HOME
Message Board
CURRENT COLUMNS
- Editor's Corner
- Blogfest 2005
- Commentary
- Commentary Too
- Down The Middle
- Faulking Around
- Global Warning
- This guy walks into a bar...
- Investing 101
- Faulking Opinions
- Off The Rail
- Words
ARCHIVES
LINKS
CONTACT US
 | |||
Global Warning - Nov 8, 2008 - Printable Version
- Goodbye From the World's Largest Polluter
by Robin Buckallew
From time to time in the annals of history, a man writes his own farewell, without actually realizing what he’s done. A few weeks ago, George W. Bush breezed airily out of a climate summit where the world’s nations were trying wearily to come to a consensus on the best way to deal with the ever increasing environmental strain which threatens the future in a way that is unprecedented in human history. The callous departure he gave the other nations as he departed shall stand, for me, as the words by which I shall ever remember this historic occasion – Goodbye, from the world’s biggest polluter. And I say to that, a hearty AMEN. Goodbye, George Dubya. I would like to say you’ll be missed, but my mother always taught me that I should never lie. As you prepare to leave the White House, I would like to prepare for you a parting gift – an album of the atrocities you’ll be leaving behind, a catalog of the catastrophe you’ll be leaving on the shoulders of your successor. Although it would be possible to string together an entire alphabet soup of the shambles you’ve left behind, I will begin and end with the letter E – for environment. So, Dubya, scourge of Gaia, what do you think when you look behind you at your legacy?
First, of course, there is the big E that everybody has been talking about – the ecological and economic disaster that we are facing in the coming years as the climate slowly but surely continues to shift the comfortable patterns we’ve become familiar with, and lurch into new, uncharted territory. Oh, yes, of course, I can’t blame global warming totally on you; after all, the greenhouse gases that are now rampaging around our atmosphere have been being emitted since long before your birth – since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, to be exact. By the time you moved into the White House, the science behind global warming was solid. The warming trend had already begun, and there wasn’t a lot you could do to stop it, even if you had been willing to stop playing your real-life game of Risk long enough to take action. But the fact that it was already simmering on the burner before you entered office does not excuse your unconscionable lack of action. As the evidence of global warming, and the human causes behind it, continued to mount, you just stuck your fingers in your ear, hummed softly to yourself, and moved a few more game pieces – this one goes to Afghanistan, this one to Iraq. This one attacks Syria, this one annoys the Russians. This little game piece, it’s going to go around shouting “Freedom Fries” everywhere, just to show everyone how juvenile and spoiled it can be. Global warming? What’s that you say? Nope, that wasn’t in my memo from Dick, so it mustn’t be happening. Probably not all that important, anyway. After all, if Alaska melts, it’ll just be that much easier to get to the oil. That’s right, George, stick out your tongue at that nasty treehugger!
Then, there are the wolves. Remember the wolves, Dubya? The gray wolf, close cousin to your own best friend, Barney, which Gale Norton felt strongly about removing from the endangered species list. The wolf actually hadn’t become common, and scientists told her, over and over again, that removing the wolf from the list was premature, and could lead to the extinction of the species. Gale Norton, your Secretary of the Interior, whom your website laughingly refers to as a “lifelong conservationist”, didn’t listen to the warnings, because she didn’t care. The extinction of the wolf was exactly what she had in mind. In fact, she pushed the removal of the wolf from the list so that her constituents in Idaho could shoot them down whenever they saw them. That’s what her buddies wanted to do, but a little thing kept getting in their way – federal law. You see, when a species is protected by the Endangered Species Act, it’s not legal to shoot them down. Uncle Sam gets a little testy about that. Oh, wait a minute, you ARE the federal government, aren’t you? You locked crazy old Uncle Sam up in the attic, and you took over as the Decider in Chief. Well, you and Gale Norton could just decide up a storm together, and on your watch, she decided to disregard all the scientific evidence, declare the gray wolf “recovered”, and remove it from the endangered species list, while all her buddies polished up their guns and checked their ammo. Fortunately for Barney, the courts intervened on that one, and saved his cousins from impending extinction by declaring that delisting a species in the face of all evidence to the contrary was a violation of the intent of the Endangered Species Act. Wolf goes back on the list, guns go back into the gun racks for another day, Barney relaxes by the fire, and you…you move another piece on your Risk board. Let’s see, that one should go to….Chechnya! Wonderful idea…howdya say that again? Check-e-nah? No? Oh, well, what’s it matter anyway, they’re all just Russkies over there.
