Is Bush Getting Real on Global Warming?

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Is Bush getting real on global warming? It's not too likely, but the Climate Change Science Program may have slipped one by him. The The US Climate Change Science Project for Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005 report published on 8/25/04, acknowledges that greenhouse gases are contributing to global warming. That means that there is official acknowledgement that humans (us) are contributing to the changing climate. This is pretty much counter to the administration's position that humans have anything significant to do with the changing climate. The change in direction was noted by Revkin in his 8/26/04 NY Times article U.S. Report, in Shift, Turns Focus to Greenhouse Gases.

The late nod in the direction of reality is well behind the times. John Schellnhuber of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research (an informative site by the way) presented a briefing on "tipping points." As this was reported by Alex Kirby at the BBC, Schellnhuber presented the finding of 12 critical regions where changes critically affect climate. Changes in these regions influence unstable weather conditions. The regions included the North Atlantic current, West Antarctic Ice Sheet, the Sahara, the Amazon basin, and the Asian monsoon system. Schellnhuber argued that increasing changes in "hot spot" areas could trigger instabilities that have both regional and global climate effects.

While the idea of tipping points (balances in climate and environment that collapse or go wildly unstable) is not new. Schellnhuber's call for more focused research on how hot spots interact and change is. Schellnhuber was speaking at a forum of the International Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (site has nice environmental tracking and modeling information).

While some parts of the Bush administration may be waking up to the realities of global warming, it is not a harbinger of understanding of either science or environmental destruction issues. Throughout his administration, Bush has relaxed industrial pollution standards. Some of the impacts of those changes are coming to roost. This is clear in a report by the EPA (8/25/04) that mercury is tainting fish across the US Since mercury is a heavy metal that is linked to numerous health problems (particularly for pregnant women and children), its spread in the environment reflects backsliding on the efforts to remove it.

Oh well, maybe if George gets another term, he will wake up on other issues as well.

Posted by rowan at August 26, 2004 08:07 AM | TrackBack | Printable Version | [eMail this article!] |