2025, A Bush Odyssey

While I do not think that his Presidency has been a resounding success, I am far from a Bush hater. One of President Bush's weakest areas though, has been in addressing environmental issues. I would sum up his speech last week on the environment as too little too late. I watched the entire speech and it was really President Bush at his worst. I have noticed that for the last few months the President has looked drawn and exhausted. I would not be at all surprised if the last 8 years of challenges, catastrophes, and criticisms have indeed taken their toll on the man. In his speech, the President seemed to ramble on without a clearly defined environmental goal, or any concrete proposals on how we are going to achieve them. President Bush said; “To reach our 2025 goal, we will need to more rapidly slow the growth of power sector greenhouse gas emissions so that they peak within 10 to 15 years and decline thereafter.” This was very disappointing given what the opinion of scientists working for the United Nations recommend. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in a series of reports, warned that the rise in global emissions should be halted by 2015 to prevent global warming’s worst consequences. Bush's plan looks to at least the year 2025 for emissions to peak, and then perhaps another 15 years before they decline. Perhaps the worst part of Bush's proposal, was that he did not clearly define how we would even hit the targets that he just laid out on emissions. A failure to plan is a plan that will fail. It just seems like more Washington lip service.