We're not making this any easier for ourselves. Like an already-overweight person who just keeps packing on the pounds--making his weight-loss goal even harder to achieve should he ever go on a diet--we're heading in the wrong direction if we want to avert a climate crisis caused by loading the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.

To stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide, we have to throttle back emissions radically, not merely slow the rate of increase. But we can't manage even the latter. During the 1990s, worldwide emissions of carbon dioxide (mostly from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas) increased at a rate of 1.1 percent per year. In other words, in the years right after the climate pact reached at the Rio "earth summit," we didn't exactly cover ourselves with glory. But it gets worse! Between 2000 and 2004, the rate increased to 3.1 percent per year, finds a study published this evening in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

What's in a name? Drug makers agonize over what to call their products--"Viagra" carries that bit of virility at the front, for instance, while "Lunesta" evokes the moon. The idea is to associate drugs with positive attributes as well as make them memorable. Looks like the companies know what they're doing: in a disturbing study from Canada, scientists find that names can strongly influence decisions patients make about treatment.

To investigate what role a name plays, scientists at McMaster University started out by showing volunteer patients information on the benefits and harms of various treatment options. It's well known that many patients suffer from "health illiteracy" "and inability to understand what their doctor tells them or the meaning of printed information that comes with prescription drugs. The McMaster team therefore set out to see whether the format of the information would make any difference in patients' understanding and decisions.

They compared a graphic presentation called a decision board, a decision booklet plus audiotape, and an interactive computer program, all displaying benefits and risks of three treatments for blood clots on a pie graph or pictogram. The treatment options were labeled "treatment A," "treatment B" and "treatment C." Patients' understanding of whether their condition was one the treatment was good for, and of the risks and benefits, all improved significantly with the board, booklet and computer program, with pie chart or pictogram. Virtually all (96 percent) of the participants said the decision aid helped them choose among the three treatments.

Then the scientists replaced A, B and C with the treatment's true name "warfarin, acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) and "no treatment." Under these conditions, 36 percent of the patients changed their initial choice, including 46 percent of those who initially chose warfarin and 78 percent who initially chose no treatment, the scientists are reporting this evening in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Although they grasped the risks and benefits, that rational decision was trumped by the pull of the name, or the belief that no treatment (which is actually the best option in some cases) must be the worst choice. No wonder drug advertising is so effective.