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George W. Bush, the Kyoto Protocol, and group psychosis
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Conservatives laud George W. Bush for freezing out the Kyoto Protocol due to its' ridiculously impractical character and hostile attitude toward industrial nations. Liberals chide Bush for his action and cite his rejection of Kyoto as another shameful example of misguided self-interest, a hallmark of an administration that set back environmental stewardship for decades to come.
The first scheduled report cards for the Kyoto Protocol are due out in 2012. After that, China and India are expected to climb on board the emissions reduction train. That these two countries, with exploding populations and economies were left out of the first grading period was a major sore spot for U.S. lawmakers. How was the United States expected to economically compete with these two monsters that we helped create with a major handicap unfairly holding us back? As noted by David G Victor of the Council of Foreign Relations, "Few nations or firms will do much to control emissions unless they are sure that their competitors will bear similar costs." If so-called developing nations do not have to play by the same rules, we are taking our ball and going home.
The basic perception (mostly correct) is that George W. Bush favored business over environmental best practices. He subscribed to John Locke's notion that undeveloped land is wasted land. However, Locke also cautioned to avoid greed, and take only what is necessary. That part is antithetical to the free-market worship by Bush and the neo-cons.
While campaigning for the presidency in 2000, George W. Bush pledged that he had a plan to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. This was a play for the holy "moderates" that supposedly make up the political majority in this country. Once in office, one of Bush's first major moves was to refuse to submit the Kyoto Protocol to Congress for ratification. The world reacted with horror and disgust. Various cities throughout the United States decided to take it upon themselves to individually pledge to meet the goals of Kyoto, which for the U.S. meant a 7% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2012 (based on 1990 levels).
The only thing the Kyoto Protocol had going for it was that it was an attempt by governments and people of the world to work together on a large scale for the common good. Beyond that, the whole scheme fell apart. Basing target emission levels from 1990 statistics created a potential political and economic windfall for some countries, in particular, Russia. With the cap and trade system in place (a design vigorously pushed for by the Clinton administration and later by Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman), countries are measured against whatever their greenhouse gas output was in 1990. Since then, the Russian economy collapsed and has not recovered. Thus, their emissions of noxious gases are not even close to its 1990 level. Therefore, Russia will have no problem meeting its goal and will have an enormous cache of pollution credits to sell to countries that will not meet their targets. Eventually, those countries will be China and India, who will have the money to buy endless credits and continue elevating greenhouse gas emissions. So, how does this fix global warming?
The approach of George W. Bush toward the issue of global warming was perfectly in line with his solution for basically any problem: a free-market based methodology. Competition spurs innovation. Leave it to the private sector, and an entrepreneur will produce the ideas and materials necessary to lessen the human stain on the world, keep people employed generating wealth, and keep politicians in office.
Bush proposed incentives for businesses to voluntarily reduce greenhouse gas emissions 4.5% by 2010, claiming that would be the equivalent of taking 70 million cars off the road. This plan was based against current emission levels, instead of 1990, leading the U.S. Department of Energy to allege that Bush's idea was actually a 30% increase in pollution according to the Kyoto Protocol. Bush's Clear Skies and Global Climate Change Initiatives explicitly linked greenhouse gases with units of GNP, creating a category dubbed "Greenhouse Gas Intensity," a different, more business-oriented way of measuring emissions.
In the meantime, Bush questioned the scientific legitimacy of the doomsday predictions coming from liberal academia. Oil companies shelled out barrels of money attempting to peddle scientific influence. Russia blatantly stated that they did not believe the science behind global warming, but they were going to sign on to Kyoto anyway, for the obvious aforementioned reasons. It was their participation that officially put Kyoto into effect.
In the spring of 2007, leading up to a G8 summit, George W. Bush announced that he was going to meet with leaders from Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and China to discuss a different approach to controlling greenhouse gas emissions. This team has been dubbed the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate. Since then, the European Union seems to have cast its lot with the United States. Barack Obama has indicated that U.S. policy will continue in the direction of creating a stronger, better alternative to Kyoto. This bears repeating so it is perfectly clear: Barack Obama's agenda regarding global warming will follow in the footsteps of George W. Bush.
Back in 1987, the United States took the lead when scientists around the world sounded the alarm about the depletion of the ozone layer. The reluctance of the U.S. to do the same with concern to global warming has drawn much indignation and consternation around the world. A big difference in the two issues is that there were known, cheap, easily utilized alternatives to CFC's that were destroying the ozone layer. Not so with greenhouse gases that are side effects of progress. So far, there is no such thing as Clean Coal Technology. Despite France, the paragon of progressivism, successfully employing nuclear power to help satisfy energy needs, something heavily touted by George W. Bush, that idea has failed to gain traction with the American populace. Maybe it is because of fear and guilt created from being the only country to harness that power and use it as a weapon of mass destruction.
George W. Bush never really cared one way or the other about global warming. This is not to disparage Bush once again as a disinterested toady of the oil industry. But that element is there, and it is real, and it cannot be ignored. His rejection of Kyoto was foremost a business decision, followed by political considerations. When Bush threw out crazy numbers citing the damage that would be done to the U.S. economy if we adhered to Kyoto, ($440 billion lost, 4.9 million jobs gone) it was not about whether those figures were accurate. It was to send the message that Joe the Plumber was going to lose his job because of a bunch of pinheads at the UN who want to redistribute wealth on a massive scale.
Once the drumbeat for action on climate change became too loud to ignore, Bush did finally say that he believed global warming was real, and rolled out some impressive goals and statistics for the United States to voluntarily achieve. He cited that in 2006, the economy grew while greenhouse gas emissions declined, so it is possible for the two to have an inverse relationship.
It is amazing and disappointing that we have created a reality in which what is best for us costs the most. To take a step toward restoring the human relationship with the Earth would provoke a massive shudder in the way the United States has seen itself and operated since its conception.
Global warming is caused when energy becomes trapped in the atmosphere. If one were to look at this phenomenon metaphorically, it is an argument that humans are literally stifling themselves. We are trapping and hoarding our energy, being incredibly uptight instead of letting energy flow in a way that is more relaxed and natural, and more in accordance with everything else living in the world. Global warming has become the physical result of an intense group psychosis.
Coming up next: Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (Torture)
