[Vision2020] NYTimes op-ed 'The Fat Bush Theory'

[Debbie Gray]

April 19, 2008
Op-Ed Columnist\The Fat Bush Theory
By GAIL COLLINS

George W. Bush says we’re on track to meet the
nation’s goals for curbing global warming.

I see some hands waving out there. Didn’t know we had
any goals for curbing global warming? Where were you
in 2002 when the president put us on the road toward
reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 18
percent by 2012?

So there.

Bush held a press conference in the Rose Garden this
week to give us a warming progress report or, in his
words, “share some views on this important issue.” He
almost always refers to global warming as an
environmental “issue.” As The Times’s Andrew Revkin
noted on his blog, Dot Earth, most people talk about
environmental problems. But perhaps the White House
regards that as overly alarmist.

“I’m pleased to say that we remain on track to meet
this goal,” the president said, in a tone that sounded
rather belligerent considering this was supposed to be
good news.

Let’s back up here. I don’t know about you, but I’ve
always had trouble getting my head around goals that
involve reducing the rate at which something is
growing. To appreciate the administration’s efforts on
the, um, issue, let’s try to imagine it in terms other
than greenhouse gas emissions. (As the president
noted: “Climate change involves complicated science.”)

Suppose that two years after taking office, George W.
Bush discovered that because of the stress of his job,
he had gained 40 pounds and was tipping the scales at
220.

The real-world Bush would immediately barricade
himself in the White House gym, refusing all human
contact or nourishment until the issue was resolved.
But imagine that he regarded getting fat as seriously
as he regards melting glaciers, rising oceans and
drought and starvation around the planet. In that
case, he would set a serious, management-type goal —
of, say, an 18 percent reduction in the rate at which
he was gaining weight, to be reached within the next
decade.

Cut to the Rose Garden in 2008 where partial victory
is declared. “Over the past seven years, my
administration has taken a rational, balanced approach
to these serious challenges,” the 332-pound chief
executive announces. He delivers this good news
sitting down.

2012: Bush hits his final goal and 400 pounds at
approximately the same time.

I hope now you can appreciate just how useful the Bush
global-warming initiative is. But the president isn’t
satisfied with merely delivering on his promises. In
his Rose Garden address, he upped the ante, vowing to
stop the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions
entirely by 2025.

Let us forget, for a second, that this is a man who’s
only going to be in office for nine months of the 17
years in question. Furthermore, let us skip lightly
over the fact that Bush did not give any hints
whatsoever as to how this goal is supposed to be
reached except to say that “the wrong way is to raise
taxes, duplicate mandates or demand sudden and drastic
emissions cuts.”

Since the president never suggests actual behavior
changes on the part of American citizens, that leaves
us with what? More efficient refrigerators?

Lots of things! There is, for instance, the ambitious
new fuel economy standard of 35 miles per gallon by
2020; we sure do have a lot to look forward to in the
future, people. There’s new federal spending on
biofuels. Much of this is for ethanol, which has the
unfortunate side effect of creating more greenhouse
gases than it eliminates, and, of course, helping to
create a planetary crisis over rising food costs. But
nothing’s perfect.

The president’s real focus seemed to be on fighting
the strategies for global warming that he doesn’t
like: the Kyoto Protocol, court challenges and
legislation pending in Congress. Almost all of them,
interestingly, were referred to as “problems.”

Instead of Kyoto, the administration is pushing for “a
new process” in which the countries that do most of
the polluting will get together and work on a climate
agreement. That process was in fact chugging along
this very week at a gathering in Paris, where Bush’s
speech was greeted with a round of excited reviews.
Germany’s environment minister, for instance, dubbed
it “losership instead of leadership.”

The Europeans have a perfect right to look down on the
United States since they’ve set much more ambitious
targets for reducing global warming. While they do not
appear to be likely to meet any of them, it’s the
thought that counts.

If the Bush strategy seems a little ... little, go
back to our metaphor. Imagine it’s 2025, and you’ve
got a 486-pound ex-president being wheeled in to
accept the congratulations of the world on his
excellent physical fitness program. Really, that’s
big.

•

Due to a writing error, the reference to the
Democratic candidates ruling out “middle-class tax
cuts” in Thursday’s column should have read
“middle-class tax hikes.”



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