Gore's Nobel Prize Throws Harsh Light On Bush Climate Change Policies

And just when everything was going so well for President Bush, with that mighty veto pen of his working overtime to snatch free health away from poor children.

Now Bush has to deal with the man he stole 2000 presidency from being hailed as a Nobel laurette, a Nobel Peace Prize winner no less, for his climate change and global warming related awareness camapigning.

From the London Times :

The decision has inevitably been interpreted as a rebuke to President Bush, who beat Mr Gore by the narrowest of margins (so they say - Ed) to win the White House in 2000 and has since opposed binding international agreements for reducing carbon emissions.

Within minutes of the announcement in Oslo, 5.15am in Washington, John Edwards was saying that Mr Gore’s leadership “stands in stunning contrast to the failure of the current Administration”. He added that the award “shines a bright light on the most inconvenient truth of all — the selection of George Bush as President.”

As dawn broke, Barack Obama was praising Mr Gore’s courage to “challenge the sceptics in Washington”, while the home page of Hillary Clinton’s website featured a photo of Mr Gore in Socratic pose alongside a headline saying: “CONGRATULTIONS!”

At the White House, Mr Bush’s spokesman insisted, possibly through gritted teeth, that the President shared Mr Gore’s joy — but had no plans to speak to him. “Of course he’s happy for Vice-President Gore,” he said. “He’s happy for the international panel on climate change scientists who also shared the peace prize.”

Those US conservatives still refuse to accept scientific evidence that global warming is man-made — or even a problem, were yesterday predictably furious, with what they regard as another political statement by the Norwegian committee.

American conservatives doubts about the reality of climate change, based on close examination of the scientifice evidence, would be so much easier to accept if they had not been so opposed to examining the evidence that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction before they pushed for the War On Iraq to get going.

This report from a Reuters correspondent also goes with the angle that Gore's Nobel Peace Prize has cast a dark shadow of humiliation across President Bush, and his presidency :

The Nobel Peace Prize he won yesterday was a blow to US President George W. Bush and his widely criticised environmental policy and will long be savored by the man who lost the bitter 2000 presidential election by a whisker.

The honor was bestowed jointly on the former vice-president and the UN climate panel for campaigning against the threat of global warming, in a not-so-subtle swipe at Bush, a latecomer to the battle against climate change.

It may also be interpreted as a part of an international backlash not only against seven years of what many see as environmental backsliding under Bush but also against his Iraq war policy and perceived arrogance in world affairs.

While Gore has grown in international stature since his narrow election loss (in 2000), Bush has seen his credibility damaged at home and abroad by the Iraq war and other foreign policy woes.

He is struggling to stave off lame-duck status and stay relevant while increasingly hemmed in by a hostile Democratic majority in Congress.

His inner circle is steadily eroding with almost weekly departures of key aides and advisers.

And the President's public approval rating, which soared to 90 per cent after the September 11 attacks in 2001, has sunk close to historic lows, with some polls putting it below 30 per cent.

Around the world, Bush has won few friends with his stance on Gore's signature issue - climate change.

At a White House-convened summit last month, some of the world's biggest greenhouse polluters called Bush “isolated” and questioned his leadership on the problem of global warming.

Bush has rejected the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, a treaty that sets limits on industrial nations' greenhouse gas emissions, and instead favors voluntary targets to curb emissions.

His acknowledgment of a problem highlighted a shift from his previous questioning of the science linking human activity to rising global temperatures.

But despite his concessions on global warming, Bush has continued to face deep scepticism over his efforts to rally support for emissions goals instead of fixed limits.

They don't understand. Bush doesn't care about such things. He's got God on his side, and God in his ear, guiding him towards his ultimate destination - even if that be, destroyer of worlds.

Don't Believe Bush's Sudden Awakening On Global Warming

Oil Barons To Be Replaced By Grain Barons

13% Of Americans Have Never Heard Of Global Warming

Global warming prophet and full-blown evangelical, George Monbiot, takes President Bush to task for his suspiciously sudden embrace of the realities of drastic climate change and global warming.

