JBW » Bush

The not-so-lame duck president?

21st November 2008

Image source: cbsnews.com

Back in August, it was revealed that the Bush Administration planned to relax endangered species rules that would cut out the advice of government scientists who have had an input on such matters for 35 years. If successful, Bush would accomplish through rule changes what conservative Republicans have been unable to achieve in Congress; namely, ending environmental reviews that developers blame for delays and cost increases on projects. Undeterred by the 250,000 objections received by lawmakers and environmentalists, the Interior Department has been rushing to bring in the rule changes by 21November, or Obama can undo them with the stroke of a pen when he is sworn on 20 January. However, if the new rules do go through, they will be difficult to overturn since it would require the new administration to restart the rule-making process. The only way to avoid this scenario would be for Congress to reverse the rule changes through the Congressional Review Act; a law that allows review of new federal regulations. This law has only been used once in the last 12 years, but given the huge antipathy towards the Bush Administration, there would appear to be a high probability that this law will be employed to block the endangered species rules and other ‘last minute’ regulation changes.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Climate change pariah

26th May 2007

Image source: islandbreath.org

According to the Guardian, news has been leaked that the Bush administration is set to reject a deal on climate change at the G8 summit in Germany next month. Under the leadership of President Angela Merkel, Germany has stated that it wanted agreement to curb the rise in average temperatures this century to 2 degrees centigrade and raise energy efficiency in power and transport by 20% by 2020. Both of these positions are compatible with policies in California and other US states but not, apparently, with the Oil President.

Hurricane report censored

30th September 2006

Image source: AP

In the same week as California became the first state in the US to cap emissions of greenhouse gases, the Bush administration (again) blocked a report that warns of the continued use of fossil fuels and their contribution to global warming. This isn’t political any more. It’s criminal neglect.

Dubya: “I got a comprehensive plan”

2nd April 2006

I know some people worry about US energy policy but I think we can relax following Dubya’s press conference the other day. As GWB makes it abundantly clear: “We — first of all, there is — the globe is warming. The fundamental debate: Is it manmade or natural. Put that aside.”

For the full statement take a look at mobjectivist who value-adds with annotations of the non-sequiturs (Bushisms).

Religious fundamentalism

12th October 2005

Image source: The Guardian

I’ve blogged about this before, and it’s cropped up again recently. The religious fervosity of the Al Qaeda drives them to commit extreme acts. Thank goodness President Bush has a direct line to God to counter this extremism.

The latest news on the Greenland ice sheet

22nd May 2005

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/

A recent video clip from the BBC provides a quite graphic illustration of the impact of global warming. Ice bergs break away from the Greenland ice sheet all the time and this has never been a problem. In the last 5-10 years, however, the ice has begun to melt at an accelerating rate as temperatures have risen. If this trend continues, and the entire ice sheet disappears, then it is estimated that sea levels will rise by 7 metres. Some projections of climate change (at the upper end of estimates) suggest that this could happen as soon as 2050. The impact of a rise in sea level of this magnitude would be cataclysmic, affecting millions of people living in low-lying coastal areas. Thank goodness we have the Bush administration carefully monitoring the situation.

The NYT sticks the boot in on Bush (again)

20th April 2005

Following on from Friedman’s op-ed the other day, another editorial in the New York Times has expressed its disbelief at the short-sightedness and poor leadership of the Bush administration in terms of energy policy. Everybody and their dog appears to pointing out just how ludicrous it is to continue pumping money into a carbon-based economy, yet the US Congress continues to be quite pig-headed about the whole thing, happily passing laws to dig holes for oil in national parks in Alaska (among other things). As the editorial concludes, it appears as though special interests come before the national interest (… and most certainly before global interest!).

Friedman goes green

10th April 2005

Image source: http://www.olin.wustl.edu

For someone who supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and is generally regarded as an apologist for globalisation and laissez-faire capitalism, it was with dropped jaw that I read Thomas L. Friedman‘s op-ed, Geo-Greening by Example, in the New York Times last week where he not only criticises Bush’s energy policy, but also advocates the kind of greeny-left interventionist policies that are trotted out on this blog from time to time. “We need a gasoline tax that would keep pump prices fixed at $4 a gallon, even if crude oil prices go down” says Friedman, “At $4 a gallon (premium gasoline averages about $6 a gallon in Europe), we could change the car-buying habits of a large segment of the U.S. public, which would make it profitable for the car companies to convert more of their fleets to hybrid or ethanol engines, which over time could sharply reduce our oil consumption.” I lost interest when I read the next paragraph in the article where there is a suggestion that it would be a good idea to start building nuclear power plants again, on the grounds “The risks of climate change by continuing to rely on hydrocarbons are much greater than the risks of nuclear power”, but the piece is a jolly good read all the same.

The oil currency

7th August 2004

After a longish break — as a consequence of a 5-week sojourn of India-England-Wales-Ireland-France, and the problem of dealing with a massive spam attack on all my blog sites’ comments boxes offering readers, inter alia, instant debt relief, online casino services, and hand jobs — I’d like to return to one of my favourite topics – the price of oil. This, in fact, was the very first topic I ever blogged about, and it has cropped up once or twice since. An article in The Guardian a week or so ago, The real reasons Bush went to war, written by retired civil servant John Chapman jogged my memory about something I’ve been meaning to make a note about for a while; viz. why pricing oil in euros would be bad news for the US.

Farenheit 9/11

18th July 2004

Finally got around to watching Farenheit 9/11 on Friday night. Michael Moore isn’t everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ (I was a little irritated by his style in Stupid White Men, for example) but he actually maintains quite a low profile in this film, leaving the limelight to the main character, President George W. Bush. It is a ‘must see’ movie although I did find the whole thing rather distressing. I watched it in a Dublin movie theatre and, needless to say, there was a very sympathetic audience (complete with a ripple of applause at the end!) The more important question, of course, will be how the film will be received in the US.

12 3

Category: Bush