We’re screwed, and not in a light bulb way

… even if we win the White House this year, it’s only a matter of time before the eco-freaks cripple this country’s economy thanks to McCain’s maverick streak. And this jerk will get rich(er) off it.

The last sentence is, of course, followed by a picture of Al Gore.

Bush Panders to Enviro-Nazis [like Al Gore]

I love the smell of CO2 in the morning. It smells like American innovation and wealth.

Wow! CO2 is the new napalm.

And Gore’s Law strikes again — twice!

President Bush just delivered his Rose Garden global warming speech:

If we fully implement our strong new laws, adhere to the principles I’ve outlined, and adopt appropriate incentives, we will put America on an ambitious new track for greenhouse gas reductions. The growth in emissions will slow over the next decade, stop by 2025, and begin to reverse thereafter, so long as technology continues to advance.

At the White House press briefing today, James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, heaped praise on Bush’s plan:

I would just observe, Europe as a union has stated a mid-term goal. They are working on how they’re going to implement that in each member state. Canada has stated a mid-term goal. The United States has now stated a mid-term goal.

We are the only three that have done that so far, but we know that all of the other major economies are working on it, and so we’re giving our own signal about how we’re structuring what we’re going to do, and hopefully they’ll reflect off of that and make appropriate decisions for their economies as well.

Let’s review:

Vice President Al Gore rightly described Canada’s plan when the Conservative government released it last year as “a complete and total fraud.” Bush’s proposal is sheer lunacy.

Bush’s plan, if the rest of the world followed suit, would push the planet into territory never before seen in the history of human civilization. For his senior environmental adviser to even compare this to Europe’s mandatory and unilateral commitment to aggressive greenhouse reductions is beyond shameful.

UPDATE: Climate Progress and Gristmill have more. The U.S. Climate Action Network links to responses from member organizations, including the Center for American Progress.

UPDATE II: Warming Law notes Bush’s astounding contempt for the Supreme Court.

UPDATE III: Responses from House global warming committee chairman Ed Markey (D-MA), Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and ranking member James Inhofe (R-OK), Campaign for America’s Future, and Energy Smart.

Before reviewing Bush’s “8-repetitions-of-technology” speech (reprinted below), let’s remember the words of the head of the IPCC, Rajendra Pachauri — who was handpicked by Bush to replace the “alarmist” Bob Watson:

“If there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment.”

And then we have today’s installment of Great Moments in Presidential Speeches (see Letterman compilation here):

Today, I am announcing a new national goal: to stop the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

In related news, Emperor Nero announced a plan to stop fiddling in 17 years. But, in the meantime, of course, we need to focus on new firefighting technology to start putting out the fire in, say, 10 to 15 years! As predicted (here), the headline of this post strangely reminds me of the post on Bush’s September climate speech: Bush climate speech follows Luntz playbook: “Technology, technology, blah, blah, blah.” Heck, this “new” speech even has a section titled:

On technology as the key to addressing climate change:

We must all recognize that in the long run, new technologies are the key to addressing climate change.

[And yes, I'm sure that the drinking game judge will, when he sobers up a bit, allow -- indeed, demand -- a drink for section titles even if Bush doesn't utter the word. So you should get 8 drinks lined up for "technology" and another 8 for "goal." I hope you have a strong stomach.]

And yet Bush has actually repeatedly cut the budget for key clean energy technologies and opposed clean energy subsidies (see here). Bush’s entire speech is just Luntz-programmed rhetoric. His call for utility emissions regulations is a rehashing of a 2000 campaign promise that he reneged on seven years ago (see here)! He is all hat and no cattle.

A MYSTERIOUS LOW-CARBON INCENTIVE

It is a very bizarre speech in that Bush is not explicitly calling for a carbon pricing mechanism, but rather for a mystery incentive “to make the commercialization and use of new, lower emission technologies more competitive.” The incentive “should be carbon-weighted” and “technology-neutral” and “long-lasting” — sounds awfully like a carbon price to me! But he says it should “make lower emission power sources less expensive relative to higher emissions sources” — as opposed to, I guess, making higher emissions sources more expensive. So rather than a price for carbon, it seems to be an anti-price for nega-carbon. Who knows? Who cares?

This incentive — and his entire climate strategy — looks and sounds like a lame duck to me. No, I mean that literally — it looks and sounds like Bush is lamely ducking the entire friggin’ problem, guaranteeing his legacy to future generations will be eight years of actively fighting all efforts to restrict greenhouse gas emissions — and this speech is one more example of delay and obstruction (see here). And that means historians will almost certainly recount that Bush’s biggest impact on the nation and the world — by far — was that he made it far more likely that the next 50 generations will suffer widespread desertification, extreme flooding and sea level rise, and the extinction of most species on land and in the ocean.

As for which quote from Yogi Berra best describe this speech, I see a tie between:

• “This is like deja vu all over again.”
• “You got to be very careful if you don’t know where you’re going, because you might not get there.”
• “Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting.”

More reaction from Center for American Progress and Grist and Warming Law and Energy Smart and many others.

UPDATE: Wonk Room comments here.

Here is the entire speech (video available here):

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President Bush is prepared today to deliver his “rational, balanced approach to these serious challenges” of energy use and global warming. Earlier this week, members of the Bush administration met with members on the Hill on the issue, and then gave the scoop to the right-wing Washington Times. What Bush is offering — the goal of capping emissions by 2025 — is worse than what he claimed he would do in 2000 as the Republican nominee for president. Since that day, the administration has stripmined the economy and the environment at the behest of the energy industry. Aware of his lame duck status, Bush has moved on from denial to bargaining.

