Revolution #014, September 18, 2005, posted at revcom.us
“We submit respectfully that the willful destruction of entire countries and cultures, with foreknowledge, would represent an unspeakable crime against humanity. No nation has the right to place its own, misconstrued national interest before the physical and cultural survival of whole countries.”
Kinza Clodumar, former President of the Pacific Island nation of Nauru, which is threatened with destruction from the rising sea level caused by global warming
Scientists around the world speak with a near unanimous voice that there will be impending environmental disasters if global greenhouse gas emissions—the cause of global warming—are not drastically cut. Yet, at this very critical time, George Bush and his regime are on a mission to vastly expand the use of oil, gas, and coal—and to strengthen U.S. imperialist control over these resources through war. They have sought to lie and cover up the facts and evidence about global warming in order to systematically confuse and misinform the public. And they are systematically working to undermine international negotiations or treaties on cutting back greenhouse gases.
The following is a brief outline of some of the Bush regime’s criminal actions around global warming.
ï In 2001 Bush pulled the U.S. out of the Kyoto Protocol, which calls for cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. Even if thoroughly implemented, the Kyoto cuts by themselves would not be enough to stop the rising global warming. But Bush wouldn’t even agree to this. State Department documents revealed that a key player in the Bush administration’s policy on Kyoto was the Global Climate Coalition, an oil industry lobby dominated by ExxonMobil.
ï At a 2004 UN conference in Argentina on climate change, U.S. officials first blocked serious negotiations and then refused to even hold substantive talks in the future.
ï In June 2005 the UK Observer revealed that the U.S. had made “extraordinary efforts” to delete any meaningful language on the human causes or dangers in relation to global warming in a communiqué before this year’s G8 (the world’s eight top capitalist states) summit in Scotland.
ï Directly contradicting the facts, Bush’s Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky recently claimed, “Science tells us that we cannot say with any certainty what constitutes a dangerous level of warming and therefore what level must be avoided.”
ï The Bush strategy on global warming reflects a 2003 memo on environmental issues by Republican strategist Fank Luntz. In a section of the memo titled “Winning the Global Warming Debate,” Luntz wrote, “The scientific debate is closing (against us) but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science. Voters believe that there is no consensus about global warming in the scientific community. Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly.”
ï In June 2003 Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality cut or weakened references to human causes of global warming and its dangers in an Environmental Protection Agency draft report on the environment. The EPA then deleted all mention of global warming from the report.
ï In June 2005, the New York Times revealed that the head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Phillip Cooney, repeatedly rewrote government reports to underplay the danger of global warming. As a lawyer for the American Petroleum Institute—a leading lobby for the oil industry—Cooney had opposed international agreements and EPA regulations that put limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Then Cooney was hired by the Bush administration to help supervise the EPA and government environmental policy. After the Times article, Cooney resigned from the White House position—and went to work for ExxonMobil.