So this week a Montgomery County judge has ruled that mooning is a cheeky yet legitimate form of communication - but then, Chaucer and Mel Gibson taught us that long ago.

The truth is that words frequently fail the human species. If you want to send a message, don't call Western Union; an even older, surer technology might serve. Unbuckle, bend, let it shine.

What's the message?

"He was showing his disapproval.... It was intended to offend, in the sense of being critical," says lawyer James Maxwell, speaking of his client, Raymond McNealy, 44.

Last June, exasperated by a feud involving a homeowners association, McNealy felt moved to moon his Germantown neighbor, Nanette Vonfeldt, a member of the association's board, who was accompanied by her 8-year-old daughter. McNealy was put on trial for indecent exposure - and found guilty last fall. His misbegotten moon could have cost him three years in prison and a $1,000 fine. After an automatic appeal, this week the verdict was reversed.

Mooning is a blunt instrument to communicate just the sort of disapproval/contempt/derision that homeowners associations can elicit. It is not particularly nice or well-mannered. As Circuit Court Judge John W. Debelius III said in the acquittal, the act is "disgusting" and "demeaning." McNealy, who is retired on disability from his family's home improvement business, might have experienced a different judicial outcome, added the judge, if he had been on trial for "being a jerk."

At a time when some say civil liberties are being restricted (the Patriot Act is silent on mooning), it may be comforting that the right of Marylanders to moon has been affirmed. But the implications are staggering.

Are Free Staters free to moon anybody, anytime? Will FedEx Field fill with burgundy and gold crescents beaming down the next time the Cowboys are in town? Will there be full moons all over College Park every night there's a basketball game with Duke? On the annual lobby day in Annapolis, when the masses come to petition the legislature for their favorite causes, will they dispense with the formalities and just drop their pants? Can citizens moon judges, police officers, the governor?

"I don't think that mooning the governor - I'm not suggesting it's a nice thing to do - would be any worse in terms of violation of criminal law than thumbing your nose," opines Maxwell.

He considers his court victory a nice bit of legal reasoning: "With hard work, we cracked the case, no buts about it."

Not so fast, says Montgomery County State's Attorney Doug Gansler: "This is not a blanket permission slip to moon in Maryland."

Here the lawyers fall into an arcane back-and-forth. While Maxwell says the judge ruled that buttocks are never "private parts" to fit the crime of indecent exposure, Gansler says he'd prosecute again if an alleged mooner intended his act as a crime.

But who moons with criminal intent?

"If exposure of half of the buttock constituted indecent exposure, any woman wearing a thong at the beach at Ocean City would be guilty," Judge Debelius said.

Incidentally, Maxwell says his research suggests mooning also is legal in the District, but not in Virginia. "If the Georgetown basketball team is traveling out to Virginia, and somebody decides to moon somebody on the way," Maxwell says, "they better do it before they cross the river."

But it's hard to imagine that mooning the White House from Lafayette Square would be tolerated for long.

Let the lawyers haggle. Somehow, the judge's verdict recognizes a more fundamental truth. Despite scattered prosecutions across the country, the instinct to moon is powerful and persistent. It has always been with us, because we are not always an eloquent people, or maybe mooning is the height of eloquence.

In "The Canterbury Tales," written in the 14th century, Chaucer included a seminal mooning scene in "The Miller's Tale." A suitor comes looking for a kiss, and the object of his desire sticks her "nether eye" out the window, which in the dark he busses.

We laugh, and in our laughter is a judgment of this boorish behavior, as intended by Chaucer, says Michael Olmert, professor of English at the University of Maryland.

Mooning, or references to buttocks as moons, turns up in the work of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. The Oxford English Dictionary traces mooning as an organized activity to California in the early 1960s, and offers published examples such as: "(1994) The crew of a hovering American helicopter removed their trousers and mooned at the Russians."

There are subsets of mooning activity. Photocopying a moon was popular a few years back - in 2003 a man was arrested for doing just that at a courthouse photocopier. Pushing a moon against the window of a car or bus is a "pressed ham." Coming soon if not here already: moon pictures on cell phones.

There's mooning in the movies, from "American Graffiti" to "Braveheart," in which Mel Gibson has the brave Scotsmen show what they really think of their English adversaries in a mass battlefield mooning.