Remember Healthy Forests, Dubya? Ooops, blank look, guess you’re not sure what I’m talking about. Your rather innovatively named Healthy Forests Initiative, designed to open up many of our nationally protected forests for intensified logging, to give your buddies in the logging industry a crack at the few remaining virgin forests, under the pretense of saving them from forest fires. I can see by the giant smirk that you’ve remembered it now. This was a really clever, really Orwellian double-speak piece of legislation. It had the beauty of being based on a sound scientific principle, so you could head off those pesky treehuggers at the pass. The only problem is, the scientific principle it was based on became so warped and bent out off any recognizable shape it sort of resembled that pretzel you choked on one quiet evening. Claiming to have “sound science” on your side, determined to force those purveyors of “junk science” (aka, reality-based thinking) to bend to your will. This was a really low move, exploiting human tragedy, as wildfires raged throughout the west and people had to abandon homes and businesses, and you played political games for the aggrandizement of your lumber business buddies. But then, that’s what human (and environmental) tragedy means to you, isn’t it? Another opportunity for an entrepreneur to get rich. Hey, better check your Risk pieces – I think that one in Kabul just let a terrorist slip across the border into Pakistan again.
Then, of course, there was Clear Skies, which was designed to allow factories that were emitting pollutants into our air to increase the amount of pollutants being emitted. Once again, Orwellian, but this time not even pretending to be based on sound science, but only on free-market economics. You decided that the best way to clean up the air was to tie the increase in air pollutants to the market economy. In short, the air pollutant emissions were only allowed to increase by the percentage that the economy grew in any given year. You would clear up the skies by actually emitting more pollutants into the air – unless, of course, we should happen to have a downturn in the economy, of course. The only bright spot in this bill was the realization that, with your robber barons at the helm of our economy, we were almost certain to have a downturn. Hey, wait a minute, is that Risk piece in Fallujah trying to desert to Canada? Better put him into stop-loss. You wouldn’t want to lose a fine playing piece like that!
There it is, Dubya, your legacy. And then some. Decrease in the number of prosecutions of environmental violations, though not because of a decrease in the number of violations. Signing statements that keep us from actually protecting the polar bear from extinction, even after it’s been placed on the Endangered Species list. Obfuscation and obstruction at environmental summits. Calls for opening up ANWR to, in the words of your would-be successor as Moron Laureate, “Drill, baby, drill!”. Your high profile environmental moves, such as prohibiting offshore drilling in the Everglades, followed by low profile retractions later the same week. Your political maneuvering to get Ground Zero declared safe for re-opening business, while the EPA reports showed dangerous levels of toxics still present. Your appointees to environmental posts that came directly from the oil industry, and returned directly to the oil industry once they’d resigned in disgrace. The shamelessness of your administration in wining and dining oil industry executives every time you wanted to discuss energy issues, while the environmental scientists who also had vital information sat cooling their heels in your outer office (if they even managed to get near Washington D.C. at all). Your willingness to use depleted uranium in Iraq, with lasting consequences in both human and environmental terms. Your shameful mishandling of the human ecological tragedy that went by the name of Katrina, and your callousness in the face of real suffering. All this, and more, will be part and parcel of your environmental legacy. Unfortunately, it isn’t a legacy that will leave when you do. You’ve managed to leave behind numerous disastrous laws and policies that will continue operating long after you’re gone, and numerous judges that will continue to interpret these laws long after you’re gone. Your scorched earth policy stretches from the environment to the economy to the diplomacy, and comes back again full circle. All things looped together, in a constantly whirling gyroscope of oily, messy, radioactive sludge slowly signaling the flushing of our world down the toilet. Heckuva job, Bushy! Look out, those Risk pieces are rising up! I think a protest march is forming! Better call in the Secret Service, and have them removed to a free speech zone.
All is can say, Dubya, is goodbye to the world’s biggest polluter. And hello to a breath of fresh air that is blowing in from Illinois. I wish him all the luck cleaning up your mess – he’ll need it.
Voice your opinion on our message board (you don't have to sign up to post).