Lack Of Specifics, Substance Fire Up Anger On Bush Climate Mention - SPI

[hatrack]

In urging the nation this week to break new ground in the search for "environmentally sensitive" fuel sources, President Bush devoted just one phrase in his 49-minute State of the Union address to heading off global climate change. That starkly illustrates the lack of concrete proposals by Bush -- either in his Tuesday night speech or in an energy talk he gave Wednesday at a DuPont plant in Delaware -- to reduce planet-warming pollutants, said politicians, environmentalists and analysts working on the issue.

Doubtful that the White House will exert the climate-change leadership advocated this week by heads of businesses such as General Electric and Alcoa, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels joins dozens of other mayors today in Washington, D.C., to lobby Congress for action. "It was very nice to hear the president use the term 'global climate change,' " Nickels said Wednesday, "but I'm a skeptic about the commitment of this administration." The U.S. Conference of Mayors is pushing for new policies to combat global warming. It wants a mandatory 80 percent reduction by midcentury in emissions of carbon dioxide, the most plentiful greenhouse gas. To do it, the mayors are pushing a system of tradable credits to reduce carbon dioxide to ease the economic pain such limits would cause. And the mayors would like more federal money to help cities cut emissions.

In six consecutive State of the Union speeches, Bush raised the energy-security issue. Yet, the nation's petroleum imports rose from 58 percent of consumption to 68 percent between his election in 2000 and last year. Bush's proposal this week to increase the use of alternative fuels, such as ethanol, would not reduce current oil use. Instead, it would seek to keep oil use from increasing with population growth by substituting alternatives.

EDIT

After his one-phrase mention of climate change Tuesday night, Bush touched on the theme a few more times Wednesday in Delaware -- but offered few specifics about how his policies would address the climate issue. "My question is: Where are the policies that are going to promote that in real life?" asked Vicki Arroyo, a policy analysis director at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. "Why aren't they listening to all those CEOs, those evangelical Christians, Tony Blair and all the rest of us? ... I'm underwhelmed."

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http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/301084_bushenergy25.html

[JohnWxy]

1. Bush likes to throw words around he doesn't really understand. He let's others 'work out' the

details. Typical Republican president. "hey I'm a manager(decider). Let others (who know what they are doing) work out the details while I take a vacation" (Eisenhower, Reagan, Shrub - all known for how much time off they enjoyed).


NOt knowing what you are doing has it's advantages. Like, now when he has reversed the obdurate refusal to recognize Gobal Warming is human induced to now smoothly reversing position to saying humans are affecting the climate and we need to take action. OF course, these are just words to the Shrub. He has no idea how it's going to be done. Oh well, let others figure that out - and MAKE IT HAPPEN.

[hatrack]

2. Yes, very similar to the "You scientists will come up with something" catechism

Very popular piece of magical thinking.

[depakid]

3. Did anyone really think that idiot was going to do anything

meaningful?