AUSTIN, Texas -- Throwing around words like "fantastic" and
"stupefying" is considered bad form outside the tabloid press. But I'm
damned if I know what else to say about the news that the Bush
administration has decided that global warming is indeed taking place and
they are planning to do exactly nothing about it.
Here we are in the middle of wallowing in this, "What didn't
they know and why didn't they know it?" debate -- this maddening, haunting
and probably useless exercise in "Why didn't somebody do something?" Sept.
11 left quite a bit of spilt milk on the floor, but even that disaster will
pale against the consequences of unchecked global warming. Yet here is the
Bush government announcing right here and now that it knows this disaster is
coming but it will not do anything to stop it. They
will not even do anything to slow it down or soften its impact. What can you
call that except fantastically irresponsible?
According to The New York Times, the United States has reported
to the United Nations that that global warming will substantially alter our
climate in the next few decades, but the report "recommends adapting to
inevitable changes. It does not recommend making rapid reductions in
greenhouse gases to limit warming, the approach favored by many
environmental groups and countries that have accepted the Kyoto Protocol, a
climate treaty written in the Clinton administration that was rejected by
Mr. Bush." For the first time, the Bush administration acknowledges that
global warming is mostly caused by humans burning fossil fuels, but it
proposes to do exactly nothing about it.
"Adapt to the inevitable changes"? The changes are not
inevitable. The changes, according to scientists, can be mitigated, the
effects ameliorated and at the very least we can stop aggravating the
potential catastrophe. The First Rule of Holes is that when you are in one,
you should stop digging. To keep right on doing what is already causing
disastrous consequences is either insane or profoundly stupid.
Environmentalists do not underestimate the difficulties the
United States faces in trying to wean itself from fossil fuel. Pretty much
our entire transportation grid is based on the gasoline engine. "Lay rail,"
is one thing we could do. Switch to cars with hybrid engines, increase
fuel-efficiency standards, change as rapidly as possible to renewable energy
sources -- the menu of alternative behaviors is already long and it works.
We can cut greenhouse gases; we can even do it dramatically. We are not
helpless.
We are, however, currently governed by an administration of oil
executives and people whose main guiding principle seems to be opposing
anything Bill Clinton favored. This is both pathetic and ridiculous. Kert
Davies, director of Greenpeace USA's global warming campaign, said, "The
Bush administration's climate policy smells like Exxon-Mobil."
That's not conspiratorial thinking or a politically motivated
crack against Bush. Greenpeace has a new report out, "Denial and Deception:
A Chronicle of Exxon-Mobil's Efforts to Corrupt the Global Warming Debate."
Exxon-Mobil and the other oil giants have spent millions of dollars to
undermine the science of global warming. They are not in denial, a perfectly
understandable reaction to bad news, but acting out of greed-driven
duplicity.
Here's an idea. Under the right-wing legal doctrine of
"takings," whenever the government does something that reduces the value of
your property, you have a right to sue. Bush is in fact busily appointing
judges who uphold this doctrine. One thing global warming will do is destroy
an awful lot of property value. So let's sue the government now.
To fail to take action in the face of a recognized threat is not
only incredibly stupid, but also legally actionable. Misfeasance,
malfeasance and nonfeasance can all be alleged, reckless, irresponsible
conduct, failure of duty ... a litany of charges.
The eternal complaint, "Everybody complains about the weather
but nobody does anything about it," is about to be stood on its head. No
point in complaining about global warming if you don't
do something about it.
"In the next few decades ..." says the report. Let's call it 20
years, so most of us can expect we'll still be here. We'll live to see the
meadows and the marshlands gone, the coasts going under and blasted by
hurricanes, the Southwest dead of thirst and the whole problem getting worse
because nothing has been done to stop it. And when they hold the great
congressional investigation in 20 years to find out who knew and who should
have done something about it, they won't have to subpoena documents from the
CIA and the FBI, no energy company will need to shred the evidence, the
White House won't have to stonewall, no cover-up will be needed -- because
we will find that it was all on the front pages 20 years ago.
And whom will we blame then for not doing something in time?
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