Mooning can be a ceremonial, community ritual. For the last quarter-century, there has been a day of the "Annual Mooning of Amtrak," across the street from a bar in Orange County, Calif. Hundreds of people gather along a chain-link fence to moon because it's wacky and fun.

Sometimes the message morphs. Consider: Women, as a rule, aren't mooners. That's because when a woman flashes her posterior it can be a come-hither gesture.

"In general, exhibitionism is perceived as aggressive on the part of a man, where it's seen as seduction on the part of a woman," says Judith Levine, the author of books on sex and the body, who also wrote one of the best essays on mooning, "Crack Addiction: The Gentle Art of Mooning." "When you add the element of it being the buttocks, not the genitals, the buttocks being this degraded part of the body, it becomes funny, degrading, loutish, frat partyish."

Mooning, as it happens, has a history in official Maryland. Late one night in 1988, Joseph V. Lutz, a Democratic member of the General Assembly from Harford County, was walking past a restaurant when through the window he spied a table of reporters in the otherwise empty establishment.

He couldn't resist.

"It was not a full shot," he said later.

Still: message received. (David Montgomery; The Washington Post, January 5, 2006.)

Study: Greenhouse Gas Levels Up. Research Shows More Carbon Dioxide Gas than in Past 650,000 Years

WASHINGTON - Scientists are looking back to a time when "greenhouse gases" were not the problem they are today, and it is giving them a clearer picture of how people are making it worse.

A team of European researchers analyzed tiny air bubbles preserved in Antarctic ice for millennia and determined there is more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any point during the last 650,000 years.

The study by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, published Friday in the journal Science, promises to spur "dramatically improved understanding" of climate change, said geosciences specialist Edward Brook of Oregon State University.

Today, scientists directly measure levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which accumulate in the atmosphere as a result of fuel-burning and other processes. Those gases help trap solar heat, like the greenhouses for which they are named, resulting in a gradual warming of the planet.

Those measurements are disturbing: Levels of carbon dioxide have climbed from 280 parts per million two centuries ago to 380 ppm today. Earth's average temperature, meanwhile, increased about 1 degree Fahrenheit in recent decades, a relatively rapid rise. Many climate specialists warn that continued warming could have severe impacts, such as rising sea levels and changing rainfall patterns.

Skeptics sometimes dismiss the rise in greenhouse gases as part of a naturally fluctuating cycle. The new study provides ever-more definitive evidence countering that view, however.

Deep Antarctic ice encases tiny air bubbles formed when snowflakes fell over hundreds of thousands of years. Extracting the air allows a direct measurement of the atmosphere at past points in time, to determine the naturally fluctuating range.

A previous ice-core sample had traced greenhouse gases back about 440,000 years. This new sample, from East Antarctica, goes 210,000 years further back in time.

Today's still rising level of carbon dioxide already is 27 percent higher than its peak during all those millennia, said lead researcher Thomas Stocker of the University of Bern, Switzerland.

"We are out of that natural range today," he said.

Moreover, that rise is occurring at a speed that "is over a factor of a hundred faster than anything we are seeing in the natural cycles," Stocker added. "It puts the present changes in context."

The team, which included scientists from France and Germany, found similar results for methane, another greenhouse gas.

Researchers also compared the gas levels to the Antarctic temperature over that time period, covering eight cycles of alternating glacial or ice ages and warm periods. They found a stable pattern: Lower levels of gases during cold periods and higher levels during warm periods.

The bottom line: "There's no natural condition that we know about in a really long time where the greenhouse gas levels were anywhere near what they are now. And these studies tell us that there's a strong relationship between temperature and greenhouse gases," said Oregon State's Brook.

A lengthening history of greenhouse gas concentrations should help climate specialists build better models about what the future might bring, Stocker said. It also may help answer additional questions such as how long ago humans started influencing greenhouse gas accumulations, and what impact other factors such as ocean currents play in the complexities of climate change.

Just a decade ago, scientists weren't sure it was possible to trace greenhouse gas concentrations back so far in ice. Now, Brook is part of another international research team preparing to hunt an ice-core sample dating back a million years or more, hoping to reach eras when Earth's temperature was significantly warmer. (By Susan Brink, Los Angeles Times, November 28, 2005.)

