Climate Politics

Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook

Bush has given us a new drinking game: Down a shot whenever the President uses the word "technology" in a climate speech. You'd get 19 shots for yesterday's 21 minute speech!

As predicted, Bush closely follows the Frank Luntz playbook on how to seem like you care about the climate when you don't. Bush stated the basic do-nothing message well:

Our investments in research and technology are bringing the world closer to a remarkable breakthrough -- an age of clean energy where we can power our growing economies and improve the lives of our people and be responsible stewards of the earth the Almighty trusted to our care.

Translation: "If we had those technologies today, then maybe we could take genuine action now. But, darn it, people, we don't. We can't grow the economy and be responsible stewards of the earth quite yet. We are close, though, so be patient already and stop with all those calls for mandatory regulation. Sheesh!"

Foreign media take a more discerning look at Bush’s climate meetings this week

Once again, the foreign media is not fooled by Bush's PR stunt, while the U.S. media buys the White House line. The U.K.'s The Independent labeled this a "Greenwashing Climate Summit" in its headline, and opened their story with:

For the first time in 16 years, a major environmental conference opens in Washington, hosted by the Bush administration. But no concrete results are expected, and that -- say European participants -- is the point of this high-level meeting.

Far from representing a Damascene conversion on climate change by President George Bush, the two-day gathering of the world's biggest polluting nations is aimed at undermining the UN's efforts to tackle global warming, say European sources. "The conference was called at very short notice," said one participant. "It's a cynical exercise in destabilising the UN process."

So how does the AP puff piece on the summit begin?

A little weekend humor

In case you missed this hilarious letter that made the email rounds early this year poking fun at bizarre agricultural subsidies ... it gets to carbon credits midway through, naturally:

The U.N. summit and Clinton Global Initiative are over, and where did they get us?

This week's New York Climate Change Bonanza has come to an end. It's always a good thing when powerful people hold high-profile event after high-profile event dedicated to amplifying the profile of the climate change crisis and then solving it, as they did this week with the U.N.'s climate summit and the Clinton Global Initiative. But there's still the question of efficacy.

On Monday, for instance, I sat and watched as literally dozens of world leaders -- who had flown in from around the globe to spend five minutes on an international stage -- called for global action on climate change. They hailed mostly from countries that have contributed a pittance to the near-critical mass of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and yet that will suffer the worst of the effects. Many hadn't had much of a voice until that moment -- and when they finally spoke, it fell for the most part upon deaf ears.

George W. Bush, of course, thumbed his nose at the summit, then held his own.

U.S. summit concludes with no progress to speak of

At the conclusion of a two-day U.S.-hosted climate summit of the world’s major emitters, George W. Bush announced that he’s been faking his climate-change laggardness all along, and signed on to reduce greenhouse gases in various planet-saving-while-still-economy-boosting ways. Ha ha ha! Sob. No, just as expected, Bush said what he always says — voluntary measures […]

Press struggles to write something interesting about vacuous Bush speech

Well, Bush gave a speech on climate change today, in conjunction with his Major Economies Meeting. "What I’m telling you is, we’ve got a strategy,” the man said. That’s one way of putting it. As expected, Bush said nothing new, just some banalities about how we all recognize the problem and we all have to […]

British citizen sues government over distribution of climate-change film to schools

In July, a judge ruled that the British government’s decision to send Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth documentary to 3,500 English secondary schools did not constitute political indoctrination of children. British citizen and fun-name owner Stewart Dimmock disagrees, and is suing his government to quash the dastardly distribution. Dimmock claims the “irredeemable” film contains “serious inaccuracies” […]

Legislators take to the pages of the capitol’s mag to talk eco-this and that

Insidery capitol mag The Hill has a special section on "going green." There’s some amusing stuff. First, it’s nice to see a couple of members of Congress exposing the travesty that is corn ethanol. Seattle’s own Rep. Dave Reichert has a hilariously poorly written essay on why Republicans should go green. It starts like this: […]

Bush admin talks up voluntary actions with strong words at D.C. climate summit

President Bush’s climate summit of the world’s top polluters kicked off yesterday in Washington, D.C., with rhetoric aplenty and the arrest of some 49 protesters from Greenpeace and other environmental groups outside the State Department offices. Meanwhile, inside the conference, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked up the need for strong climate action even while […]

Climate protesters arrested outside State Department

Greenpeace executive director John Passacantando was among 50 activists arrested today outside the State Department, protesting Bush’s farcical climate meetings.