A series of internal White House memos obtained by Grist sheds light on the Bush administration’s private response to increasing reports of looming environmental crises. Contrary to popular opinion, it appears President Bush is far from oblivious to the spate of dire ecological warnings that have emerged in recent months. In fact, his family’s personal preparations for the approaching “zero hour” present a stark contrast to his public disregard for environmental crises.

“Over-fishing will have emptied our seas of my favorite fishes in a matter of decades. I’m especially going to miss that one that puffs up like a bouncy ball,” Bush wrote in one memo. “Anyway, I’ll need fish-replacements for my suppers. Therefore, Plan ‘Beeline for the Feline’ must be implemented by the year 2005 at the latest.”

Catburger supreme.

Beeline for the Feline, according to subsequent memos, will begin with a roundup of feral cats from various Washington, D.C., neighborhoods. The cats, said to resemble flounder in taste, will be filleted and frozen for future meals. Internal studies reveal that an average city block’s feline population could support 40 entrees a month.

Still, Beeline for the Feline raises concerns of its own.

“What if we ‘over-cat,’ just like we over-fished?” Vice President Dick Cheney wondered in one memo.

According to the memos, it was a landmark World Wildlife Fund study, released in July, that galvanized Bush’s personal “Earth catastrophe team.” The study found that the planet’s natural resources are disappearing so quickly that, at the current pace, a second planet Earth would be needed to sustain the global population by 2025.

The president thinks of zebra stuff.

The White House did not publicly express concern about the report, leading many to believe that it was unaware of or unconcerned about the situation. But the recent series of memos indicates that’s not the case.

“They think I don’t know about this Earth stuff,” the president wrote. “If that’s true, than why did I spend 20 minutes thinking about endangered zebra populations last night? In the event of global collapse, I do believe I could train those animals to act like horses and carry me to safety.”

The president’s personal plans encompass a variety of so-called “problem solutions” — ways to tackle environmental woes ranging from air pollution to melting ice caps to mitigate their impact on the Bush lifestyle. Among the ideas contained in the memos:

• Cave golf. Given the increasingly fierce competition for land use and growing concerns about the health effects of pollution, underground caverns would be established in order to safeguard a favorite presidential pastime. The memos also recommend that caddies be trained to live on four inhalations per minute, so as to minimize impact on the presidential air supply.

 



 

• Collectable oil cards. When environmental devastation grows so severe that human beings are too sick to leave the house — many environmental reports suggest that by 2050, diseases previously unknown in the U.S. will be rampant — the oil industry will need to find an alternate revenue source as automobile use declines precipitously. The vice president’s proposal? A contemporary version of baseball cards. These gasoline-themed collectibles would be petroleum-based, and would come with sticks of “Diesel Gum.” “These will be the perfect items to stack at the side of your hospital bed!” cheered Cheney.

 

 

• Assault rifles. “Studies are still out on how these will help us,” Bush wrote, “but I’m pretty sure they’re not bad for the environment.” The president indicated he would carry “resource-preserving” firearms in his socks, blazer, underpants, and winter hat, beginning in 2008.

The memos, although alarming, at least show the White House is cognizant of impending environmental problems — which should come as a relief to a number of concerned citizens.

The memos, although alarming, at least show the White House is cognizant of impending environmental problems — which should come as a relief to a number of concerned citizens.

“While environmentalists waste their time fretting about global warming, we’re getting aggressive,” said a White House strategist who preferred to remain anonymous. “Have the Democrats developed ozone-safe personal flotation devices stocked with cat meat? I rest my case.”

“While environmentalists waste their time fretting about global warming, we’re getting aggressive,” said a White House strategist who preferred to remain anonymous. “Have the Democrats developed ozone-safe personal flotation devices stocked with cat meat? I rest my case.”

Surprising both longtime allies and adversaries, the environmental movement announced yesterday that it was sick of nature’s indifference to its work, and would be wrapping things up Friday.

“We’re not mad, we’re just … moving on,” a movement spokesperson said. “We’re going to buy some nice clothes and go spend a few months in the Bahamas. We hear drinks there are like 75 cents.”

