The L.A. Times has a piece on the laughable farce that is the Bush administration climate meetings, which will take place later this week. Some funny quotes:
“It is the first in what we hope will be a series of meetings,” said Dan Price, a deputy national security advisor for international economic affairs. “Those are not issues you discuss and resolve in two days.”
Well maybe … uh, how to say this without profanity … you should have started discussing and resolving before now.
European environment ministers meeting with U.S. senators on Tuesday praised the president for getting involved in the fight to keep average temperatures from climbing so high that droughts, flooding and other upheavals roil the planet and threaten human life.
This is kind of how elementary school teachers praise Johnny the quasi-autistic kid with self-control problems for going a whole week without biting another kid.
“Congress is waking up,” [Denmark environment minister Connie] Hedegaard said. She said she was glad, “because we are getting a little bit impatient.”
Love that careful diplomatic language.
This one takes the cake, though:
Not everyone is convinced that quick action is necessary or even prudent. Scott H. Segal, a Washington lobbyist for utilities, cautioned that caps might have unintended consequences …
“We spent 20 years debating climate science,” he said. “We need to spend a little quality time thinking about climate policy.”
Hmmm … now why did we spend 20 years debating the science? Anything come to mind? Think Segal’s clients had anything to do with it?
But yeah, after 20 years of fruitless kabuki debate over settled science, let’s go ahead and spend another 20 years debating whether capping carbon emissions is the best way to prevent carbon emissions from going up. It seems intuitively obvious now, but wait until Segal’s clients get involved in the debate. Looking forward to that quality time!
