Do you think George Bush even knows what planet he is on?
Or is it that he just doesn’t care? It’s hard to tell given the Administration's continuing denial of scientific fact and relentless pursuit of environmental policies that favor oil and coal companies.
For those of you who were hoping that the Bush Administration might take a more reasonable approach to environmental policy during a second term, here is a little preview of what lies ahead.
On Tuesday, November 9, a highly respected international team of scientists released a new study showing the Artic is warming much more rapidly than previously known, at nearly twice the rate as the rest of the globe, and increasing greenhouse gases from human activities are projected to make it warmer still. The report, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA), projects that at least half the summer sea ice in the Arctic is expected to melt by the end of this century, along with a significant portion of the Greenland Ice Sheet, as the region warms an additional 4-7° C (7 to 13° F) by 2100. These changes will have major global impacts, such as contributing to global sea-level rise and intensifying global warming. Warming over Greenland is projected to lead to substantial melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet, eventually raising sea level by about 7 meters or about 23 feet.
“The impacts of global warming are affecting people now in the Arctic,” says Robert Corell, chair of the ACIA. “The Arctic is experiencing some of the most rapid and severe climate change on earth. The impacts of climate change on the region and the globe are projected to increase substantially in the years to come.”
But back at the White House it was business as usual. On November 10th, the day after the release of the study,James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times saying “President Bush would not reconsider regulating carbon dioxide emissions — despite scientific alarm over global warming — because such a policy would hurt the domestic coal industry and send jobs overseas.”
In other words, “fuck you.” (Is that phrase in the official Bush/Cheney Talking Points?)
No one should be surprised by this response. According to Environment2004, an advocacy group seeking to promote policies reducing global warming, “the Bush administration has pursued a policy of denying the problem, suppressing science and avoiding action. Playing to his coal, oil and auto industry constituents, President Bush has rejected the scientific consensus articulated by the world's most distinguished scientific bodies, failed to control U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and isolated the United States internationally on the issue of global warming.” At least they are consistent.
During the first term, Not only did the president break his campaign pledge to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and withdraw from the Kyoto agreement, but the Administration opposed incentives for carbon-free renewable energy production and proposed deep cuts in the Department of Energy's renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development programs. Making matters worse, the administration went out of its way to debunk and politicize scientific evidence documenting global warming, altering reports, or simply deleting information from public records. For example, in a highly criticized move, the Bush administration ordered the EPA to delete information showing that global temperatures had risen sharply from the Agencies State of the Environment Report, and in 2002, the section on global warming pollution was deleted entirely from the EPA's annual report on air pollution trends.
Don’t expect anything different in the new Bush administration. According to the research website opensecrets.org, the oil and gas industry gave $2,313,440 in 2004 to the Bush Campaign.
Swimming lessons anyone?
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Posted by: j | November 15, 2004 at 11:45 PM