Former Greenpeace activists in the Bahamas.

Sources within the movement indicate that the apparently sudden development had in fact been a long time coming, and that the number of “bruised egos” in the various eco-groups was “astonishing.”

“Fine, there are the earthquakes and the forest fires and the floods — whatever,” Kathryn Fuller, former president of the World Wildlife Fund, said, cleaning out her desk. “But when animals attack? I thought those elephants were supposed to be majestic and gentle.”

Julie Montgomery, a longtime environmental activist and an amateur composter, recently rode her bicycle to a Toyota dealership in Minneapolis and bought an SUV.

“Sorry, I have feelings, too,” she said while the service department finished her undercoatings. “Fifteen years devoted to the planet, and then it turns around and gives me poison oak all over my body. My whole body.”

Movement leaders met in secret last week to discuss mounting frustration within the ranks. Feelings of confusion and even resentment were widespread at the hush-hush summit, Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope recalled.

“Everyone felt like they’d spent years separating bottles and cans, and nature could care less,” Pope said. “What’s more, nature was almost hostile sometimes.”

Alligators: an ever-present threat.

According to Pope, the meeting ended abruptly when a swarm of hornets made its way into the conference center.

Indeed, the number of natural disasters worldwide has hardly diminished since humans began trying to take better care of the planet. What with tornadoes, tidal waves, volcanoes, mudslides, locust swarms, and the ever-present alligator threat, Mother Earth has struck many dedicated greenies as downright ungrateful. Two recent incidents — the unrepentant collapse of a polar ice shelf and a remorseless lion attack at the Busch Gardens theme park in Florida — are said to have pushed people over the edge.

Environmentalists — no strangers to criticism — have found that even their decision to get out of the business angered some.

Wildfire: an inconsiderate natural disaster.

“Oh, I’ve heard it all: ‘You never really loved the Earth.’ ‘If you cared you would stay,’” said Mike Roselle, co-founder of the Rainforest Action Network and Earth First! “Well, for the record, it’s nobody’s business but me and the trees. And by the way, I don’t appreciate the drought. My lettuce looks like old crepe paper.”

Roselle denied rumors that he’d been secretly participating in other causes just prior to his retirement.

“I am not presently involved with the historic preservation movement, no,” he said.

Followers of the green movement predict that environmentalists will probably get together for a couple of reunion protests, but that the movement had largely run its course.

“I still love the whales and whatnot,” said Fuller. “But this relationship is so not equal.”

MEMO

TO: All National Petroleum Unlimited employees
FROM: Jack Morris, CEO

Has this CEO gone soft, or was there something sweet — nay, touching — in the details of President Bush’s new emissions plan? Rather than demand that we do our part to slow the pace of global warming, he’s simply letting us volunteer! Friends, this man trusts us, and America’s coal and oil industry must rise to the occasion.

Emitting nothing but love.

Critics have already called the president’s plan a disappointment and hauled out wonky charts showing how similar voluntary programs failed miserably under the first Bush. But we don’t care what the charts say; we care what our hearts say! And while I can’t speak for everyone in this company — or so my lawyer says — I think it’s safe to say our hearts will heed the call. Just look at the policies I’ve already implemented since the president’s moving gesture:

1. All profits in 2002-2003 to be donated to Nature Conservancy.
2. All employees will now bicycle to work.
3. The cafeteria will now offer tofu alternatives on Steak ‘n’ Sea Bass Tuesdays.
4. Future conversation(s) with Vice President Cheney to be conducted in public. (I talked to the maitre d’ at Ruth’s Chris — we can still meet there, but will no longer rent out the entire restaurant and blacken the windows.)
5. Politicians may still receive gifts from our lobbyists, but only if hand-made. Note: There’s glitter in my top drawer!

Bear with me, colleagues — Bush’s volunteer plan was so shrewd that I brainstormed additional volunteer scenarios late into the night, in many cases doing so outside the box. I plan to discuss these scenarios with the president at our first Optional Spotted Owl Task Force Conference Call (F.O.S.O.T.C.).

