My husband thinks I'm nuts because I blame Haiyan on GWB

[tavernier]

Last edited Sun Nov 10, 2013, 10:22 AM - Edit history (1)

I told him that I was very serious ... I think the corporations and the politicians that ignored the warnings of scientists and refused to work toward reversing the damage have blood on their hands. Bush was in a position to make a huge difference, but opted to instead let greed rule his decisions. His poor stewardship of our planet had much to do with the continuing incidence of these super storms.

[trumad]

1. Divorce him

[quinnox]

2. I'm afraid I agree with your husband

Let's get real, come on.

[tavernier]

6. All of our actions have consequences

I know Al Gore would have made the threat of global warming a priority and worked with the leaders of other countries and the science community to reverse the damage.

Really, you don't think it is a danger to continue ignoring the damage we are doing to our planet? Even as she gives us clear signs in these past couple of years?

[dipsydoodle]

3. See rely #1 here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3994464

Blame all presidents back to c. 1850.

[JaneyVee]

4. Conservatives blame Katrina on Obama.

[Katashi_itto]

11. Conservatives also blame the civil war on Obama

[kydo]

13. Conservatives blame Obama for forcing Eve to eat that bad piece of fruit

Mostly all baggers do is blame others for their own mistakes.

[magical thyme]

5. I would put the blame on the American people who voted for Reagan

because President Jimmy Carter told us the hard truth of what we needed to do and a large number of us didn't want to face that truth. A lot of people stuck their heads in the sand back then and never pulled them out again.

GWB gets his share of the blame for continuing the situation, and making it worse, when we had a golden opportunity to mitigate. But the warnings were there long before GWB.

[tavernier]

7. Agreed, but Bush didn't just ignore

the warnings; he gave the fundy nuts a thumbs up to actually fight against the work of science and sanity to reverse the damage.

[Champion Jack]

10. +++++

[bluestate10]

14. I agree with you on Bush, but feel the problem started with Reagan as the previous

poster pointed out. Carter started the correct push toward renewable energy, mostly for economic reasons. Reagan and his people reversed all the gains that Carter had made. I could be argued that every President since Reagan has failed to slow global warming, the exception is our current President, who I feel is doing a sound job in the space of renewable energy, although, even he has too much of a reliance on fossil fuels, likely because the economy is so dependent of those fuels right now.

[hatrack]

16. Exactly - he actively WORKED to fuck the science

He inserted his little corpo-drones into the process, so that a bunch of little Randroid butt-clowns from Heritage and API could sow uncertainty that did not exist.

In handwritten notes on drafts of several reports issued in 2002 and 2003, the official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.

The dozens of changes, while sometimes as subtle as the insertion of the phrase "significant and fundamental" before the word "uncertainties," tend to produce an air of doubt about findings that most climate experts say are robust.

Mr. Cooney is chief of staff for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, the office that helps devise and promote administration policies on environmental issues.

Before going to the White House in 2001, he was the "climate team leader" and a lobbyist at the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade group representing the interests of the oil industry. A lawyer with a bachelor's degree in economics, he has no scientific training.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/politics/08climate.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In my 14 years of government I have never seen a situation like the present one involving climate science in which politicization by the White House has fed back directly into the science program in such a way as to undermine the credibility and integrity of the program in its relationship to the research community, to program managers, to policymakers, and to the public interest.
—Rick S. Piltz, former senior associate at the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, in his letter of resignation, 2005

http://www.climatesciencewatch.org/2006/11/18/undermining-science-suppression-and-distortion-in-the-bush-administration-published/

[magical thyme]

21. When Reagan ripped the solar panels off the roof of the White House, he wasn't just ignoring

the warnings. He was flipping the bird at scientists and their pesky warnings as well.

I'm not discounting what W did, and I'm not suggesting W wasn't in a zillion ways a zillion times worse than even Reagan with his thumbs up to the fundy nuts. Really, the world as I knew it ended in more ways than I ever could have imaged with the sElection of W.

