There’s going to be a lot of hype around the Bush climate summit this week. The key buzzwords of the global warming Delayers are “aspirational” and “technology” and “intensity.” The more someone uses those words, the less serious they are about stopping climate change.

The bottom line is that any international global warming agreement must include prompt, binding, and enforceable greenhouse gas reductions by the United States or else the agreement will fail and all nations will suffer the consequences. Some other key points:

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Global warming makes wildfires more likely and more destructive — an amplifying climate feedback that releases more carbon into the atmosphere. The full committee of the Senate for Energy and Natural Resources is having a hearing on the subject today. You can get live video here — click on Live Webcast.

I’m looking forward to this hearing since one of the witnesses is Dr. Thomas Swetnam, Director of the Laboratory of Tree Ring Research and Professor of Dendochronology, University of Arizona. He coathored the August 2006 Science cover story, “Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity” (subs. req’d). The abstract is viewable online — here is the conclusion:

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The ethanol backlash continues with a New York Times editorial titled The High Costs of Ethanol:

The distortions in agricultural production are startling. Corn prices are up about 50 percent from last year, while soybean prices are projected to rise up to 30 percent in the coming year, as farmers have replaced soy with corn in their fields. The increasing cost of animal feed is raising the prices of dairy and poultry products….

A recent report by the OECD, an economic forum of rich nations, called on the United States and other industrialized nations to eliminate subsidies for the production of ethanol which, the report said, is driving up food costs, threatening natural habitats and imposing other environmental costs. “The overall environmental impacts of ethanol and biodiesel can very easily exceed those of petrol and mineral diesel,” it said.

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Hitting a record low on September 16, 2007, the Arctic lost half a million square miles of ice compared to its last record low just two years ago.

For all the details, check out the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) website, which notes “the Northwest Passage is still open, but is starting to refreeze. We are still on track for an ice free Arctic by 2030, decades ahead of the climate models.

UPDATE: I omitted the fact cited in the headline: Compared to its “long-term average minimum, based on averaging data from 1979 to 2000,” the Arctic has shrunk one million square miles, “an area approximately equal to the size of Alaska and Texas combined.” My apologies for the confusion.