Here's what George W. Bush had to say about climate change in his penultimate state of the union address: "...and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change." That's it. A parathetical afterthought for the most pressing issue of modern times. I suppose we should be happy that even that much made it through the editing process. Oh well.
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Bush's treatment of global warming in the State of the Union address was pretty uninspiring, unless you like vagaries. I have a Seed piece going up about this today so I won't say more, except to point out the actual language so you can see for yourself:
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In Wednesday's column, Boston Globe opinion writer Derrick Z. Jackson draws an interesting contrast between two presidents' handling of the nation's body of science in the face of adversity.
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Spinmeister Frank Luntz spoke with Salon recently, touching on a number of Washington buzz topics. If you're not familiar with him, check out the infamous Luntz memo, and you will understand why he is a chief enemy of transparent policy and scientific debate. At the end of the print interview, they…
Hey,
At least he finally mentioned it, for the first time. Imagine if he had to deal with a Democratic majority throughout his entire Presidency?
There are stories that after his election, he was really planning on being a "uniter" until Rove looked at the polls and realized there was no political upside to it.
Maybe he is reverting. Too little, too late.
Wondering how Bush can get away with continuing to side-step and downplay the climate issue? It's because his base among *college-educated* Republicans continues to refute the science and urgency of global warming. See this post on the details and why college-educated Republicans remain more skeptical than their high-school counterparts.
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/01/in_latest_survey_only_2…
Well he may have mentioned it, but his plans take as much as give. A big chunck of the proposed alternative fuels is coal to diesel. That would add about as much CO2, as the quite modest bump in CAFE saves. The rest is same-old same-old, talk of technology doing the job, but no substantial funding -or economic incentives for research/deployment. Looks just like Iraq, kick the can down the road for another two years.
I was surpised (dismayed) to hear foreign reaction -they seemed to think his position had actually changed.
"Republicans continues to refute"
Actually, they _dis_pute. It is not possible to refute either the science or the urgency.