Amidst frenetic demonstrations, the G8 Summit in Scotland commences with the climate crisis and world poverty at the top of the agenda. The Bush administration is taking a new tack in its approach to global heating, which past experience suggests may be cynical and mendacious, but on the merits it is almost not untrue. Fancy that.
Starting with the positive, G.W. Bush allowed these very words to escape from his oil-based lips: "I recognize that the surface of the Earth is warmer, and that an increase in greenhouse gases caused by humans is contributing to the problem."
The exact proposals Bush will make, and the exact wording of the final communique out of Scotland, are yet to occur. But Bush is urging movement away from fossil fuels, which must be regarded as positive, and suggests a package of financial incentives to encourage alternative energy.
In this, he is partly being just realistic about what businesses are already doing, and perhaps offering them more government welfare to do what they know they have to do anyway. But that's not unprecedented, and the truth is that the attempts to deal with the two main elements of the climate crisis are going to be messy and fractious.
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