BUSH ‘ are you sure I should say this, won’t it make me look stupid,’

SPEECHWRITERS ‘Oh no Mr. President, you should say it just as it is written, it’s meant to make you look smart.’ As speechwriters wink to each other.

Except that the democrats were in charge of the Presidency, but Congress was controlled by Republicans. (6 out of 8 years) There is quite a lot that they wanted to do, but without a Congress that would allow it, it wasn’t going to happen. Examples are proposals to increase the spending on renewable energy research that was gutted by the Republican Congress. President Clinton had a modest carbon tax in his economic stimulus program, but had to abandon it because of Republican opposition and deal making. Just that attempt at that time was courageous although I think some were left politically hanging after that deal.

Bush’s record of reducing carbon usage has been helped by the increase in cost of oil and other fossil fuels. It’s also been helped by having a recession which decreases fossil fuel consumption. Would anybody argue that the carbon dioxide reductions were because of any of his programs were successful in reducing fossil fuels usage?

We could go back and forth like this, but there are political realities that shouldn’t be ignored.

Some Republicans complain that Pres. Clinton didn’t do enough to go after terrorists. But how many hearings did the Republican Congress have on that problem? I’ll help you, none. The Republican Congress was to busy having hearings on other things that had much less to do with what should be the business of the American people.

can you report this little brief item with link:?

I think we should add Pres Bush to the winner’s circle now. With that fine quote. May I?

You got your knickers in a twist over not very much CO2.

You said:
[During the eight years of the Clinton Administration, CO2 emissions increased by 826 metric tons.]

826 metric tons CO2 = 1,821,018 pounds of CO2

a gallon of combusted gasoline yield 19.2 pounds of CO2

Vice Presidnet Gore and Joe Romm are guilty of allowing US CO2 emissions to increase by an amount equal to 95,000 gallons of gasoline?

You doth protest with too much fiction and without your facts in a row.

John McCormick

There are several problems with your post — not the least of which is you got your facts wrong (Better check with EIA, again).

Moreover, what happened on Bush’s watch was not a result of any coherent Bush policy and it was definetely not good.

First, oil increased in price by 300% — leading to less consumption; second, American manufacturing was eviscerated, and much of it went overseas. Since we upped our consumption, of imported goods, what we really did was export our carbon emissions (along with our wealth and wages) — we are still responsible for those emissions, they merely occurr outside our borders — and GHGs don’t respect borders.

Nope, a sizable protion of those emissions from China are ours, just as surely as if we’d kept the jobs here. Particularly since we skuttled any attempt to get an international treaty.

And as others have pointed out, the Republican Congress consistently cut Clinton’s budget for energy efficiency and renewable energy.

So, botton line Paul K. Don’t mislead, use real facts; don’t ascribe all things good or bad to Presidents.

Admit the facts — Bush has doomed this country and the world to purgatory; the Republican Congress prevented Clinton from doing what he wanted. (And to be fair, Clinton could and should have pressd the issue more than he did — on the other hand, the Repugs had eviscerated his presidency with the whole inane Lewisnsky thing, so he didn’t have much political capital to play with … but don’t get me started on how reprehensible and hypocritical THAT was — putting the Party before the country seems more like a Soviet thing, but the Repugs keep doing it ).

But back to the matter at hand — Bush’s purported “success” on global warming — facts suggest otherwise. Facts. Such nasty things to ideaologues.

Bush had 9/11 — which led to recession and a sharp drop in air travel. So starting the Bush GHG trend in 2001 is silly — especially since one can hardly credit any Bush policies for having had any impact in his first year (unless you are attributing 9/11 to him, which I’m sure you’re not). Now we’re in another recession, brought about in part by Bush’s non-energy policy that has led to skyrocketing oil prices and natural gas prices.

So Bush had 9/11, two recessions, and record high energy prices. Kudos to him for a brilliant strategy to slow emissions growth.

Clinton had record economic growth and job creation, plus historically low energy prices, and, of course, for 6 years a Gingrich Congress that blocked our efforts to increase in clean technology deployment funding.

Clinton never pushed very hard for policies to prevent climate change, despite his professions, because he faced too much opposition to them in Congress–not only from Republicans, but from Democrats. One of the only bright spots during the Clinton years was Joe Romm’s Energy Department, which (with comparatively little public notice) made a real push to promote new energy technologies.

Bush, by contrast, for a long time maintained that global warming was not a serious, or at least not an urgent, problem, and the policies of his administration have reflected that position. Reduction in carbon emissions have taken place during his presidency, but no energy policy decision he has made that contributed to that reduction. Had he adopted different set of policies, carbon emissions could have been reduced far more.

“Some Republicans complain that Pres. Clinton didn’t do enough to go after terrorists.” NOW they say that, but back then every attempt was greeted with the “Wag the dog” accusation.

Congratulations to Bush who has shown that carbon emmisions can be SLOWED by digging a big economic hole and dragging the country into it.