Besides the upcoming U.S. midterm elections there is another reason why the Bush administration would want to announce a policy change on global warming, if they make one, before November. The next United Nations Climate Change Conference is going to be held in Nairobi, Kenya November 6-17. At last year's conference in Montreal, the U.S. played an obstructionist role when the subject of what to do to reduce emissions post-Kyoto (i.e. after the 2008 to 2012 commitment period) came up. If there is going to be a policy change, the U.S. would want to signal it before the UN meeting.

It is good to be very skeptical of the motivations of the Bush administration. However it may be that Bush's most important constituency, the business community, is divided on the global warming issue. The fossil fuel industry is strongly opposed to regulating greenhouse gases and much of the rest of industry accepts the fact that regulations to reduce greenhouse gases are inevitable. The part of industry that thinks regulations are coming would probably prefer to see them come under Bush who would be more sympathetic to them than would a possible Democratic President in 2009.

Yes, Pat, I agree.

President Gore will be bad for the fossil fuel business, including oil and gas.  Rove needs the message that there are Republican alternatives on all issues.

The White House focus is on Iran and the future price of Texas Tea.  Pushing "carbon-free" ethanol will help the message, "we don't need no stinkin' Iranian oil".

I always wondered how ordinary Germans were so unaware of the fascists until it is too late.

John, any chance you have an electronic copy? Or could scan and send to me?

www.grist.org

I briefly perused the above site before I became so outraged by its blatant & willful ignorance, that I had to leave. Unfortunately, some of it "sounds" like sense, if you don't know much (or care much) about science, as is the case for a great many Americans.

In a nutshell,
$2 BILLION to Big Coal, but only $44 million to wind (or to make the point clearer, wind gets 2.22% of what coal gets).

Exploitation of the deep water oil reserves rumored to be in the Gulf - which will take years to develop, cost lots of money (yours & mine in subsidies), and to hell with any risks involved (to human safety, to the environment)

Easing restrictions on refinery-building

AND - NUCLEAR, NUCLEAR, NUCLEAR!  Safe?!? and affordable?!?, pollution free, no green house gases, blah, blah, blah. Sounds OK on paper but  Nuclear is Big Business and Big Business is about profits and cost-cutting and usually quite unethical behavior. And the much touted Yucca Mountain site for storage is not as safe and certain as is claimed.

So it seems that Mr Roberts is right on the Definitely, mainly right on the Probably and as for any real vision or leadership in the next 2 categories, he is again, sadly, on the mark.

I'm sending my copy of The Curve of Blinding Energy by John McPhee to the White House - it's a short book, an easy read for our intellectually challenged president who obviously has no idea just how dangerous nuclear can be in America. (the fact that the Twin Towers is mentioned more than once as a possible terrorist target or  as a measure of scale back in 1975? is eerie and might just get his attention)

Other than that, I hope people will not be fooled by this insincere bid for the votes of the growing numbers of  environmentally concerned citizens and will vote for their planet.