Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Bad, Bad, Bad.
from altercation...
The Kyoto Protocol goes into effect today without the participation of the United States, offering a near perfect paradigmatic illustration of America’s relationship with the rest of the world (hitherto fore ROW). On the one hand, Bush is insisting that only he, his minders and ideological soulmates—know the truth. Independent scientific inquiry is irrelevant. Worldwide consensus is irrelevant. Decades of collected data are irrelevant. What’s more, the easily predictable future is also irrelevant. The United States will continue on its path as the world’s most destructive environmental power, intent on creating climate chaos not only in our own nation—least of all in our own nation—but all over the world; further immiserating those on the planet least able to handle it. The Bush attitude toward global warming increases hatred toward the United States in virtually every civilized nation, hurts others and hurts ourselves. But like the Bush budget, the Bush war, and almost everything Bush does, its results will not be apparent until Bush and company leave office, making it someone else’s problem.
Per usual, the manner in which Bush and company went about thumbing their noses at ROW, at science, and at our own national self-interest proved almost as destructive as the act itself. This from The Book on Bush:
Bush’s decision, announced in March 2001, to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and discontinue U.S. participation in its future negotiation, without so much as notifying any of the other participants in advance. (Condoleezza Rice informed European Union ambassadors that the deal was “dead” at a private lunch.) Bush had spoken out in favor of the multination agreement on the campaign trail. Approved in 1997, though as yet unratified (and unlikely to be) by the U.S. Congress, the painstakingly negotiated accord called for thirty-eight industrial countries to gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions each produced. The accord, however, would be meaningless without U.S. participation, because Americans account for approximately 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse-producing gasses. If the Europeans went ahead alone, it would be U.S. companies that would derive the benefit, as they would be competing without incurring the added costs of controlling greenhouse gasses. The U.S. pullout faced Europe with the choice of either rewarding Bush for his intransigence or starting again from scratch.
Bush defended his position with the breathtaking argument that if the Europeans doubted the administration’s commitment to preserving the environment, “all they need to do is look at home and see that we’re making good progress on the environment at home. We changed wetland regulations. We will reduce the amount of arsenic in our waters. . . . [W]e’ve got money for our national parks.” In fact, his administration was then in the process of actively undermining the regulation of the amount of arsenic in Americans’ drinking water, and it tried to do the same with regard to the conservation of U.S. national parks, as chapter 2 recounts in detail. Regarding wetlands policy, Bush went so far as to refuse his own brother’s request to try to save Florida’s coastlines, so ideologically devoted was he to the sugar industry’s profitable despoiling of the nation’s natural resources for private profit. In the end nothing in Bush’s alleged explanation has anything to do with the administration’s unilateral sabotage of the Kyoto Protocol— which, one might add, was entirely gratuitous from a diplomatic perspective, since Congress had no intention of passing it and there was no possibility it would go into effect in any case.
Returning home from Europe, Bush admitted that he really couldn’t care less what the rest of the world, especially Europe, thought of American actions abroad. The idea “of placing caps on CO2 does not make economic sense for America,” he explained, leaving no room for debate. Afterward, Bush bragged of his immovability: “I went to dinner, as Karen [Hughes] would tell you, with fifteen leaders of the EU, and patiently sat there as all fifteen in one form or another told me how wrong I was. And at the end I said, ‘I appreciate your point of view, but this is the American position because it’s right for America.’"
this post was collected (not written) by chuckago@yahoo.com
from altercation...
The Kyoto Protocol goes into effect today without the participation of the United States, offering a near perfect paradigmatic illustration of America’s relationship with the rest of the world (hitherto fore ROW). On the one hand, Bush is insisting that only he, his minders and ideological soulmates—know the truth. Independent scientific inquiry is irrelevant. Worldwide consensus is irrelevant. Decades of collected data are irrelevant. What’s more, the easily predictable future is also irrelevant. The United States will continue on its path as the world’s most destructive environmental power, intent on creating climate chaos not only in our own nation—least of all in our own nation—but all over the world; further immiserating those on the planet least able to handle it. The Bush attitude toward global warming increases hatred toward the United States in virtually every civilized nation, hurts others and hurts ourselves. But like the Bush budget, the Bush war, and almost everything Bush does, its results will not be apparent until Bush and company leave office, making it someone else’s problem.
Per usual, the manner in which Bush and company went about thumbing their noses at ROW, at science, and at our own national self-interest proved almost as destructive as the act itself. This from The Book on Bush:
Bush’s decision, announced in March 2001, to withdraw from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming and discontinue U.S. participation in its future negotiation, without so much as notifying any of the other participants in advance. (Condoleezza Rice informed European Union ambassadors that the deal was “dead” at a private lunch.) Bush had spoken out in favor of the multination agreement on the campaign trail. Approved in 1997, though as yet unratified (and unlikely to be) by the U.S. Congress, the painstakingly negotiated accord called for thirty-eight industrial countries to gradually reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions each produced. The accord, however, would be meaningless without U.S. participation, because Americans account for approximately 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse-producing gasses. If the Europeans went ahead alone, it would be U.S. companies that would derive the benefit, as they would be competing without incurring the added costs of controlling greenhouse gasses. The U.S. pullout faced Europe with the choice of either rewarding Bush for his intransigence or starting again from scratch.
Bush defended his position with the breathtaking argument that if the Europeans doubted the administration’s commitment to preserving the environment, “all they need to do is look at home and see that we’re making good progress on the environment at home. We changed wetland regulations. We will reduce the amount of arsenic in our waters. . . . [W]e’ve got money for our national parks.” In fact, his administration was then in the process of actively undermining the regulation of the amount of arsenic in Americans’ drinking water, and it tried to do the same with regard to the conservation of U.S. national parks, as chapter 2 recounts in detail. Regarding wetlands policy, Bush went so far as to refuse his own brother’s request to try to save Florida’s coastlines, so ideologically devoted was he to the sugar industry’s profitable despoiling of the nation’s natural resources for private profit. In the end nothing in Bush’s alleged explanation has anything to do with the administration’s unilateral sabotage of the Kyoto Protocol— which, one might add, was entirely gratuitous from a diplomatic perspective, since Congress had no intention of passing it and there was no possibility it would go into effect in any case.
Returning home from Europe, Bush admitted that he really couldn’t care less what the rest of the world, especially Europe, thought of American actions abroad. The idea “of placing caps on CO2 does not make economic sense for America,” he explained, leaving no room for debate. Afterward, Bush bragged of his immovability: “I went to dinner, as Karen [Hughes] would tell you, with fifteen leaders of the EU, and patiently sat there as all fifteen in one form or another told me how wrong I was. And at the end I said, ‘I appreciate your point of view, but this is the American position because it’s right for America.’"
this post was collected (not written) by chuckago@yahoo.com
