Who’s Confused?
When, at the end of May, President George W. Bush read a speech on Global Warming, out loud and (basically) in public at the United States Agency for International Development, one of us (he or I) was very very confused.
George W. is the same president who, in a 2001 press conference expounded on the “global dimming” benefits of sulfur particles in the atmosphere (which is silly, right?). Under him, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed that carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant, and that its emission from automobiles can’t even be regulated (the Supreme Court disagreed recently). And, here he was, in this new speech, doing his best Al Gore impersonation.
At first, I was convinced that George W. was the confused one. I thought that he must have misheard one of his “staffers” or misread an important memorandum somewhere. Or maybe there was, like, a series of Pink Panther-esque blunders including, possibly, switched briefcases, lost notes, earwax, typos, and functional illiteracy which resulted in George W. making an impassioned speech on what he thought was the dangers of not stirring the chicken soup (Globular Swarming) or on the product recall of an especially dangerous glow-in-the-dark high bouncy ball (Glow Ball Warning). Because, I knew for sure for sure that if there was one person on this planet I could count on to NOT call for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (other than that guy who wrote in to the paper two weeks ago) it was president George W. Bush.
Apparently I was the one who was confused. For, that is just exactly what he did. He called for the top dozen (or so) greenhouse gas emitting countries to take part in a series of talks to set a “long-term global goal” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But don’t get too excited about the environmentalist green superhero tights George W. has been hiding beneath his free market Texas business suit (with pointy boots and a large belt buckle) these past six years. The goals in his plan would be “aspirational” and would not be binding unless individual nations chose to “bind themselves,” according to James L. Connaughton, the president’s environmental advisor.
Not surprisingly, George W.’s call to action has been met with a certain degree of, shall we say, skepticism. Especially in parts of the planet where people have actually been worrying about this issue and taking action… places where government officials signed this little thing called the Kyoto Treaty (which President Bush refused to sign in 2001, claiming that it would hurt the US economy and that it wasn’t fair because it didn’t include China and India), places which (thanks to mandatory reductions and carbon trading) have reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the past fifteen years as U.S. emissions have risen 16 percent.
My favorite response to George W.’s proposal came from German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She also holds the presidency of the European Union and has proposed that greenhouse gas emissions there be reduced by 50 percent by 2050. She is pressing the group of 8 industrialized nations (the famous G-8… the U.S. is one of them), which will be meeting this week on the Baltic Sea, to adopt such a plan as well. The U.S. has rejected her proposal, which makes sense because now that we have our own separate set of aspirational meetings, we’ll be too busy to worry about any truly binding G-8 climate proposals, or for that matter, the second phase of the Kyoto talks, which will begin in Bali later this year.
But anyway, Chancellor Merkel, speaking to reporters in Berlin, said, “What is positive is that we can see from the speech that the president made… that nobody can ignore the question of climate change.” Although, maybe a little bit of ignoring wouldn’t be so bad in this case. A redundant, irrelevant plan, the sole purpose of which seems to be to derail other legitimate efforts that have been going on for years is not exactly the kind of attention Global Warming is looking for… unless I am still just really confused.
When, at the end of May, President George W. Bush read a speech on Global Warming, out loud and (basically) in public at the United States Agency for International Development, one of us (he or I) was very very confused.
George W. is the same president who, in a 2001 press conference expounded on the “global dimming” benefits of sulfur particles in the atmosphere (which is silly, right?). Under him, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency claimed that carbon dioxide isn’t a pollutant, and that its emission from automobiles can’t even be regulated (the Supreme Court disagreed recently). And, here he was, in this new speech, doing his best Al Gore impersonation.
At first, I was convinced that George W. was the confused one. I thought that he must have misheard one of his “staffers” or misread an important memorandum somewhere. Or maybe there was, like, a series of Pink Panther-esque blunders including, possibly, switched briefcases, lost notes, earwax, typos, and functional illiteracy which resulted in George W. making an impassioned speech on what he thought was the dangers of not stirring the chicken soup (Globular Swarming) or on the product recall of an especially dangerous glow-in-the-dark high bouncy ball (Glow Ball Warning). Because, I knew for sure for sure that if there was one person on this planet I could count on to NOT call for global action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (other than that guy who wrote in to the paper two weeks ago) it was president George W. Bush.
Apparently I was the one who was confused. For, that is just exactly what he did. He called for the top dozen (or so) greenhouse gas emitting countries to take part in a series of talks to set a “long-term global goal” for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
But don’t get too excited about the environmentalist green superhero tights George W. has been hiding beneath his free market Texas business suit (with pointy boots and a large belt buckle) these past six years. The goals in his plan would be “aspirational” and would not be binding unless individual nations chose to “bind themselves,” according to James L. Connaughton, the president’s environmental advisor.
Not surprisingly, George W.’s call to action has been met with a certain degree of, shall we say, skepticism. Especially in parts of the planet where people have actually been worrying about this issue and taking action… places where government officials signed this little thing called the Kyoto Treaty (which President Bush refused to sign in 2001, claiming that it would hurt the US economy and that it wasn’t fair because it didn’t include China and India), places which (thanks to mandatory reductions and carbon trading) have reduced greenhouse gas emissions over the past fifteen years as U.S. emissions have risen 16 percent.
My favorite response to George W.’s proposal came from German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. She also holds the presidency of the European Union and has proposed that greenhouse gas emissions there be reduced by 50 percent by 2050. She is pressing the group of 8 industrialized nations (the famous G-8… the U.S. is one of them), which will be meeting this week on the Baltic Sea, to adopt such a plan as well. The U.S. has rejected her proposal, which makes sense because now that we have our own separate set of aspirational meetings, we’ll be too busy to worry about any truly binding G-8 climate proposals, or for that matter, the second phase of the Kyoto talks, which will begin in Bali later this year.
But anyway, Chancellor Merkel, speaking to reporters in Berlin, said, “What is positive is that we can see from the speech that the president made… that nobody can ignore the question of climate change.” Although, maybe a little bit of ignoring wouldn’t be so bad in this case. A redundant, irrelevant plan, the sole purpose of which seems to be to derail other legitimate efforts that have been going on for years is not exactly the kind of attention Global Warming is looking for… unless I am still just really confused.
posted by kyle at 8:59 PM
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