Let’s not quibble about who caused which environmental catastrophe…

May 22, 2006

[tag]Bush[/tag] was in [tag]Chicago[/tag] today for a speech to the National Restaurant Association. As part of the [tag]president[/tag]’s new-found interest in Q&A, Bush took questions from the rather-friendly audience for about 45 minutes. There was plenty of boilerplate rhetoric, but one exchange stood out.

Someone from Arlington, Texas, asked Bush, “Will you see [tag]Al Gore[/tag]’s new [tag]movie[/tag]?”

Bush: Doubt it. (Laughter and applause.) But I will say this about the environmental debate, that my answer to the energy question also is an answer to how you deal with the greenhouse gas issue, and that is new technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars, which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment.

And in my judgment, we need to set aside whether or not [tag]greenhouse[/tag] gases have been caused by mankind or because of natural effects, and focus on the technologies that will enable us to live better lives and at the same time, protect the environment.

It’s a terrific example of Bush’s approach to the “era of responsibility.” To hear the president tell it, maybe the earth is [tag]warming[/tag], maybe not; maybe human activities are helping create the problem, maybe not. We should just “set aside” all of these questions, blow off [tag]An Inconvenient Truth[/tag], and follow his corporate-friendly energy policy.

Think Progress noted that, as a matter of policy, this just won’t do.

Bush cannot solve the problem of global warming if he does not understand its root cause. By “setting aside” the issue of why the globe is warming, Bush wants to also sidestep the need for his administration to begin efforts to regulate carbon dioxide emissions, as he once pledged to do.

And just as an aside, what, exactly, caused National Restaurant Association members to “laugh and applaud” Bush saying he won’t see [tag]Gore[/tag]’s movie? What’s funny about that?

I’m also trying to figure out how that issue, as well as the war in Iraq (which was also discussed in the speech by a whiney sounding Dumbya) were relevant issues for the National Restaurant Assn speech.

I guess one NRA is a lot like the other.

  • Think they were bushco plants? I wouldn’t put it past them. Or maybe just partisan attendees that wanted to make the pResident look good.

  • People have to realize: Bush doesn’t give a damn about the problems he and his robber baron buddies cause. Their job is to make obscene amounts of money by any means possible. It’s for “the little people”, like us, to wrestle with those problems after they’ve left the scene with all they can loot from us. Global shmobal … all that matters is the Bush Crime Family’s welfare.

  • Maybe they didn’t laugh or applaud. Or maybe only a couple of them laughed or applauded. Or maybe the piece of shit White House lackey who posted the transcript just made up that detail and put it in. Door number three works for me.

  • Ah, loyal sychophants.

    Look again at Boy George II’s method of dealing with those HE KNOWS are smarter than him. Ridicule.

    What else can we expect? I mean, if Gore is so smart, why is Boy George II president?

  • The National Restaurant Association represents a subcategory of– you guessed it– big business. That’s Bush’s base. As long as his policies cater to the special interests of big business, those in his camp applaud everything he does, right down the line– all the anti-environmentalism, warmongering, and theocratic scare tactics. Sad, isn’t it?

  • Critical thought and reasonable analysis do not exist in the realm of Bushies. One of my recent rounds of message board lurking showed a GWB supporter claiming that the report of a probable closure of the hole in the ozone layer is a setback for libs.

    Um. It was environmentalists (and libs) who changed world policies regarding the use of ozone depleting materials and practices.

    Oy.

  • Probably the restauranteurs laughed and applauded because they fear and loathe Gore, just as Bush does, still.

    As one wise blogger pointed out, the right cannot bear to face the issue of global warming, because that would mean admitting that Gore was right.

    But will this make the issue go away?

    Ummm…..no.

  • CB writes: “And just as an aside, what, exactly, caused National Restaurant Association members to “laugh and applaud” Bush saying he won’t see Gore’s movie? What’s funny about that?”

