Bush and Global Warming: Stronger Voices Join the Chorus

Published on Saturday, January 21, 2006 by the Philadelphia Inquirer
Editorial

The message to the Bush administration on global warming couldn't be clearer: Do something.

Since 2001, climatologists, environmentalists, economists, world leaders, governors, senators and business executives have been begging President Bush for something more than another study or voluntary cutbacks by industry on greenhouse-gas emissions, which trap atmospheric heat and warm the Earth.

Rising surface temperatures are melting ice caps, raising sea levels, and hurting plants and animals in ways scientists predict will increasingly endanger human health. A study published in last week's journal Nature documents the first species believed to have been wiped out by global warming.

The heat is definitely on.

Joining the chorus for action this week were six former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency dating to William D. Ruckelshaus, the agency's first leader, who served President Richard Nixon.

During a discussion Wednesday celebrating the 35th anniversary of the EPA, five Republicans and one Democrat agreed: Global warming is real and getting worse. The United States should stop ignoring it.

William K. Reilly, who served President George H.W. Bush, called remaining skeptics "outliers." He demanded remedies - such as energy-efficiency incentives or mandatory emissions reductions - instead of more hot air about the validity of climate science.

Global warming is rising on Congress' agenda, thanks to influential advocacy from senators including John McCain (R., Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D., Conn.). But key committee chairmen such as James Inhofe (R., Okla.), who once termed global warming a "hoax," still block most good ideas. Last year, Inhofe called novelist Michael Crichton, father of the "techno-thriller," as an "expert" witness. A medical degree and well-footnoted fiction don't qualify Crichton to advise Congress on protecting the atmosphere.

Other countries are acting aggressively to reduce man-made contributions to warming. They're wisely heeding scientists' warnings that the ill effects of climate change will only accelerate the longer humans tarry.

It's time Congress and Bush likewise listened to the chorus

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