Studies: Humans Induce Warming
Science Agencies Analyze Data from the Past 10 Years

WASHINGTON - This year has been one of the hottest on record, scientists in the United States and Britain reported Thursday, a finding that puts eight of the past 10 years at the top of the charts in terms of warm temperatures.

Three studies released Thursday differ slightly, but they all indicate the Earth is rapidly warming. NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies has concluded 2005 is the warmest year in recorded history, while the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.K. Meteorological Office call it the second hottest after 1998. All three groups agree that 2005 is the hottest year on record for the Northern Hemisphere, at roughly 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above the historical average.

Jay Lawrimore, who heads NOAA's Climate Monitoring Branch in its National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., called the new data "one of the indicators that the climate is changing." He added: "It's certainly something the administration is taking seriously."

The three teams used the same set of ocean and land temperature records, but they analyzed the data differently and compensated for gaps in the climatic record in alternate ways. As a result, NASA scientists estimate 2005 average global land and sea temperatures were 1.04 degrees Fahrenheit above average, just beating out 1998's 1-degree elevation. NOAA researchers, by contrast, say this year's global average is 1.06 degrees Fahrenheit above average, compared with 1.1 degrees in 1998.

The analyses were based on data through the end of November and projections of December temperatures.

Scientists said Thursday that these differences should not detract from their common conclusion that the world is experiencing serious climate change, driven in part by human activity. Researchers recently found by drilling ice cores that there is a higher concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere now than at any time in the last 650,000 years, which reflects that humans are burning an increased amount of fossil fuels to power automobiles and utilities.

The Earth has warmed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit in the last century, with 1 degree of this increase occurring in the last 30 years. This climate change has brought unusually prolonged droughts in some regions and heavy precipitation in others, while the Arctic's sea ice has shrunk to its lowest level since observers started using satellite records in 1979.

Some global-warming skeptics questioned the significance of Thursday's findings. "Saying that 2005 was a near-record is like saying that a plane that landed safely could have crashed," said William O'Keefe, chief executive officer of the George C. Marshall Institute. "It is trying to make news where none exists."

But Climate Policy Center Chairman Rafe Pomerance, whose bipartisan group backs mandatory carbon dioxide limits, disagreed. "The temperature trend is a wakeup call for the Congress and the president to craft a response that will begin to dramatically reduce the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere," he said. (By Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, December 16, 2005.)

U.S. Stands Alone at U.N. Climate Conference.
Bush administration opposes mandatory limits on emissions. Other nations agree to negotiate a new treaty.

With the conspicuous exception of the United States, most countries were poised Friday to agree to negotiate a new treaty to combat global warming before the obligations of the current pact, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, expire in 2012.

The U.S., which opposes mandatory limits on greenhouse gas emissions, found itself isolated during the United Nations Climate Change Conference here. At one point early Friday, the top U.S. negotiator, Harlan L. Watson, walked out of talks on reopening dialogue under a separate 1992 U.N. treaty, which he regarded as an attempt to renew discussions on limiting emissions.

Late Friday night, Watson indicated that he would agree to an amended version of the dialogue proposal.

The aim of the conference was to lay the groundwork for a future global warming treaty. Delegates believed they would accomplish that before week's end despite U.S. efforts to block even nonbinding discussions of future climate change actions under existing U.N. agreements.

However, as the largest international conference on global warming since Kyoto drew to a close, the gulf between what nations are willing to do and what scientists say is needed to avoid environmental disaster remained as wide as ever.

In addition to the United States, several of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters, including China and India, continued to oppose capping their emissions, even as they agreed to continue allowing discussions to move forward, raising questions about how the U.N. process would achieve progress.

"There is an atmosphere of goodwill and understanding of the seriousness of the problem," said Margaret Beckett, the British environment secretary, describing this week's talks. "Nevertheless, that will not be enough to address climate change with the seriousness with which it needs to be addressed."

The Kyoto Protocol, which requires wealthy countries to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases that scientists have linked to rising temperatures, was the first effort to craft an international response to global warming. But it has been troubled since it was signed in 1997, and has failed to curtail the rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil.

The U.N.'s International Energy Agency estimates that greenhouse gas levels two years ago were 25% above 1990 levels. The Kyoto pact, which was finally ratified by enough nations to take effect this year, aims to reduce emissions from wealthy countries to roughly 5% below 1990 levels.