From 'Comment Is Free' :

....Bush's avowed conversion to the cause of cutting emissions is illusory. He is simply drumming up new business for his chums. In his state of the union address last week, he spoke of "the serious challenge of global climate change" and announced that he was raising the government's mandatory target for alternative transport fuels fivefold. This is wonderful news for the grain barons of the red states, who will grow the maize and rapeseed that will be turned into biofuel. It's a catastrophe for everyone else.

An analysis published last year by the Sarasin Bank found that until a new generation of vegetable fuels, made from straw or wood, is developed, "the present limit for the environmentally and socially responsible use of biofuels [is] roughly 5% of current petrol and diesel consumption in the EU and US".

Bush now proposes to raise the proportion to 24% by 2017. Already, though the rich world has replaced just a fraction of 1% of its transport fuels, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that using crops to feed cars has raised world food prices, with serious consequences for the poor. Biofuels fall into the same category as atmospheric smoke and mirrors - a means of avoiding difficult decisions.

But at least, or so we are told, the argument over whether or not manmade climate change is happening is now over.

On Friday the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change publishes the first installment of its vast report, which collates the findings of the world's climate scientists. Though conservative in its assumptions, it shows that if you persist in believing that there is no cause for concern, you must have buried your head till only your toes are showing.

If even Bush now grudgingly acknowledges that there's a problem, surely we've seen the last of the cranks and charlatans who had managed to grab so much attention with their claims that global warming wasn't happening?

...with Bush's defection, the band of quacks making (claims that global warming isn't a scientific reality) is diminishing fast.

Now the oil and coal companies that support such people have changed their target.

Instead of trying to persuade us that man-made global warming is a myth, they are seeking to divert us into doing everything except the one thing that has to happen: reducing our consumption of fuel.

It is another species of denial.

George Bush's purpose - to insulate these companies from the need to cut production - is unchanged. He has simply found a new way of framing the argument

Go Here To Read The Fully Monbiot Column


And here's the Bush quotes from the 2007 State Of The Union speech that Monbiot was referring to :

For too long our nation has been dependent on foreign oil. And this dependence leaves us more vulnerable to hostile regimes, and to terrorists -- who could cause huge disruptions of oil shipments, and raise the price of oil, and do great harm to our economy.

It's in our vital interest to diversify America's energy supply -- the way forward is through technology. We must continue changing the way America generates electric power, by even greater use of clean coal technology, solar and wind energy, and clean, safe nuclear power.

We need to press on with battery research for plug-in and hybrid vehicles, and expand the use of clean diesel vehicles and biodiesel fuel. We must continue investing in new methods of producing ethanol -- using everything from wood chips to grasses, to agricultural wastes.

Let us build on the work we've done and reduce gasoline usage in the United States by 20 percent in the next 10 years. When we do that we will have cut our total imports by the equivalent of three-quarters of all the oil we now import from the Middle East.

To reach this goal, we must increase the supply of alternative fuels, by setting a mandatory fuels standard to require 35 billion gallons of renewable and alternative fuels in 2017 -- and that is nearly five times the current target. At the same time, we need to reform and modernize fuel economy standards for cars the way we did for light trucks -- and conserve up to 8.5 billion more gallons of gasoline by 2017.

Achieving these ambitious goals will dramatically reduce our dependence on foreign oil...

America is on the verge of technological breakthroughs that will enable us to live our lives less dependent on oil. And these technologies will help us be better stewards of the environment, and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change.

An interesting story here, detailing the awareness of global warming issues in the United States compared to the rest of the world :

Thirteen percent of Americans have never heard of global warming even though their country is the world's top source of greenhouse gases, a 46-country survey showed on Monday.

People in Latin America were most worried while U.S. citizens were least concerned with just 42 percent rating global warming "very serious."

The United States emits about a quarter of all greenhouse gases, the biggest emitter ahead of China, Russia and India.

Thirteen percent of U.S. citizens said they had never heard or read anything about global warming, the survey said.

A U.N. report due on Friday is set to say it is at least 90 percent probable that human activities are the main cause of warming in the past 50 years.

People in China and Brazil were most convinced of the link to human activities and Americans least convinced.