More Hot Air From Dubya On Global Warming

This Yahoo News story tells us that President Highest Disapproval Rating In Gallup Poll History is poised once more to muff an opportunity on the climate crisis (and I love the way "constructive" is in quotes here)…

"Yeah, I'll be constructive," Bush told a joint news conference after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda on the eve of the G8 summit in the northern mountain resort of Toyako.

I sincerely hope that our next president will not answer a reporters’ question with “yeah,” in a manner as if he had been interrupted from trying to buy prophylactics inside a public rest room.

"I also am realistic enough to tell you that if China and India don't share the same aspiration that we're not going to solve the problem," Bush said.

God, I am so sick of this numbskull blaming India and China for the climate crisis while our planet continues to melt! Besides, as the story tells us later…

Some 190 nations including the United States agreed in December in Bali to reach a deal on a post-Kyoto treaty by the end of 2009.

"India and China agreed in Bali that they were ready to move. So what Bush is harping at is a bit out of date," said Antonio Hill, climate change expert at charity Oxfam.

And in case anyone out there thinks John W. McBush will be an improvement, I should point out that, according to this Salon article, Justice Antonin (Kill The D.C. Handgun Ban But Don’t Bring One Into Our Workplace) Scalia (one of McBush’s favorite judges) came within one vote of arguing successfully, in the Massachusetts v. EPA case, that carbon dioxide was not a pollutant.

I did some more digging to find some of the times in the past when Dubya has obstructed on this issue and came up with some additional information (I have to differentiate, though, between Dubya’s gamesmanship within this country through the nonsensical antics of Stephen Johnson, among others, at his EPA and the similar behavior of Incurious George among leaders of countries on the world stage).

As you can see here, Dubya first started “beating the drum” against India and China in June 2001 and continued to do so here in 2003 (this excerpt is noteworthy)…

Bush's scapegoats, however, are hardly responsible for the climate-change crisis. China accounted for just 7% of the world's CO2 emissions over the course of the 20th century; India, for only 2%. The United States, in contrast, accounted for more than 30% of the total. (See Graph 1.) Moreover, emissions levels in the United States continue to surge, rising every year between 1991 and 2000, the latest year for which data is available. According to the Department of Energy, the country's fossil-fuel-related CO2 emissions increased by more than 2.7 percent between 1999 and 2000. In contrast, China reduced its emissions by almost 2.2% in 2000, its third straight year of reductions.

Please understand, by the way, that I am not opposed to China and India doing their fair share. However, any adult world leader out there is going to recognize the fact that, as on other issues, each will seek leverage over the other. However, we’re not talking about grain, loose nukes or reserves of plutonium. We’re talking about the planet, for God’s sake!

(Preaching to the choir, I know…).

So, without our help, the Kyoto Protocols went “into force” in February 2005 without our participation (here), and this notes that, in 2007, Dubya undercut the climate change issue at the G8 summit again (calling for reduced emissions among which two countries once more? Go ahead, guess).

Well, while all of this is going on, I should note that Rice University ecologist Evan Siemann (here) has discovered that the Chinese tallow tree, first brought to Texas in 1900 because the wax-covered seeds were used as an agricultural crop, has been “turning Gulf coast grasslands into single-species forests” due to the effects of global warming (more info here)…

"The incredible diversity of native plants in the coastal prairies is gone within 30 years after the Chinese tallow tree invades the area," said Siemann, assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology. "By studying how this tree has been able to thrive, we should be able to learn more about the rules that govern a biological community and the interactions among species within that community."

…

Siemann is concerned about the spread of Chinese tallow trees, because once they replace bluestem grasses, sunflowers, blazing stars and other plants found in the prairies, those species and their associated animal fauna will not come back.

So due to global warming, a breed of Chinese tree is taking over in Texas and, in the process, altering the ecology throughout the state once and for all.

Leave it to Dubya not to get the irony.