Bush's seven deadly environmental sins
How Bush made a mockery of the nation's environmental laws and values -- and what Obama must do to get us back on track.
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Salon.com
Nov. 8, 2008 | Somewhere up north, a polar bear, on a melting ice floe, is wiping its sweaty brow, thinking, "Fewer than 80 days before these oil freaks are out of office." It hardly bears repeating that George W. Bush's record on the environment makes his own father look like Teddy Roosevelt by comparison. By taking environmental policymaking away from scientists, and turning it over to industry cronies, Bush has made a mockery of the nation's environmental laws and values.
Bush's myriad environmental sins could have him serving penance for years. But we decided to highlight seven of his most deadly. We also invited leading environmentalists to outline Barack Obama's mission for cleaning up the nation's land, water and air.
Bush Sin 1: Blew hot air on global warming
By refusing to agree to mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions, the Bush administration gave major developing nations, such as China and India, carte blanche to do the same. After all, why should these growing economies do anything about global warming when the one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters and richest nations couldn't be bothered?
"The most shameful thing we've done of all is to walk away from the international debate on climate, which has crippled the debate and caused everyone else in the world to think that we're hypocritical and deluded," says Bill McKibben, author and climate activist. "The Chinese have all the coal they need to destroy the atmosphere by themselves to get rich, and we have no moral objection as to why they shouldn't just go ahead and burn it, because that's precisely what we did."
They don't call it global warming for nothing. The result: eight precious years wasted in the fight against global warming as we watched carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere shoot up, while scientists' predictions about the speed and severity of global warming became increasingly dire.
(Continued here.)
By Katharine Mieszkowski
Salon.com
Nov. 8, 2008 | Somewhere up north, a polar bear, on a melting ice floe, is wiping its sweaty brow, thinking, "Fewer than 80 days before these oil freaks are out of office." It hardly bears repeating that George W. Bush's record on the environment makes his own father look like Teddy Roosevelt by comparison. By taking environmental policymaking away from scientists, and turning it over to industry cronies, Bush has made a mockery of the nation's environmental laws and values.
Bush's myriad environmental sins could have him serving penance for years. But we decided to highlight seven of his most deadly. We also invited leading environmentalists to outline Barack Obama's mission for cleaning up the nation's land, water and air.
Bush Sin 1: Blew hot air on global warming
By refusing to agree to mandatory greenhouse gas emission reductions, the Bush administration gave major developing nations, such as China and India, carte blanche to do the same. After all, why should these growing economies do anything about global warming when the one of the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluters and richest nations couldn't be bothered?
"The most shameful thing we've done of all is to walk away from the international debate on climate, which has crippled the debate and caused everyone else in the world to think that we're hypocritical and deluded," says Bill McKibben, author and climate activist. "The Chinese have all the coal they need to destroy the atmosphere by themselves to get rich, and we have no moral objection as to why they shouldn't just go ahead and burn it, because that's precisely what we did."
They don't call it global warming for nothing. The result: eight precious years wasted in the fight against global warming as we watched carbon-dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere shoot up, while scientists' predictions about the speed and severity of global warming became increasingly dire.
(Continued here.)
Powered by Blogger
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home