NEWS
Bush’s embrace of climate change is larded with irony
07/18/2008
It is ironic that President Bush this week declared a kind of victory involving human causes of global warming. It was reminiscent of his absurd declaration of a military "mission accomplished" in Iraq so many years ago.
Attending the Group of Eight summit in Japan, the president commended the statesmanship of those present, while welcoming progress on global emissions reductions.
During the gathering, the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Russia, Italy and Canada embraced "an ambitious but nonbinding goal" of slashing greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2050.
Some critics said it’s hardly a victory because five main developing nations, China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, aren’t on board. Others said the action won’t come soon enough to save the planet. It is becoming increasingly apparent that 2020 is a better target for realistic action on human-caused climate changes. One G8 observer commented that if we wait until 2050 "the world will be cooked."
All this came in the week that it was revealed that Vice President Dick Cheney’s office pushed to delete from congressional testimony references about the consequences of climate change on public health.
It was yet another example of the occupants of the White House distorting or suppressing scientific evidence when it suits them. The timing was embarrassing.
Cheney wanted cuts in proposed climate change testimony by the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as scientists and lawmakers considered ways to regulate the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere in the U.S.
Heavy editing of the testimony given by CDC Director Julie Gerberding was the first part of "a master plan" aimed at "covering up the real dangers of global warming and hiding the facts from the public," said a California senator who blew the whistle on Cheney.
Cheney wanted changes to an EPA finding concluding that carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, is endangering human health.
More than a year ago, the U.S. Supreme Court directed the EPA to determine whether carbon dioxide emissions endanger human health and, if so, begin to regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
Bush will leave office in January. Thankfully, both Barack Obama and John McCain have said they are willing to go further in cutting back American emissions.
If the United States led by example on this vital issue, it might just buy back some of the esteem we’ve lost because of Bush’s misguided overseas adventures.