MISREPRESENTING THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION

"Well, you can't fault The New York Times for trying -- that is, trying to move its global warming agenda forward by any means necessary. On Aug. 26, a routine federal report on climate change research was hailed as 'a striking shift' of the Bush administration, and then used as the basis for a masthead editorial on Aug. 27 calling for reductions in carbon dioxide emissions.

In reality, the report, 'OUR CHANGING PLANET: The U.S. Climate Change Science Program for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005' resembles a jillion other climate reports with interminable titles emanating from our Washington agencies. University faculty mailboxes groan with this overload... Doesn't anyone, much less the Times, understand how Washington works?"

More here





GLOBAL RIGHTEOUSNESS

Green One-Up-Manship is driving British politics

"With the sudden flood of top-level warnings about imminent environmental doom, one could be forgiven for thinking that new scientific discoveries had been made about the link between global warming and climate change. But nothing much has changed - in terms of the science, that is.

The recent speeches by UK prime minister Tony Blair and Tory leader Michael Howard, describing climate change as one of the greatest threats facing humanity, were driven more by green one-upmanship. Such is the moribund state of politics that the way to attain the moral high ground, without attracting ridicule, is to play the environmentalist trump card.

Talking to business leaders and environmental groups in central London on 14 September, Blair tried to improve his tarnished image as a world statesman by outlining his 'determination' to use the forthcoming chairmanship of both the European Union (EU) and the G8 group of leading industrial nations to 'revitalise international action' on global warming .

Desperate to get in first, Howard announced at a Green Alliance event on 13 September that a future Conservative government would be best placed to take the lead in persuading the rest of the world to 'join the battle against climate change'. Perhaps he had a point, of sorts. After all, former Tory prime minister Margaret Thatcher did more to reduce UK CO2 emissions than any prime minister since, albeit by default - by pushing through the closure of Britain's coal mines. But, like Blair, Howard had no radical measures up his sleeve, instead highlighting the need to improve household energy efficiency and encourage technologies such as wave and tidal power.

As Simon Jenkins wrote in The Times (London), 'if they really believe in the Apocalypse, only one technology is currently available to hold it at bay and that is nuclear power. All else is hypocrisy'. After all, Blair himself said that 'to acquire global leadership on this issue Britain must demonstrate it first at home'. Improving household efficiency and building a few wind turbines or solar panels is hardly going to make much of a difference in the long term to global CO2 emissions.

But this doesn't matter much, since neither Blair nor Howard set out to drive through radical policy changes. Instead, their speeches were dominated by empty rhetoric and a high dose of eco-moralism.

More here

*****************************************

Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.

Comments? Email me or here. My Home Page is here or here. For times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site (viewable even in China!) here

*****************************************