    Remember all the reporting on the wit and wisdom of JFK? Well, this is the wit and wisdom of GWB. Hilarious. Just like looking under the tables to find the WMD at that there fancy dinner. Haw haw. Check please.

  • … And that’s why Gore’s film is so brilliantly titled: because it’s extremely inconvenient for Bush and the rest of those in flying in business class to admit the problem.

    Bush is putting his faith in technology, which may discover ways of producing or using energy in a way that won’t exacerbate climate shifts. But just as in all of Bush’s policy proposals, it’s always up to some unknown force or other body of people to make that happen. He won’t commit to leadership or making truly difficult choices only because his “faith” tells him the problem will go away. Sorry George, but you’re not paid to wish our problems away.

  • Bush: Doubt it. (See, I don’t really have any intellectual curiosity to speak of, and I’ve never enjoyed testing my ideas by exposing myself to new information, because, unlike a truly confident man, I am actually a scared little weasel who lives in fear that people who are smarter than me are right and mommy will punish me for being stupid. I sure showed them! I’m the President! Haw!)

  • “Doubt it.” Should go down in history as one of the most profoundly ignorant and stupid remarks ever made by a human being. I hope we will never rue the day that he said that.

  • Bush has a plan for global recovery from man’s effects. Unfortunately, it may involve bringing man to the edge of extinction, but in Bush reasoning, you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. Won’t all those rapture nuts feel embarassed when they are left down here to attempt to survive with the rest of us unwashed masses after Bush’s next global disaster?

  • “…new technologies will change how we live and how we drive our cars, which all will have the beneficial effect of improving the environment.”

    Of course the free market / private sector is going to do this on it’s own, right? No?

  • “Bush cannot solve the problem of global warming if he does not understand its root cause.”

    Using the words “Bush,” “problem,” and “solve” in the same sentence is to practice dissonance.

    To add to “global warming” to that sentence is to cause a gazillion, rip-roaring spit-takes.

  • Bush isn’t one of those brainiacs on the nerd patrol. He’s not a member of the factinista.
    .
    Bush’s gut’s answer to how you deal with the greenhouse gas issue is also Bush’s gut’s answer to how to reward the oil industry for their massive campaign contributions.

  • Bush: “We’ll learn to live with global warming even if we have to mine and burn every last ton of coal on earth and convert every last acre of arable land to switchgrass. People got a right to live far beyond the earth’s capacity to sustain their lifestyles. This is a god given right, especially to ‘mericans. And my purpose on earth is to defend it. And if god preempts our glorious work by bringing the rapture to us, well, our good works will be rewarded in heaven. And I hear they got F-250s up there for me to tool around the ranch in between our yuk it up rounds in the rockers. So, have no doubts, don’t rock the luxury boats, live like there is no tomorrow, eat, drink and be merry, and vote ‘publican.”

  • tko

    re “Unfortunately, it may involve bringing man to the edge of extinction,”

    you forget that for bush and his backers in the american taliban, the end of the world is a GOOD thing.

  • Heh. The *really* inconvenient truth is even more inconvenient than that.

    1) Immediately stop suburban sprawl tract-mansion development, enforce emergency changes of building codes across the country, and start building high-density walkable communites. Give “green development” builders and property owners massive tax credits and/or cash subsidies to get them to build in passive-solar and retrofit for energy efficiency. Call for sacrifice, if that isn’t enough. We’ve got a war on, dammit!

    2) Immediately stop subsidising the oil and automobile industries; let them die an instant and natural death. Tack on a massive gasoline tax and use the money to federally-subsidise and greatly expand public transit all over the country.

    3) Immediately stop building highways, and start a massive war-mobilisation-like investment in public high-speed trains and local mass transit. Turn all the highway funds over to turn highways into high-speed train tracks.

    4) Outlaw these useless Public Electrical Utility Commissions and get entrepreneurs going installing distributed solar and wind panels on houses all over America. Turn the “grid” into a market for trading excess electricity.

    This is what bold leadership looks like. Good fucking luck if you’re waiting for any of this from the limp dicks in D.C.

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