Re/Action on Climate Protection

US behavior at Montreal-More bad news

Despite the Bush administration's adamant resistance, nearly every industrialized nation agreed early Saturday to engage in talks aimed at producing a new set of binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions that would take effect beginning in 2012.

And so ends the Montreal talks. The officials of the American government have, once again, offered a gesture of arrogance and contempt to the rest of the world on the most significant environmental problem of our time.

And here we have Senator James Inhofe, Republican of Oklahoma, chairperson of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,

"James M. Inhofe (R-Okla.) was even more skeptical of Saturday's pact, saying it would lead only to "a dead end economically."

"Two weeks of costly deliberation only resulted in an agreement to deliberate some more, so Montreal was essentially a meeting about the next meeting," Inhofe said in a statement. "The Kyoto Protocol . . . is a complete failure."

(Remember, ol' Jim invited Michael Crichton, a writer of fiction, to testify as an expert, before Congress, on climate science.)

A complete failure also of American democracy to deal with the most pressing issue of our time.

US behavior at Montreal

A personal note. I find the behavior of the American delegation to the Montreal climate talks, in particular, the walkout of Harlan Watson, disgusting and despicable. I am ashamed of the conduct of my government in this matter. The policies of the Bush Administration with regard to climate change do not reflect my views, or, I believe, the views of the majority of the American people. I am ashamed of those policies, and what they represent to the rest of the world. I apologize for the behavior of my government, and I am relatively confident that these policies will be repudiated over time.

In the meantime, I want to assure the rest of the world that at the local level, we are applying American ingenuity and work ethic to developing solutions to greenhouse gas pollution and fossil fuel dependency. We are working on solving this problem at a local level, and intend to share our solutions with the rest of the world.

We are particularly interested in extending a hand to developing nations, to help them reap the benefits of sufficient energy for all, without making the error of replicating the hydrocarbon economy.

Fossil Industry Has Its Way With Kyoto

There is an extremely disturbing article in the Week In Review section of the New York Times today, titled,"On Climate Change, a Change of Thinking", by Andrew C. Revkin. Revkin is a reporter for the Times, evidently specializing in climate change. There are many troubling apects of this article: It nearly exactly echoes the ExxonMobile/Bush Administration party line on the necessity for fossil fuel energy resources, the destructive economic effects of limiting emissions, and the far distant and still technologically problematic use of non-polluting energy sources.

However, the most troubling part of this article is potentially the most positive for efforts like Climate Protection Campaign.