The Hardballer

In 2001, after 2,000 international scientists issued a landmark report concluding that climate change is a man-made problem, the White House flatly rejected the resounding global consensus, demanding "information based on science." Casting suspicion on the work of foreign scientists, President Bush called for a report by America's elite scientific institution, the National Academy of Sciences -- referring the issue to an NAS panel that included leading skeptics intent on refuting the conclusive evidence of global warming.

But Bush didn't count on Ralph Cicerone. An atmospheric chemist who has spent decades computing pollution levels around the world, Cicerone put up a formidable fight against the skeptics -- and won. The NAS published a corroboration of the international report, broadcasting the message that scientists will not serve as apologists for the president. "It took incredible courage," says Stephen Schneider, a climate expert at Stanford University. "Ralph's team refused to buckle under pressure from the administration." Faced with the panel's strong conclusions, Bush had no choice but to publicly admit to the overwhelming evidence that humanity is causing climate change, even as his administration fails to address it.

Before opting for a career in science, Cicerone played varsity baseball at MIT and was offered a job as a radio announcer for the San Diego Padres. Having spent decades collecting greenhouse-gas samples from sources as varied as tailpipes, rice paddies and cow pastures, Cicerone has proved to be a remarkably savvy political operative. He opposed Bush's ouster of Robert Watson from a U.N. panel on climate change, claiming it would "greatly reduce the emphasis on science." And in June, when Rep. Joe Barton demanded an investigation to discredit three scientists whose data confirmed global warming, Cicerone denounced the move as "intimidating" and demanded that it be halted.

To Cicerone, 62, the politics of global warming seem simpler than the science. "I can't emphasize enough how complicated the climate system is," he says. "So to see all the evidence that has come together recently is staggering. And despite all the political polarization around the issue of climate change, there is more serious interest in it than I have ever seen. That revs me up."

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