Over the past 6+ years, we've become accustomed to lies and manipulation by this sorry excuse of an administration. No matter what the public policy issue is, if facts get in their way, they try to undermine their political opponents or obfuscate until the truth gets blurry. For them, it's par for the course.
Given this pattern of deceit - as detailed in this excellent article in Rolling Stone magazine - what would you think their response was to this report?
Earlier this year, the world's top climate scientists released a definitive report on global warming. It is now "unequivocal," they concluded, that the planet is heating up. Humans are directly responsible for the planetary heat wave, and only by taking immediate action can the world avert a climate catastrophe. Megadroughts, raging wildfires, decimated forests, dengue fever, legions of Katrinas - unless humans act now to curb our climate-warming pollution, warned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, "we are in deep trouble."
If you thought that the White House was even a little bit concerned by this report, you'd be wrong. Very wrong.
When George W. Bush took office in early 2001 - given his inexperience in international affairs and his travels abroad pretty much limited to trips from Texas across the border to Mexico - his disdain for the international scientific community was quite evident and the resulting response was a "do-nothing policy on Global Warming" entirely consistent with his parochialism
You would think, in the wake of such stark and conclusive findings, that the White House would at least offer some small gesture to signal its concern about the impending crisis. It's not every day, after all, that the leading scientists from 120 nations come together and agree that the entire planet is about to go to hell. But the Bush administration has never felt bound by the reality-based nature of science - especially when it comes from international experts.
The article tells the story of of a president woefully uninformed and reliant upon Dick Cheney to counter the scientists warning his administration about the dangers of Global Warming. And not just Cheney. In fact, the administration embarked on a deliberate, well-coordinated campaign of misinformation
Cheney's statements were the latest move in the Bush administration's ongoing strategy to block federal action on global warming. It is no secret that industry-connected appointees within the White House have worked actively to distort the findings of federal climate scientists, playing down the threat of climate change. A new investigation by Rolling Stone reveals that those distortions were sanctioned at the highest levels of our government, in a policy formulated by the vice president, implemented by the White House Council on Environmental Quality and enforced by none other than Karl Rove. An examination of thousands of pages of internal documents that the White House has been forced to relinquish under the Freedom of Information Act - as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former administration scientists and climate-policy officials - confirms that the White House has implemented an industry-formulated disinformation campaign designed to actively mislead the American public on global warming and to forestall limits on climate polluters.
To be fair, there were a few people who objected to this approach and some White House staff were shocked at the role Cheney was playing on this issue. Then EPA Head (and former New Jersey Governor, Christine Todd Whitman) urged Bush early on to adhere to his 2000 campaign promise of curbing carbon pollution. But, to no avail. After more than two years of banging her head against this stubborn wall of denial, she resigned her post in 2003
Whitman should have had her doubts. Prior to joining the Cabinet, she sought personal assurance from Bush that the EPA would be able to call its own shots without deferring to the CEQ - the Council on Environmental Quality, a policy arm of the White House. As Whitman recalls it, Bush made no effort to mask his bureaucratic ignorance. "What's CEQ?" he asked blankly.
Even former White House insiders were shocked by the vice president's see-no-evil performance. "I don't see how he can say that with a straight face anymore," Christine Todd Whitman, who clashed privately with Cheney over climate policy.
Central to this policy of neglect was the role of Dick Cheney and his "industrial patrons." Quickly, he exerted control over the White House Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) as well as on major energy issues pertaining to oil and coal production. He hired former energy industry officials to consolidate his control over the CEQ - which in essence became the White House's own Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Not surprisingly, ExxonMobil lobbyists played a key role in administration environmental policies. In such matters of policy, though, Cheney was the "True Decider."
Another key figure in this disinformation campaign was Philip Cooney, a former lobbyist for the American Petroleum Institute. Why is he important?
[A]ccording to internal e-mails obtained by Rolling Stone, reveals just how seriously the White House took its intelligence fixing on global warming. Cooney was put in charge of damage control and was apparently instructed to craft a letter to the Times denying that the president had changed course on climate change. But this time, Cooney's editor was not just Connaughton (Cooney's boss and Head of the CEQ), but Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove. The collaboration with Rove raises questions about Cooney's congressional testimony last March, in which he insisted, under oath, that he had not discussed with Rove his work at the CEQ.
I would urge you to read the complete article. There are several other detailed examples which paint a picture of the White House making significant efforts to thwart any efforts towards making progress on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And 'manufacturing' facts (sound familiar?) to fit its policy of inaction. And what was the outcome of this systematic "campaign of disinformation?"
Although Cooney resigned in 2005, the campaign of disinformation he implemented had the desired effect. Two months after Cooney returned to work for ExxonMobil, the Cheney energy plan was passed into law. A massive giveaway for the fossil-fuel industry, the Energy Policy Act authorized $6 billion in subsidies for oil and gas production and another $9 billion for coal producers. Worst of all, the bill fast-tracked the construction of coal-fired power plants that would hasten global warming.
Earlier this month when George W. Bush reached an agreement with other world leaders at the G-8 Summit in Germany, Al Gore denounced the deal as "A Disgrace disguised as an achievement." In an interview with Rolling Stone, Gore also said that ExxonMobil has the same credibility on Global Warming as Ahmad Chalabi did on pre-war intelligence re: Iraq
What figure in the administration, other than the president himself, do you hold most responsible for standing in the way of meaningful change on global warming?
Oh, Cheney, of course. Both Bush and Cheney come out of the carbon-extraction industry. But Cheney has been the more forceful determinant of the two where this issue is concerned. Not that Bush has ever wavered - he does what ExxonMobil wants, every single time. When support for action against the climate crisis rises, he sometimes tweaks his rhetoric ever so slightly. But he never actually does anything to try to solve the problem. To the contrary, he's made it much, much worse.
Here's another thing Bush and Cheney have in common: Who would you rely on as the source of the best information about the wisdom of invading Iraq? Ahmad Chalabi, of course. Who would you choose to rely on as the source of the best information about global warming? ExxonMobil, of course.
This is a sordid tale of corruption and insider deals favoring big business over the public good at every step of the way. And one in which irrationality and corporate greed trumps reason and scientific facts. The author, Tim Dickinson, concludes that there are striking parallels between this campaign of lies and deception and the manner in which this administration took the country into war with Iraq.
It's what we've come to expect of the Bush Administration.
(crossposted at Truth & Progress)
---------------------------------------
Read the complete article - 'The Secret Campaign of President Bush's Administration To Deny Global Warming' by Tim Dickinson