He ignores scientific, political and all other expert advice from outside the inner circle. Why should anyone think this would be any different?
White House denies climate change U-turn
The White House on Tuesday denied it was planning a U-turn on its climate change policy by embracing a system of formal caps on greenhouse emissions, despite rising pressure from European governments to change its stance.
Although energy security will be a key theme in President George W. Bush’s State of the Union address next week, the White House issued an unusually public rebuttal of rumours about its climate change policy. Tony Snow, White House spokesman, said: “I want to walk you back from the whole carbon cap story…The carbon cap stuff is not accurate. It’s wrong.”
International pressure for Mr Bush to consider reducing US emissions via a form of “cap and trade” system like that in force in the European Union has intensified. The issue has been raised in the last two weeks by Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, and José Manuel Barroso, European Commission president. Tony Blair, the British premier, has also been persistent in lobbying the president.
The Bush administration has consistently stressed technological solutions, rather than formal treaties such as the Kyoto accord. Mr Snow said: “What the president has talked about all along is the importance of innovation,” adding there was a need to focus on change “consistent with economic growth”.
In other climate news, the Doomsday Clock people added climate effects to their world threat assessment, Australians are more worried about climate change than terrorism, and Greenland’s ice sheets melting faster than ever has lead government agency NASA to disagree with the president.
Denying political advice from outside his inner circle… Does that mean the 95 Senators who voted against Kyoto are all part of the White House inner cabal?
#1: In a manner of speaking in that they know which companies that would be harmed by Kyoto pay for their perks and their campaign contributions..
#2 So you admit that US companies would be harmed. So by extention US citizens would be harmed. That is the kind of thing we want Senators to vote against.
3. Typically short sighted statement.
So by extention US citizens would be harmed
There is no such “extension” – look at the current situation, US corps doing great, how about middle class?
Yup it just means that certain companies have finally figured out how to make money off the myth of Global Warming (TM). Rest assured that the American people will get screwed out of this though. It’s just a question of how.
Congress’ job is to ensure that the standard of living of the average American is not reduced, directly or indirectly. Even military security comes back to standard of living.
Just to make it clear, in my #5 I was talking about US corps that “would be harmed” (not all corps), today they’re doing great…. (Exxon, etc.)
Congress’ job is to ensure that the standard of living of the average American is not reduced, directly or indirectly.
And I guess they’re doing a superb job by ignoring scientific data, etc, etc.???
#8 – If Congress tells me I have to drive a smaller car, or live in a smaller house or they tax gas to “discourage” me from using it, they are reducing my standard of living and therefore WRONG.
Touche #10. 🙂
Don’t forget gas guzzler’s tax, luxury tax, and inheritance tax. 😉
BTW, didn’t Kerry say in the last election people should be driving smaller vehicles (even though he drove SUVs) as well as saying higher gas taxes would curb gas consumptions? I thought this guy was for the middle class. 🙂
This President aside, one of the biggest challenges in life is deciding which expert to trust. All Presidents had an inner core of advisors and confidants. The trick is to pick the right ones.
“The Bush administration has consistently stressed technological solutions, rather than formal treaties such as the Kyoto accord.”
Really? How much they are investing how much in research? Are they building incentives into the system? Are we focused on results? Or is our administration going to bury their heads in the sand until they leave office (that’s my bet).
We automatically assume that reducing greenhouse gasses will be a drag on the economy. Why does this have to be true? A smart strategic program would leverage our technical expertise to our advantage. There are hundreds of initiatives we could encourage through the free market by adjusting policy to support rather than discourage innovation.
I don’t want to support 20 different fuel cell initatives on a crash program… but we should provide incentives graduated to the short and long term return for each technology.
#10, I hope you live long enough to see your kids saying “thank you dad for the fucked up planet you left us because of your big car and your big house.”
I guess this explains cuts in NASA’s funding – After all the bush administration wants “research” done, they dont want answers (or alt least answers that are the complete opposite of what they’ve been saying this whole time)
Isn’t just ACKNOWLEDGING global climate change a flip-flop for Bush?
No it’s not. He has been talking about climate change from day 1, but realized that the Kyoto Treaty was not in America’s best interest.
Bill, consider that nuclear power is available to reduce greenhouse gases substantially. I hope you’ll support that.
>To claim that Kyoto was too expensive was one of the dumber things Bush ever said
This has been said by many people. A global forum had other countries deciding against combating global warming and spending the money instead on things like water quality. Kyoto is much too expensive for the environmental benefit gained.
Apparently if you’re a global warming skeptic, you’re the equivalent to a “holocaust denier”:
http://tinyurl.com/yos83g
[ed: please use tinyurl.com for long urls]