It depends on what the meaning of ‘solving’ is

July 7, 2006

In the kind of hard-hitting interview Bush prefers, the president answered questions this week from People magazine (via TP). It was mostly harmless fluff about exercise and family, but People did ask Bush whether he believes Al Gore is right about global warming.

“I think we have a problem on global warming. I think there is a debate about whether it’s caused by mankind or whether it’s caused naturally, but it’s a worthy debate. It’s a debate, actually, that I’m in the process of solving by advancing new technologies, burning coal cleanly in electric plants, or promoting hydrogen-powered automobiles, or advancing ethanol as an alternative to gasoline.” (emphasis added)

Putting aside Bush’s nonsense about the “debate” about the cause of climate change, does the president really believe he’s “in the process of solving” the problem of global warming? Seriously?

As Matt Stoller put it, “The ‘new technology’ argument is something that we’ve seen other bad faith actors use, like apologist Robert Samuelson in his claim that we are helpless without engineering breakthroughs. There are two things to understand about the argument. One, technology is the result of policy decisions, and technology is not magic. If you don’t make policy decisions that encourage the development and deployment of carbon reducing technology, it’s not going to be developed and deployed.”

It’s too bad Bush won’t see Gore’s movie; if he did, he might begin to understand how little sense he makes on this issue.

If you don’t make policy decisions that encourage the development and deployment of carbon reducing technology, it’s not going to be developed and deployed.” – CB

Well, that is true to a point. I would add the caveat that this must be done if the technology is not cost effective by itself.

For example, if you invented a little device that you could stick on your tailpipe to filter out carbon by-products, and which took those fumes and turned them into diamonds, you’d see a whole lot less pollution from cars. There would be an economic incentive. Sometimes those things happen “naturally” in the technology world, but very often the government nudges, encourages, or flat out kicks industry in the a**.

  • Bush has been saying for months now that there is a debate about whether “global warming is caused by mankind or whether it’s caused naturally.”

    In fact, there is no doubt that global warming is caused by rising levels of greenhouse gases. Scientists are well-aware of other possible causes and have spent decades “normalizing” the data, to make sure our very slight eliptical orbit (for example) might not explain the rising in globally average temps, via Milankovitch forcings. It’s not Milaknovitch. It’s not trees (cf. Reagan). It’s not Al Gore. It’s coal plants, cars, trucks, and all the other ways we burn fossil fuels to put millions of tons of CO2 and methane and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

    So here’s my question: Do you think that any reporter will ever ask Bush what evidence he can cite for “natural” global warming in the last twenty-five years?

  • I’m done with this guy. I tune him out whenever he speaks now.

    Don’t think I’m alone. The Rs I work with tune him out too.

    And it is no wonder when you read something like “I’m in the process of solving” global warming.

  • Bush is in the process of solving global warming?!?!

    That is hysterical.

    That is far more of a stretch from the truth than anything Gore has ever said including but not limited to his comments that during his years in Congress he’d taken the initiative in developing the internet.

    Wow.

  • Wow. Does Bush really believe that shit? How many new coal fired plants are being built that will actually sequester carbon dioxide? Do we know how we are going to produce hydrogen without significant inputs of fossil fuels? And just how carbon neutral is ethanol? Ethanol derived from corn requires very hefty inputs of coal, natural gas and oil.

    If people think that we are going to solve the global warming problem with technology alone, we are in deep shit.

    GW, paddle salesman on Shit Creek.

  • “I’m in the process of solving” global warming?? Remind me–who was the one that the pundit class referred to as the “serial exaggerator” in 2000?

  • Does this mean that Bush is claiming to have personally invented these new technologies? Gore said something very similar (but less asinine) regarding his efforts as a senator to support development of the Internet, and the comment has plagued him ever sense as the infamous “Al Gore invented the Internet” meme.

  • Uh, no, now everybody, you are all misreading what Bush said. If CB ‘s quote is accurate, Bush said ” IT’S A DEBATE, actually, that I’m in the process of solving by advancing new technologies… (emphasis mine).

    He said he’s solving the DEBATE not the problem of global warming. And he’s solving the debate as he solves all debates–first he makes the issue debatable in the first place through lies and obfuscation and then he muddies it up so much and lies about what he’s doing so that everyone is too tired to continue debating. It works on all issues. Debate, solved! 🙂 He’s the decider and debate solver.

  • I understand that Bush is still working on solving the Chinese finer trap that he was given by Mao Zedong when his father was a Conrgessman. He’s getting close but it’s hard work and he just doesn’t spend that much time on it.

  • Frak, I’m going to find you and beat you!

    Yep, he got the best point off again. Maybe Boy George II knew EXACTLY what he was saying here. By promoting alternate fuels and technologies that are twenty years away rather than five years away, he can claim credit for trying without bothering his Camber of Commerce Conservative promoters, particularly the Texas Mafia that put him forward as the BEST????? candidates the Republican’ts could run in 2000.

  • How in the name of BabbleSpeak does one “solve” a debate? One does not “solve” a debate; one either resolves a debate, or terminates it through force and deception. I’ve yet to see anything that could connect Kid George to the former, and much that indicts his sorry “legacy” to the latter….

  • Solving global warming with the six party talks not United States bogged down in carbon dioxide feedbackloop not burn symbol Iran nuked up too onedown two to go Axis of greenhouse gas debate state of stem cell marriages bag of unmarked bills for halliburton.

    Am I the only person who thinks that George Bush has a mental disorder?

  • Not to give Bush too much credit, but is it not an effective strategy to destabilize the Middle East and drive oil prices through the roof? That increases the incentives to develop alternative technologies, and reduces consumption. If he would only attack Iran and provoke terrorist attacks on Saudi oil infrastructure, we would see huge market-driven action in alternative energy sources.

  • The only alternative energy source is direct solar energy.

    Any other so-called alternative energy, as lou #5 points out, are merely new variants of carbon-based energy. The carbon-based fossil fuels we’ve been squandering over the last half century or so, is solar energy trapped in the past over hundreds of millions of years, by the process of photosynthesis. During that phase of the planet’s history, the Carboniferous era, carbon dioxide and methane were converted into the complex hydrocarbons of organic structures, releasing free oxygen, which we now breath, into the atmosphere.

    By madly burning these hydrocarbons we are reversing the process that took millions of years to generate, in a few decades. No wonder we are experiencing cataclysmic consequences. One trans-Atlantic 747 flight burns more oxygen than the whole of the city of New York breaths in a day.

    The only conceivable solution, given that we have an exponentially exploding population of energy consuming humans on the planet, is a inconceivably drastic reduction in living standards.

    Is Mr Bush prepared to show us the way in his solution?

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