[TheMastersNemesis]

8. You Got That Right. Also Reagan Opened A Pandora's Box The Unleashed All Manner Of Evils

Had Reagan not been elected or had not completed his presidency this nation would be very different for the much better. May he rot in hell.

[BlueToTheBone]

9. * wasn't to blame for the hurricane, but

he certainly is to blame for the aftermath.

[AndyA]

12. During Bush Jr.'s term in office we were at a critical point environmentally

If he had encouraged Earth friendly policies, allowed the EPA to tighten regulations, etc., I think we probably wouldn't be where we are today. So in that respect, I agree with you. Would it have been enough to make a significant difference? I don't know.

I guess the wealthy people figure when the environment does finally collapse due to their polluting industries, they'll just move to whatever part of the planet is the most livable at that time. They probably haven't considered that their quality of life will be greatly reduced at that point as well. Selfish, greedy, ignorant people.

These changes don't happen overnight, and Bush could have made a difference.

[KittyWampus]

15. I'd be more likely to blame the entire rightwing pro-corporate, anti-science establishment

of which Bush played a leading role. And I do think he was mainly an actor, if you know what I mean. And a very poor one.

[greytdemocrat]

17. Sorry, but you're...

[tavernier]

19. Well, that part I don't argue

But I think my thoughts on this issue are sound.

[Dreamer Tatum]

18. You're not nuts for that, but

You are nuts for blaming the weather on any person.

[tavernier]

20. It's a bit more complex than that...

and yet quite simple... If we continue to raise the temperature of the planet, the weather will become more violent. Every person plays a part, from a four year old being taught to turn off the lights, to the teen who has the choice of drinking out of a tap or a plastic bottle, to the voter who pulls the lever for a thoughtful candidate or a self serving opportunist. But the leader of the modern world holds a slightly higher level of responsibility, IMO.

[treestar]

22. right wingers would just say that hurricanes always existed

And some of them were big. I don't have much to say to that. Is there anything we can point to in order to support the claim that bigger storms are due to man's activity? Not saying they aren't, but that we need some support for that argument.

[hughee99]

23. I know exactly what you mean.

I've discovered that over the last 50 years, virtually any international issue of any significant size can be blamed, to one degree or another, on the last repuke president (whichever one it may be, based on the time of the incident). The tricky part, I've found, is absolving others of similar responsibilities to leave only the repuke.

[The2ndWheel]

24. It's an issue thousands of years(at least) in the making

Easy to blame Bush. Probably feels good to do it. If we're picking one person, I would say one of the scientists, who was just doing their job to make life easier for their fellow human being, that pre-date any Bush ever being in the White House would be more to blame for our situation.

[liberal_at_heart]

25. Actually the Industrial Revolution is what kick started it. Millions of humans through

hundreds of years are to blame.

[tavernier]

28. I agree with you completely

and that is why it is past the time to make it a priority. But I guess the industrial moguls have already convinced a large part of the world that it isn't really a big deal if the polar ice caps melt; and if ppl are that afraid of these new monster typhoons, they should relocate to the desert.

So I guess us nutty tree huggers should just learn to stop flapping our jaws. After all, as they say, our generation will be long gone before it really gets ugly. For most of us, anyway...

[NaturalHigh]

26. Sorry...gotta go with your husband on this one.

[bigwillq]

27. #teamhusband

[NoOneMan]

29. 1. You are nuts. 2. Obama is similarly squandering this position 3. This problem predates both

We aren't feeling the effects of 2012s emissions today. We are feeling the effects of the last 50 years. We have the next 50 years to feel today's.

There is next to nothing current presidents can do to stop the current pain from climate change. With a massive, drastic economic reshuffling we might save ourselves some pain in the next few decades, but there is no real political willpower (and no one fuckn message me back about pretty speeches or preparing for CC orders, because thats all symbolic drivel).