Bush: At G8 -- Bush Wins, World Loses

[Heard on the BBC in the car] At the G8 summit, it appears the Bush Administration has won its battle to once again tell the rest of the actually scientific civilized world to "Go fuck yourselves, and break a sweat doing it!" Of course, that's not exactly what they said on the BBC, I'm paraphrasing...

While the rest of the world's scientific community, as well as our own, have reached a consensus that global warming is an urgent problem requiring action to reduce greenhouse gases, President Jackass refuses to accept that, with some shit like, "Global warming is a long-term problem, not an urgent one, and it should be addressed when the science justifies it"

As a result, instead of requiring any industrialized country (already warming the globe) to reduce emissions, the G8's efforts will be concentrated on "helping developing countries build low-carbon economies." Great, don't do anything about the forest fire, George, just make sure no kids flick any matches into it.

Not that any of this is a surprise. We knew this going into the summit...

Document: US wants climate statement 'watered down'
Leaked draft shows Bush won't let G-8 take strong stand on global warming.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com
Two weeks ago, the science academies of the G-8 countries (the world's leading industrialized nations: US, Canada, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and Italy – as well as the science academies of Brazil, China and India) issued a joint statement that "called for prompt action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and warned that delays will be costly."

[...] The draft statement shows that the Bush administration is engaged in an "extraordinary effort" to "undermine completely the science of climate change...

[...] The documents show that Washington officials:
• Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';
• Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
• Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.
• Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'

Of course debt relief is the major push of the summit and many speculate that the US is holding that effort up to get it's way on climate change. Naturally short-term profits trump long-term anything, and the likely result is completely unimportant or irrelevant to the Bush team...

But the Financial Times writes in an editorial that if it's true that Blair is making a deal with Bush on African relief, this would be "short-sighted but horribly ironic, since Africa is one of the principal victims of climate change."

The good news? It will only take the US three years to join the world community in earnest on this problem — once we have a new President.