I bet you thought that Bush's recent statements regarding our "addiction to oil" and his interest in hydrogen-powered and switchgrass-powered vehicles meant that the country was finally getting all on the same page regarding need to do something about global warming. You silly goose!
Follow me below for a quick look at the future of anti-environmentalism.
A letter to the editor in today's New York Times gives insight into the new strategy we can expect to see emerging from fossil-fuel corporations and those in their pay. They can no longer find a scientist anywhere on the planet craven enough or financially desperate enough to contest the reality of humanity-induced global warming. Instead, they're falling back a step and fighting a holding action.
This was written in response to an op-ed by Gregg Easterbrook, in which he discusses his (very late) realization of environmental reality, and proposes a greenhouse gas credit-trading system similar to the one in use for acid rain. Here's Kenneth Green, a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute:
Accepting the science of climate change has never been the real debate (WTF?): there are, and always have been, reputable scientists, economists and policy analysts who accept mainstream climate science while arguing for affordable adaptive policies and additional research as the most rational policy response to the threat of climate change.
Kyoto boosters have tried to hide this "inconvenient truth" by labeling anyone who disagrees with them a shill or a crackpot, and insisting that science "demands" that we control greenhouse gas emissions. But science only tells us how things are, not what to do.
Greenhouse gas controls of the sort Mr. Easterbrook favors have been expensive failures wherever tried. It would be a giant step backward for the United States to enact such failed, expensive approaches to climate change.
(emphasis and interpolation mine)
Now, I'm all for spending more on research and looking for the most cost-effective means of keeping the planet habitable, but shouldn't we be using the tools we already have available in the meantime? The message I'm getting here is: well, we have to concede that global warming exists, but since we haven't come up with a way to stop it without making the energy business a tad less profitable, let's call for more research and in the meantime the oil companies can put this on the back burner. Am I reading him wrong?