On my way out of the box, it occurred to me that this exciting new trend of optionalizing regulations needn’t stop with the environmental sector. I’m thinking: Let’s take the “enforce” out of law enforcement.

I propose that existing “laws” be nuanced into “advisements,” a language more comfortable to American enterprise. Our current judicial system — correct me if I’m wrong, people — leans hard on the so-called criminal. Even those who don’t commit crimes are perpetually discouraged from doing so via heavy-handed reminders of the stiff consequences. Why not “mellow out” a little bit, give citizens incentives for good behavior rather than penalties for bad? Surely a misdemeanor here and there is no more significant than the future of our environment — so why the uneven government response?

I know what you’re thinking: What about crazed maniacs with bloody hooks for hands? The answer, colleagues, is Yes. “Yes” may be the biggest little word this executive has heard since “junk bonds,” and that’s technically two words. I’m confident that the coordinated deployment of positivity and trust into the criminal world will win over the nation’s misguided delinquents. Before long they will be following the reinvented oil industry into the warm light of global responsibility.

But I wasn’t born yesterday. Even though we will never again need to send a U.S. citizen up the river, we mustn’t forget that some people are already imprisoned. Our existing penal institutions, then, should consider a more Bush-like approach to incarceration: Credits! Convicts who exercise restraint should be entitled to collect a rough equivalent to the emissions credits outlined in the president’s plan. These credits can then be traded for exciting prizes.

Finally, this strategy will allow Washington to devote more time to its new priority: Encouraging our new population of citizen-volunteers. This can be done with tax incentives, government appointments, and of course hand-made gifts. Again, plenty of glitter in my desk, which shall remained unlocked from now on.

“Parrots hate freedom,” President Bush said in a press conference shortly after the first squadron of B-2s left a base in San Paolo. “We will locate those evildoers and smoke them out.”

At least 5,000 acres of dense forest have been leveled, and another 2,000 are currently burning, according to Brazilian authorities. A small number of animals were reported to have survived the initial strike, including jaguars, freshwater dolphins, and some rare snakes. However, helicopter-borne paratroopers subsequently swooped in and destroyed the survivors. There were no American casualties, although one Special Forces commando said a monkey dropped a coconut on his head.

A monkey at a coconut storage facility.

“We don’t know how they got coconuts,” Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said.

The Amazon offensive, called “Operation Courageous Bravery,” immediately follows the heavy strafing of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and, earlier this month, the Chicago Zoo. These previous strikes met with overwhelming public support in these patriotic times, although a minority of critics claim the Alaskan maneuver failed to uproot key caribou. Bush has suggested that additional troops might one day go in to explore the region’s vast network of caribou caves.

For now, though, the president said he was pleased with the success of the Amazon mission in eradicating rogue species. “Make no mistake,” Bush said, “this is a proud moment for American independence. We refuse to be terrorized by slothful sloths and spineless millipedes.”

CNN footage of the Amazon strikes.

Although the Amazon rainforest is known for its unusual abundance of insect life, Rumsfeld emphasized that millipedes and other operatives could well be functioning in other nations, too. Such operatives and the ecological niches that house them should consider themselves warned, the president said.

“In this new world, you’re either with America, or you’re with the tapirs,” Bush announced. “And if the Amazon region continues to harbor the enemy, then the Amazon is the enemy.”

At one point in the press conference, the president was asked whether the Amazon raid would yield significant new natural resources. “Let me say this,” Bush replied. “I am an American, and I was born an American.”

Giant Anteater: covert agent.

Rumsfeld and Bush later indicated that documentaries usually found on public television would now be screened by the government. “Giant Anteater: Gentle Edentate” will not be shown Thursday at 8 p.m. for fear that the footage could contain coded messages.

“Your standard anteater, for example, is a tricky species,” Bush said, pointing at a photograph taken by army intelligence. “Obviously they’d have us believe it’s just a matter of eating ants.”

Here the president grew serious. “Our victory will require patience and fortitude,” he said. “Exactly how much of each is difficult to say, because we don’t speak African, or the other Amazon languages. But know this: We’re aware of these species, and we’re standing tall today.”