Pointless Waiting For Bush To Take Action On Climate - Mercury News

[hatrack]

President Bush has long been out of step with the leaders of developed nations on global warming. He was virtually alone in refusing to support the Kyoto Protocol and to endorse mandatory reductions of emissions of greenhouse gases, which contribute to the earth's rising temperatures. Bush has also been out of step with many of the nation's governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, who are calling for forceful action to combat global warming.

And increasingly, Bush is out of step with the American people. A poll released Thursday is the latest to report that a large majority of Americans believe global warming is a real problem. And unlike the president, they are willing to do something about it.

The poll, conducted by a respected Republican pollster, found that concern about global warming crosses party lines. More Democrats and independents than Republicans believe that human activity is causing global temperatures to rise. But by a more than 2-1 ratio, members of all three groups believe it is possible to reduce the effects of global warming. And about eight of every 10 people surveyed say they are willing to take individual actions to cut their own energy consumption. These include lowering thermostat settings in winter and raising them in summer, washing clothes in cold water and choosing energy-efficient vehicles, light bulbs and appliances. Walking, biking or taking mass transit instead of driving are other ideas that got a hearty endorsement.

EDIT

President Bush may tune them out, but a strong majority of Americans of all political persuasions are already getting the message. If enough of us take responsibility and act, we can not only make a difference but also send a message to Washington that this nation needs to get serious about fighting global warming.

EDIT/END

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/opinion/14176241.htm

[rfkrfk]

1. everybody wants everybody else to reduce

Australia gets 108
international aviation is exempt, such as flying from Italy to France,
but not exempt, New York to Seattle

Liechenstein gets to vote, bu not California

yah, that'l work

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/1997/global.warming/stories/treaty/index4.html

[4dsc]

2. Now here's an oxymoron

Isn't this an oxymoron??

Bush To Take Action

[Dogmudgeon]

3. We're so optimistic!

By a two-to-one ratio, no less, We Believe we can Whip Inflation Now -- or whatever it is we have to whip, or whup, or whomp.

We Believe It Can Be Done!

Snap your "Live Strong" wrist bands, America!

Let's all hike, bike, or take the trolley to work -- until the Boss grumbles about how we're "never" on time.

So you say your Boss is a decent sort? Wait, then, until you sprain an ankle or get a gash in your foot or contract bronchitis from one of the many random hazards we all deal with.

Turn your lights off ... turn down the thermostat and put on a Carter cardigan ... get a "green" computer ... get a hybrid car, for that matter. Your energy prices will increase anyway. It won't be a fun activity; it will become a stone drag, and as the drag gets longer, the stone will get bigger. It will become an obligation. A compulsion. A cross, which you will bear on the path back down to the Olduvai Gorge.

Let's put up a lot of windplants -- just not near where we live. And solar, too, but I think I'll wait until the tax advantages are a little better. But No Nukes! Hell, if the word got out that I wasn't completely anti-nuke, I'd never get laid again!

President Bush is a little bit like all of us, wrapped up in one completely craven, spoiled, petulant person armed with the Red Button and a fanatical faith that he's the beloved of God Almighty. But our dependence on high levels of easily-traded energy supplies AND an economic system that shunts well over 90% of its own profit into private aggrandizement rather than public development will lead to a very nasty crossroads in an amazingly short time. We will become the Third World. Those slightly behind us will learn to hate us to a greater degree than ever before. And those who are currently the Third World will simply die -- in numbers too great to dwell on. Ten or twenty Holocausts'-worth of emaciated bodies per year, with the number accelerating if they can't adapt to climate change, loss of cheap energy to conduct modern agriculture, to pay for "terminator seeds", flu vaccines, basic water purification, and cheap antibiotics.

None of this is going to be easy. The editorial staff of the Mercury News is to be commended for starting to recognize this. But we have no shortage of naivete. The changeover will be difficult, dangeous, and probably fatal for large numbers of people. If we get over these problems, then we'll have a bright future, but that could easily take a century or more. For almost all of us, the rest of our lives will simply become steadily less affluent. Beat the rush -- learn the skills of living with less largesse today, and suffer less deprivation tomorrow.

It doesn't have to be that way, but it surely won't be like one long Scout Jamboree. We have what we need for all of us to muddle through without much trouble, but it won't happen. Profit margins must be maintained. This isn't an idle bash-the-rich rant; without large-enough profits being generated, the economic infrastucture will collapse quickly, which would be a disaster an order of magnitude beyond comprehension.

Riding the tiger, as a privilege, made us rich; as a necessity, it will soon demand every penny we've ever made.

Given complete commitment to remaking the world over the next 20 or 30 years, yes, we could whomp our problems into submission and all of us could take vacations on Mars when we're done fixing the Earth. But what kind of odds would you give that we, as a planetary culture, could make that kind of commitment, and carry it out? Especially when there are so many better things to do, like hating and killing each other off because God and Sacks Goldman tell us to -- ?

Just don't turn my life, O Lord, into a daily hand-to-mouth struggle to survive and to apologize to my children and my grandkids -- like those walking corpses (soon to be dead corpses) have to do.

I have seen the future, and it sucks.

--p!
Just a spoonful of sugar helps the arsenic go down