Piece in CSM today on Bush and global warming

I have a non-column in the CSM today on climate-change. The title is “Bush’s good idea on global warming.” Don’t let that put anyone off reading it!
I start the piece by recalling that, when he was still governor of Texas, Bush signed into law a fairly good pro-green law that imposed fixed mandates on energy retailers to us a certain proportion of renewable energy, with penalties for those who did not do so. But then I note that since becoming president he’s been firmly opposed to any form of government-imposed mandates.
Then I talk about Kyoto some, and argue that it’s very important for the US to be fully in the post-Kyoto negotiations.
Here’s how I end:

    All nations need to work together to bring emission rates radically downward. It has to be a cooperative venture. America’s past and present emissions have (unintentionally) inflicted harm on others around the world, and now, foreign emissions are increasingly hurting America, too.
    Yes, we will need innovation – at many levels. Conventional definitions of economic growth will have to be reconsidered. But the degree of innovation we can achieve will be strongly affected by laws, regulations, and mandates that structure the incentives of all players in a pro-innovation, pro-green direction. Bush can still play a useful role on this – if only he would follow his own earlier example.

8 thoughts on “Piece in CSM today on Bush and global warming”

  1. America’s past and present emissions have (unintentionally) inflicted harm on others around the world, and now, foreign emissions are increasingly hurting America, too.
    One fact we all know that US moved its factories/companies offshore around the world simply because more profitable, so yes less US emissions but also US emissions was moved offshore which caused increased the foreign emissions
    That Said, yes “foreign emissions “from other countries around the world have their share in all emissions now that harts first their nation like China now, but affecting us all.
    Just to mention one scientific fact that if the world collectively work toward “global warming” max effort they can achieved is10% from global warming saga. But we need to do some think of course to live safe in this missy world.
    In our time did any one thinks about estimating or calculated the WAR emissions/waste and its consequences on us in this very unstable world?
    Let us take US war in Iraq, how much tons of US emission thrown outside US?

  2. Things have improved immensely in both the developing and developed worlds. In the last 100 years, scientists have won many of the most important battles against infectious diseases, to the extent that poverty is now the main reason for a lack of treatment. Global average life expectancy in 1900 was 30 years; today, it is 68 years.
    Food has become more plentiful and affordable, especially in the developing world, where calorie availability has increased by 40% per person over the past 40 years, while food prices have more than halved. Consequently, the proportion of hungry in the Third World has dropped from 50% in 1950 to less than 17% today, while worldwide incomes have increased more than three-fold.
    Perhaps most importantly, all of these positive trends are expected to continue. The United Nations estimates that average life expectancy will reach 75 years by the middle of the century, and that the proportion of those going hungry will drop below 4%.
    By the close of the century, incomes will have increased six-fold in industrialized countries and 12-fold in developing countries, making the average person in the developing world richer in 2100 than the average American or European is today. The number of poor will drop from a billion to less than five million.
    Global Warnings
    Bjørn Lomborg
    Bjørn Lomborg is head of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, adjunct professor at Copenhagen Business School, and author of the The Skeptical Environmentalist and Cool It.

  4. H,
    I HAD to post the item earlier….I know all of those families…and they NEED YOU…Back to the topic…if you were to rate the candidates (and the campaign) thus far, whom would you say has been the strongest advocate for the environment thus far?
    GREAT COLUMN!

  5. Michael Kerjman, looks very Israeli guru, look to below comments which more likely by same guy.
    US-Israel Strategical Operations against civilian people in Lebanon
    http://groups.yahoo.com/group/internationalunmosclub/message/151
    Jews in Catholic schools: missing the point?
    http://www.jewishsf.com/content/2-0-/module/displaystory/story_id/24508/edition_id/482/format/html/displaystory.html
    Michael Kerjman | Melbourne, Australia
    Media, Lebanon & U.S. – Israeli Brutal Operations
    http://blogs.zmag.org/node/2723
    As understood, armies of totalitarian and non-democratic regimes are much more ready to execute military tasks than exercising the democracy’s notions in environments where delay is suicide.
    http://blogcentral.jpost.com/index.php?blog_post_id=1390
    Michael Kerjman, The Earth, Aug 11 5:08PM

  6. Israeli guru? I am rather a realistically anti-islamist-concerned citizen – and not exempt from both many on issue concerned Muslims and non-Muslims surely.
    By a way, where had all comments vanished from this page but selection of mine only?

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