Washington, D.C., March 10, 1999 – "I wonder if Vice President Al Gore is beginning to understand why most scientists have so little faith in computer climate modeling. The surprise snowfall yesterday is a good indication of how little we understand weather, much less global climate," commented Fred L. Smith, Jr., President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

The nation’s capital was blanketed with almost a foot of snow in a surprise storm yesterday, despite weather forecasters predicting as late as yesterday morning that Washington was in for a light dusting.

"Fortunately, even a city like Washington, with its relative inexperience in dealing with snowfalls of this magnitude, is slowly digging out and clearing the roads because it has the resources and ability to do so," Smith continued. "A global climate treaty, such as the one signed by the Clinton/Gore Administration in November will cause great harm to the US economy, as well as the world economy, leaving countries unable to ‘dig out’ from the next disaster that strikes, be it global warming, global cooling, or an asteroid heading our way."

"Yesterday’s snowstorm should be a lesson to all those who are quick to embrace inaccurate computer climate models and their attempts to predict the weather 100 years from now. We simply cannot predict with any accuracy what may happen next week, much less in the next century."

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