Representatives of some of the more than 150 nations at the Montreal talks said they hoped to deliver the message that they remain committed to reducing emissions through international accords -- even if the U.S., the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases, refuses to take part.

A decision to continue pursuing firm limits on greenhouse gas emissions, expected before the two-week conference ends early this morning, would represent a political setback for President Bush, who rejected the Kyoto pact, saying it would harm the U.S. economy, and who dispatched a delegation to Montreal that adamantly refused to discuss new caps.

Often pointed criticism of the U.S. stance, including a comment by Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin that the U.S. should remember "there is such a thing as a global conscience," intensified Friday with a hastily arranged speech by former President Clinton.

"I think it's crazy for us to play games with our children's future," Clinton said in a folksy speech before delegates that prompted a spirited ovation.

Alluding to Bush's rationale for the Iraq war as a bulwark against terrorism, Clinton said, "There is nowhere in the world where it is more important to apply the principle of precaution than in fighting climate change." Arguments that capping greenhouse gases would harm the economy, were "flat wrong," he said.

Bush administration officials did not publicly denounce Clinton's remarks, but some privately expressed annoyance. Canadian officials told reporters that the Bush negotiating team was upset that Canada had given the former president a platform at such a pivotal moment in the talks.

In Washington, Sen. James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.), who has called global warming a hoax, responded more forcefully.

"It's astonishing to me that former President Clinton, the same President Clinton that refused to submit the Kyoto treaty to the United States Senate for ratification, today attacked President Bush," Inhofe said.

Despite the promises of delegates to continue working on negotiations to address global warming, it was clear that persuading many of the world's major economies to commit to steeper greenhouse gas reductions would be difficult.

Mandatory limits are opposed by China, which is on a pace to surpass the U.S. as the top greenhouse gas emitter within the next quarter of a century.

Brazil and India, among the top 10 emitters, also rejected putting caps on their releases of heat-trapping gases, continuing to argue that wealthy nations should act first because they caused global warming by burning fossil fuels for 150 years.

"The countries that have been most responsible for creating this problem, and who continue to be the biggest contributors to the problem, need to take the lead," said Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister.

More than 150 nations, including the U.S., pledged to avoid "dangerous" human interference with the world's climate systems at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Although the countries that signed the 1992 treaty did not define what dangerous climate impacts meant, many scientists have estimated that greenhouse gases would have to be radically cut over the next 50 years to prevent temperatures from rising several more degrees, which could melt polar icecaps and raise sea levels around the world.

Concentrations of carbon dioxide in the air reached 380 parts per million this year, which experts believe is the highest level in 650,000 years. Two centuries ago, they were 280 ppm. Some scientists have argued that levels need to be capped at 450 ppm to avoid the most damaging consequences of global warming, but no one thinks that will happen under current U.N. plans.

"You can't go on with agreements to limit emissions based on what the politics of the moment will bear," said Michael Oppenheimer, a scientist at Princeton University who was co-author of a paper in the journal Science that examined the greenhouse gas reductions needed to avoid dangerous climate impacts. "At some point, you have to inject scientific reality."

Nonetheless, environmentalists Friday applauded the nations for moving forward on new global warming negotiations without the U.S., arguing that it proved the majority of the world is serious about the problem.

Activists were particularly optimistic about a proposal by Papua New Guinea and Costa Rica, approved Friday by the U.N., that would allow developing nations to receive financial compensation from richer countries for agreeing to preserve their rain forests. The U.S. initially opposed the proposal before agreeing to support it.

Deforestation accounted for as much as a fifth of the greenhouse gas emissions during the last decade, according to estimates by a worldwide panel of scientists. Environmentalists believe that by preserving forests over the next two decades, nations can slow global warming while waiting for better technologies to reduce emissions from fossil fuels -- and also give developing nations a financial reason to get more involved in talks.

"The Bush administration appears to be throwing a hissy fit, but it's not having the intended effect," said Alden Meyer, a lobbyist for the Union of Concerned Scientists. "It is only serving to stiffen the resolve of the rest of the world to move forward." (Los Angeles Times, by Miguel Bustillo, Times Staff Writer, December 10, 2005.)