The core of the right wing, however, is still in denial, and the prospect of Bush leaving their camp has thrown them into incoherent rage.

Iain Murray at the National Review’s Corner blog:

I cannot emphasize too much how idiotic this is. At a time when the poor of the country and the world are feeling the twin crunches of credit being withdrawn and food and energy prices rising, jacking up energy prices farther will just add insult to injury. The fat cat traders of Wall Street will be licking their lips, of course. Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans and (yes, some) Democrats who have stood up for the American consumer against this insanity will be left hanging. Those who voted for Bush in the mistaken belief they wouldn’t get Gore’s policies will have been betrayed. The political center on energy and environment will be jerked massively to the left. Some acheivement [sic].

Mr. Bush, if you think this will secure your legacy, you are right. Your legacy will be just one word: Recession.

People need to get very, very angry about this. I know I am.

Tony Blankley in the Washington Times:

Just as an increasing number of scientists are finding their courage to speak out against the global warming alarmists, and just as a building body of evidence and theories challenge the key elements of the human-centric carbon-based global warming theories — President Bush takes this moment to say in effect: “We are all global alarmists now.” [...]

All he can do is set the stage for next year’s legislation, by giving away the rhetorical store and weakening the already modest backbone of Republican legislators.

The liberal world order will not let go of their global-warming assault on free economies until hell freezes over — by which point, obviously, the global-warming theory will be visibly disproven.

Chris Horner at the National Review’s Planet Gore blog admits the right wing’s real fear:

[T]he president will have caused harm by embracing the global-warming agenda, regardless of the specifics of what he calls for today. The moment he legitimizes the agenda, he will have lost control of the issue.

The White House has released the following excerpts of the speech on global warming President Bush will give in the Rose Garden at 2:45 PM today, as prepared for delivery:

On the principles for effectively confronting climate change:

Over the past seven years, my Administration has taken a rational, balanced approach to these serious challenges. We believe we need to protect our environment. We believe we need to strengthen our energy security. We believe we need to grow our economy. And we believe the only way to achieve these goals is through continued advances in technology. Read more

Methane hydrates (or clathrates), “burning ice,” are worth understanding because they could affect the climate for better or worse. You can get the basics here on

… a solid form of water that contains a large amount of methane within its crystal structure [that] occur both in deep sedimentary structures, and as outcrops on the ocean floor.

The worst that could happen is a climate catastrophe if they were released suddenly, as some people believed happened during the Permian-Triassic extinction event and the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum. The best that could happen is if they could be recovered at a large scale safely — then they would be an enormous new source of natural gas, the lowest-carbon and most efficient-burning fossil fuel.

A recent workshop was held — “Vulnerability and Opportunity of Methane Hydrates Workshop,” IIASA, 13-14 March 2008. You can find most of the presentations here. Science magazine (here, subs. req’d) ran a summary of the meeting recently, which I will reprint below:

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Bush’s speech is not until 2:45 pm (you can watch it here on C-SPAN3), but those engaged in my proposed drinking game are already plastered. Why? The front-page story in today’s WSJ (subs. req’d) says of the Bush speech:

He will also argue against legislation that raises taxes or makes demands that are technologically unattainable and could hurt the economy, such as by raising fuel costs. He will call for more emphasis on new technology rather than raising the price of old technology.

[Hmm. Who else makes that pitch?]

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The front-page headline in today’s WSJ (subs. req’d):

Bush to Call for Greenhouse-Gas Curbs

In a significant shift on global warming, President Bush will propose stopping growth in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions by 2025 and signal that he is open to lawmakers reining in pollution from power companies.

An A.P. story updated at 8 a.m. this morning (here) begins similarly:

President Bush will propose a new target for stopping the growth of the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions by 2025.

But the WSJ goes on to say:

In the most specific part of his speech, Mr. Bush will carve out a more ambitious goal for power generators, source of about 40% of U.S. emissions. He will call for a halt in the growth of greenhouse gases from electric power plants within 10 to 15 years. He won’t propose specific legislation, but White House officials hope his goals could shape a growing congressional debate.

Whereas the A.P. goes on to say

The president also will call Wednesday for putting the brakes on greenhouse gas emissions from electric power plans within 10 to 15 years, according to a senior administration official familiar with the afternoon speech.

So is the Bush going to make two announcements (utility cap in 10 to 15 years and economy-wide cap in 2025) — or just the former? The WSJ is very confused:

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been frequently covered at ClimateProgress because it has been failing so spectacularly to do what the law requires, as determined by numerous Federal judges (including the Supreme Court). For a more in-depth look, consider a pair of articles by Margaret Kriz in the National Journal. Vanishing Act looks at many of the failures of the EPA. The President’s Man presents an interview with EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson and gives insight into his twisted thinking. For example, when asked about issuing ozone standards weaker than the unanimous recommendation of the EPA’s independent Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee, Johnson replies,

Johnson: The law requires that I make a decision and set a [primary] standard that is requisite to protect public health with an adequate margin of safety. CASAC chose a [pollution cap] within the range of 60 to 70 [parts per billion of ozone]. After CASAC met, we did additional evaluation. I concluded that there was additional uncertainty [about the scientific data]. So I went to a 75 ppb level to make sure there was an adequate margin of safety.

Read more