The Bush Administration has published a report acknowledging climate changes and global warming, but not recommending any policy changes. Um, yeah. Right. The document was issued by the EPA as…
The Bush Administration has published a report acknowledging climate changes and global warming, but not recommending any policy changes.
Um, yeah. Right.
The document was issued by the EPA as part of climate talked sponsored by the UN. No publicity was issued regarding it, but the press has picked up on it anyway.
The report predicts that over this century the United States will lose coastal wetlands to rising sea levels and experience more heat waves. Water supplies are forecast to shrink due to less snowpack, and some Rocky Mountain meadows will disappear.
Other possibilities include:
– Average temperatures in the contiguous United States rising between 5 and 9 degrees Fahrenheit during this century.
– Forest regions in the Southeastern United States that see “major species shifts” or major changes in growth patterns.
– Drought conditions and changing snowfall patterns in the West, Pacific Northwest and Alaska.
– Average sea levels rising 19 inches. “With higher sea level, coastal regions could be subject to increased wind and flood damage, even if tropical storms do not change in intensity,” the report says.
While the report doesn’t suggest any governmental policy changes, it does state that humans can adapt to global warming without much problem.
Humans can more easily adapt to warming, for example by changing how, what and where they farm and even by how they deal with heat waves, the report adds. “Health impacts” of the latter, it says, “can be ameliorated through such measures as the increased availability of air conditioning.”
The report goes on to suggest that living in crime-infested neighborhoods can be dealt with by simply placing armor plate over the windows …
No, it didn’t, but that’s kind of the same thing. The Bush Administration says it has a policy, basically relying on voluntary reductions and crossing of one’s technological fingers that CO2 emissions can be reduced without actually having to do anything to do so.
While I agree to some extent with the Bush position that environmental policy must be “economically sustainable,” it’s not clear that the world or the nation’s industries would collapse would end of CAFE standards were increased across the board, if retrofitting of emissions controls on older power plants were mandated (or more strongly incented), or if the Administration took a leadership role in trying to address the problem.
More latest-greatest from the Hayman Fire.
Latest-greatest on the fire can be found 
The Hayman Fire is now officially the biggest in Colorado History. The official summer fire season starts Sunday …
