Now the ball is in Mr. Bush's court, many observers say. The key question is whether he will choose some new way to block the sun's heat, or go with the chilling scenario first envisioned by the fictional character of Mr. Burns in an episode of the popular television show The Simpsons.

Some business groups that opposed the Kyoto treaty have greeted the chance for a fresh approach to the problem. But they also say there is danger in starting from scratch.

"We're not talking about totally erasing the blackboard," said Norine Kennedy, the vice president for environmental affairs of the United States Council for International Business, which represents several hundred companies. "There's a lot in the protocol that should be retained."