From the White House's statement on the new IPCC report:
"This Summary for Policymakers captures and summarizes the current state of climate science research and will serve as a valuable source of information for policymakers," said Dr. Sharon Hays, the leader of the U.S. delegation at the meeting and Associate Director/Deputy Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "It reflects the sizeable and robust body of knowledge regarding the physical science of climate change, including the finding that the Earth is warming and that human activities have very likely caused most of the warming of the last 50 years."
Remember, as recently as last summer, Bush was caught claiming of global warming that "There is a debate over whether it's manmade or naturally caused." Based upon this latest statement, I am willing to credit the White House with now being accepting of the scientific consensus. However, if Bush goes and says something different in another press conference somewhere down the road, he can expect to be legitimately slammed for it. And I, for one, will be watching his future remarks closely.
A. It doesn't matter if it's man-made or caused by something else. We still have to deal with it.
B. If they want to know what's going on, they could launch that satellite that's supposed to measure the earth's albedo, but which is gathering dust on earth.
C. I wouldn't count on their having seen the light. If it were Canada, they'd announce a Royal Commission to study the problem, spend 2 years writing the report, and then seal the results for 10 years because they were too controversial (that happened to the report on the status of women); when it was unsealed they'd state that it was out of date and no longer valid, so we need another study (also done with the status of women report).
D. Wasn't there just an executive order installing government flunkies to oversee all reports from in all departments to make sure nothing counter to government wishes leaks out? Executive orders have the virtue of bypassing elected representatives and all debate.
would someone foward gov link to Rush & Hannity so they can align their talking points. Most righties didn't get the word.
I'm very disappointed in Bush and his oil buddies (not that I wasn't already). Comparing Bush and Exxon statements on global warming, aka, climate change, it seems to me that they're working from the same playbook. In fact, I recently heard an Exxon PR rep say that Exxon was a candidate in the 2006 elections - in more ways than one, I'm sure.
Now CNN reports that Exxon is still trying to pay scientists to criticize the IPCC report.
Since they may not be able to convincingly criticize the science any more, Bush and Big Oil are gearing up for the next phase of the battle, which is fighting tough controls on CO2 emissions:
"Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman warned against "unintended consequences" -- including job losses -- that he said might result if the government requires economy-wide caps on carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels." [CNN]
im so surprised that bush doesn't know about this kind of stuff before such reports are forced upon him. he is normally such a scholar.
The deniers aren't letting grass grow under their feet. The following letter appeared in todays' Washington Post.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/02/AR20070…