Yet Another Bush SOTU Blank Spot - Zero Mention Of Climate

[hatrack]

EDIT

"It may have sounded new to some, but it wasn't — there was nothing really new there," says American economist Gary Yohe, who has focused for years on the economic challenges and dangers posed by global warming. "As long as they remain voluntary, meaningful cuts in greenhouse gas emissions simply won't happen in the U.S."

An extremely gloomy assessment of the dangers of global warming was published this week in Britain by prominent Earth systems scientist James Lovelock. In "Gaias's Revenge," Lovelock concludes that catastrophic global warming cannot be avoided; Lovelock does not expect that the United States, China or India will make the necessary emissions cuts over the next few years to avoid catastrophic global warming, and he expects it will occur soon. Before the end of the century, says Lovelock, too many climate system tipping points will have passed, taking the planet into a runaway greenhouse effect that will raise temperatures so sharply that people will be "dying by the billions" with only a "few breeding pairs left" at the poles, the only places that will be at all tolerable. Leading American climate scientist James Hansen of NASA says there is still time, that planetary catastrophe can be avoided, "but we have to get started with the emissions cuts now … well under way within the next 10 years."

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While virtually all climate scientists agree new emissions-free energy technologies are vital if there is to be any chance of averting drastically disruptive climate change, many say that even the most promising new technologies would take years to become effective, and they argue that in the meantime there must be major cuts in greenhouse emissions. "There is some new money in the Advanced Energy Initiative that President Bush announced last night, but it pales in comparison to the tax breaks he's offering the oil companies," says Susan Joy Hassol, an independent climate analyst who has written several major international assessments of global climate change. "Compared to the incremental increases he is offering for the development of new energy technologies — increases of millions or tens of millions of dollars — in the overall energy bill, the president is giving billions in tax breaks to the oil and gas drillers — and all this at a time when oil company profits are soaring," Hassol says.

Hassol also points out that the president's speech "made no mention of fuel efficiency, the best and cheapest way to reduce our dependence on foreign oil as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions." Hassol complains that "this administration has consistently stood in the way of raising fuel-efficiency standards." The president made no reference in his address to global warming or to curbing greenhouse gas emissions, other than one mention of continuing research in emissions-free, coal-fired energy plants.

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http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/StateOfTheUnion/story?id=1565837

[Dead_Parrot]

1. Well, I expect you can't say "fucked" in a SOTU speech. nt

[phantom power]

2. I'm already "looking forward(*)" to SOTU 2007.

Everybody's tea leaves are saying that 2006 is going to be another real doozy, climate-wise. So far, they're basically all getting away with chalking it up to "a bad year." But that story isn't going to work forever.

(*) By that, I mean "anticipating with a sickening combination of horror and fascination"