Andrew Sullivan: WHAT U-TURN?

andrewsullivan.com ^ | 06/04/2002 | Andrew Sullivan

[Pokey78]

I know I'll be excoriated as a Bush toady for saying this, but I don't actually get the notion that the Bush administration has done a palpable U-turn on global warming.

Check out this story.

"Last year, the White House described climate change as a serious issue after seeking opinions of the National Academy of Sciences but was undecided about how much of the problem should be blamed on human activities," the Associated Press reports.

This year, in a report to the U.N. no less, the administration argues that "The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability."

Wow. What a change. And no one is claiming that the Bush administration has shifted actual policy. It's also a grotesque distortion to say that most conservatives completely rebut the notion of some human effect on global warming. Certainly Bjorn Lomborg acknowledges it.

My own view of this weird little summer story is that it's a major Howell Raines coup. A reporter finds some tiny and insignificant change in the wording of administration policy, and Raines puts it on his front page. Drudge takes the bait and Rush follows.

Chill, guys. It seems to me that the Bush administration has long held the sensible skeptical position (which does not preclude taking human impact on global warming seriously).

The difference between them and Al Gore is that they don't take this as a certainty or buy the notion you have to throw the economy into reverse to prevent it.

[Pokey78]

Ping for the ASPL.

[denydenydeny]

Drudge takes the bait and Rush follows.

Exactimundo.

[ThePythonicCow]

Drudge takes the bait and Rush follows.

That Rush would follow, based on what he states was an article on the front page of Monday's New York Times, is discouraging. I had been willing to give Rush the benefit of the doubt, that he was, as he so readily states (not in these words) a conservative ideologue, following his ideas, wherever they led.

But if Rush hasn't learned by now that the NY Times spins articles to serve its leftist agenda, then he's simply a conservative idiot. He should have gone to the original of the report sent to the United Nations and determined for himself what it said, which apparently was not much different than the Administration said last year on the same subject.

[edger]

I think this argument is a crock. Dubya has folded again. Get used to it, the folds are getting more frequent.

[DB]

Thanks for the ping.

[Tribune7]

bump

[goldstategop]

He folded. You can't put a square into a round hole and I think Andrew Sullivan's attempt to make it sound inconsequential falls flat. Sullivan should stop embarrassing himself for it makes him look like an apologist for the party line. Besides we conservatives don't stoop to personality worship. For me at least, principles matter more than who happens to be in the White House.

[Belial]

Rush is angry because there is now quite a bit of evidence that global warming is caused by humans. Rush isn't interested in the evidence.

[goldstategop]

There is no evidence global warming poses a threat to the environment on the level required to justify the statism envisaged in the Kyoto Treaty. The Bush report is notable for hijacking the worst hysterical rantings of the enviro nazis. Well count me out: I won't allow conservatism to be hijacked in the name of fighting a threat no responsible scientist is sure even exists.

[Mike Darancette]

Sullivan got it right, again.

[Howlin]

I'm sure you do think it's a crock. It doesn't "fit" your agenda, does it?

[Howlin]

OVERHEATED TIMES TWO [Jonathan Adler]
A front-page New York Times story claims that the U.S. government has officially acknowledged the coming greenhouse apocalypse. Last week, the administration submitted the 2002 Climate Action Report to the United Nations. This report summarizes recent national and international syntheses of climate science, and describes some of the "likely" and "possible" impacts of increased emissions of greenhouse gases and resulting climate changes.
As is to be expected from any document produced by the Environmental Protection Agency and Department of State, the report accentuates the negative. (For a more balanced presentation of the science see here and here .) At the same time, however, the report time and again reiterates the uncertainty of climate science. The Times nonetheless opens its story by claiming the report "detail[s] specific and far-reaching effects that it says global warming will inflict on the American environment." Not quite. The report outlines some specific potential scenarios, but it carefully states all of its predictions in probabilistic terms and reiterates the National Academy of Sciences' conclusion that specific predictions about climate change are, as yet, impossible. More importantly, the report notes (and the Times acknowledges) that global warming is likely to increase agricultural and forest productivity and that insofar as some climate change is inevitable, current policies should embrace adaptive measures, not crash energy diets. There's no need to wait to see how the report will be spun. The Times was ready this morning with an editorial calling for congressional action to regulate greenhouse gases. No doubt Senator Jeffords will do his best to oblige.
Posted 9:59 AM | [Link]

[dano1]

To me it seems like good politics for Dubya to leave himself a little room to maneuver on this issue. Michael Kelly had an piece last year saying that the environment was W's Achilles heel. I think he's smart to stake out a more centrist position before the 2004 race gets going. He hasn't really conceded anything, and if it turns out that the electorate and/or the science ends up more dictating stringent measures, Dubya can follow that path now without appearing to waffle during the 2004 campaign.

[goldstategop]

Is that all that matters? Politics? Whatever happened to principle? If President Bush said we have to embrace Big Government and Green Religion, does that mean we have to eschew our deepest convictions for fear we won't get our share of the gravy train? Excuse me Freepers, but I think we should step back and take a long hard look at ourselves. We're in danger of becoming everything that we've fought against.

[dano1]

Perhaps I've missed something here. Has the President actually committed to any specific policy changes? As the Mars stories of last week showed, new information can come out at any time. What if new evidence comes out next year showing global warming to be more serious than previously thought? Can you imagine how that would play during the debates? I think Dubya's is smart to keep his options open.

[Joe Hadenuf]

Good post, but it's already happened for some.....

[Nogbad]

Rush is angry because there is now quite a bit of evidence
that global warming is caused by humans.
Rush isn't interested in the evidence.

What evidence?
My best friend
who has a Ph.D. from Harvard
and has written books about the subject
is not convinced there is any evidence.

[goldstategop]

It's not the policy, its the principle stupid. What's demoralizing to the base is they don't know for certain just where the President stands. I'm prepared to defend the President where he's right, but when he agrees with Al Gore on the environment, I'm drawing the line right then and there. The point is, if the President now implies Kyoto was OK, we might as well have elected Gore in the first place. Its not too much to expect the President to stand up to the enviro nazis and their junk science.