In environmental news, The New York Times is reporting that climate scientists may have significantly underestimated the power of global warming from human-generated, heat-trapping gases to shrink the cap of sea ice floating on the Arctic Ocean. Meanwhile, President Bush met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Monday to discuss global warming. They agreed that more must be done to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the Bush administration remains opposed to placing caps on carbon emissions.

President Bush: “As I reminded the people around the conference table today, the United States could shut down our economy and emit no greenhouse gases, and all it would take is for China about 18 months to produce as much as we had been producing, to make up the difference about what we had reduced our greenhouse gases to. So this is a very important issue. It has global consequences. The good news is that we recognize there is a problem.”