Global Warming? I Thought the President Said that was Just a Left Wing Hoax to Ruin the US Economy?

"All that blue doesn't look warm to me...." President Bush

From the New York Times comes a story that I thought I would never see, a consortium of scientists commissioned by the Bush Administration to study the varying tropospheric climate data produced by different groups of scientists has reached a conclusion that:

"the lower atmosphere was indeed growing warmer and that there was "clear evidence of human influences on the climate system."

The Bush Administration has yet to officially comment on what this will mean in terms of an actual environmental policy, but if their approach to rising gas prices is any indication, I think Bush and his buddies will probably just write all this scientifically supported global climate change off as "the usual increase in temperature we experience at the beginning of every summer."

Just as I have serious doubts that Bush will do anything to endanger the record-high profits of his bedfellows in the oil and gas industry by doing anything about gas prices, I also have serious doubts that the Bush Administration will take the data provided by the Climate Change Science Program and make changes in US domestic or foreign policy to address what the data shows and what Nelly has been telling us for quite some time about the troposphere of our planet: "It's getting hot in here."

I suppose he could FINALLY agree to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, seeing as how every single other industrialized country, except those Foster's-swilling-shrimp-on-the-barbie douchebags from downunder, has already done so. Just as a foreign policy note, if your country is ever alone in a category with either France or Australia, it might be time to consider a significant policy change.

I doubt very seriously Bush will ratify Kyoto, particularly since the forecast economic collapse that is supposed to accompany limiting emissions of green house gases has completely devastated the other industrialized countries that signed on in 1998. Except if you take into account that those other countries have shown stronger economic growth than the US during that time period. Then again, they didn't have Jethro from the Beverly Hillbillies running their country, did they?

If only Granny Clampet were still alive. She'd be so proud.

Sadly, the new data that came out of an initiative by the Bush Administration will be cited by supporters as another example of his excellent environmental record. The problem is, he shouldn't get credit for hiring a bunch of scientists to do a fucking literature review on a topic and then doing nothing about it. Needless to say, I won't be holding my breath to wait for his policy response on this one.