Bush on Global Warming: Decider or Dissembler?
Wednesday April 16, 2008
Earlier this week, word leaked out that President Bush was planning to announce a new plan to lower greenhouse gas emissions and fight global warming. But when President Bush unveiled his new global warming strategy, it sounded like the same old bait-and-switch: an inadequate goal with no real plan to achieve it. The president has made a lot of promises about environmental protection over the past seven years, but where is the action to back them up? When it comes to global warming and other environmental issues, is Bush "the decider," as he once famously declared, or the dissembler? You be the judge.
Find out what President Bush had to say about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming, and why many observers believe his new strategy won't solve the problem.
Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
Comments
IF President Bush had unveiled his goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the beginning of his administration instead of in its waning months, he might have actually played a role in linking the United States to global efforts to curb climate change. But the proposals he made yesterday, which in 2001 could have been a starting point for negotiations with advocates of stronger action in Congress, are now too belated and too weak to be more than a historical footnote. All three remaining presidential candidates are committed to much more stringent, mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide.
Sometimes the treatment is worse than the disease. We can see how govt involvement with mandatory criteria for ethanol production has fouled up the economics of food production and costs, leading to riots in spome areas. China is now the leading producer of CO2, yet is exempt from the Kyoto Agreement. Doesn’t make much sense, does it? While the Tree Huggers all feel a strong sense of self-righteous indignation over the current administration’s stance on fuel useage, if they would do their homework, they would find (a) regulations will do little to significantly alter [CO2]and (b)it isn’t nerly as bad a problem as they think, anyways. CO2 is not the problem; increasing rate of energy utilization in the face of limited and irreplaceable supply is a huge problem.
According to Bush’s statement below about “crippling the economy” what about the crippling/destruction of the environment?” Where the hack are his priorities. He has no adaption mode in his limited brain.
Clean air and water are the new “currency”. A glass of water or a glass of $’s to quench your thirst. Whack that Bush~!
The president said stretching environment laws “beyond their original intent” could force the federal government to act like a local planning and zoning board and to regulate a wide range of small energy users and producers—from schools and stores to hospitals and apartment buildings—which he said would have “crippling effects on our entire economy.”
I have heard many things about president bush. I hope he is making a wise choice.