With BDS. Can’t forget BDS!
George W. Bush says we’re on track to meet the nation’s goals for curbing global warming.
I see some hands waving out there. Didn’t know we had any goals for curbing global warming? Where were you in 2002 when the president put us on the road toward reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012?
So there.
Yup, so there. Because the USA has done a better job at reducing CO2 output then the majority of Kyoto signatories.
Let’s back up here. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always had trouble getting my head around goals that involve reducing the rate at which something is growing. To appreciate the administration’s efforts on the, um, issue, let’s try to imagine it in terms other than greenhouse gas emissions. (As the president noted: “Climate change involves complicated science.â€)
Suppose that two years after taking office, George W. Bush discovered that because of the stress of his job, he had gained 40 pounds and was tipping the scales at 220.
The real-world Bush would immediately barricade himself in the White House gym, refusing all human contact or nourishment until the issue was resolved. But imagine that he regarded getting fat as seriously as he regards melting glaciers, rising oceans and drought and starvation around the planet. In that case, he would set a serious, management-type goal — of, say, an 18 percent reduction in the rate at which he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next decade.
Wait a moment: is Gail Collins actually saying that 18 percent, which was really more ambitious then Kyoto, which, btw, the Dem Congress and Billy Jeff said nyet to in 1997, is a bad thing?
Since the president never suggests actual behavior changes on the part of American citizens, that leaves us with what? More efficient refrigerators?
Lots of things! There is, for instance, the ambitious new fuel economy standard of 35 miles per gallon by 2020; we sure do have a lot to look forward to in the future, people. There’s new federal spending on biofuels. Much of this is for ethanol, which has the unfortunate side effect of creating more greenhouse gases than it eliminates, and, of course, helping to create a planetary crisis over rising food costs. But nothing’s perfect.
Perhaps he should have pushed for all those feel good solutions, like Al Gore does, that people, inluding Al Gore, never really do. Oh, and last time I checked, it was the lefty Climahysterics and the UN who were pushing bio-fuels. I’m confused.
The president’s real focus seemed to be on fighting the strategies for global warming that he doesn’t like: the Kyoto Protocol, court challenges and legislation pending in Congress. Almost all of them, interestingly, were referred to as “problems.â€
Ah, Gail means the ones that would limit, if not destroy, the American economy, much as we see happening in Europe. Smart man, that Dubya, and responsible. Is a president supposed to put in measures that harm his countries economy?
But, here it comes!
The Europeans have a perfect right to look down on the United States since they’ve set much more ambitious targets for reducing global warming. While they do not appear to be likely to meet any of them, it’s the thought that counts.
Got that? The Climahysteric movement in a nutshell: feel good, and the thought that counts, rather then actually “doing something.”
