Tag: George W Bush

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Denial Science

February 18, 2004 – “An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science”

Twenty years ago, on this day, February 18th, 2004, some scientists tried to expose the George W Bush (actually Cheney) Administration for what it was.

“Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration’s Misuse of Science”- Statement to Bush from 62 preeminent scientists including Nobel laureates, National Medal of Science recipients, former senior advisers to administrations of both parties, numerous members of the National Academy of Sciences, and other well-known researchers

http://www.webexhibits.org/bush/1.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 378ppm. As of 2024 it is 422ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that Bush had pulled out of the negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol, had called for the NAS to do a study and then ignored that study. And was generally being George Bush, aka Dick Cheney’s glove pocket. 

What we learn is that National Academy of Sciences sounds prestigious and powerful, but it has very limited power. They’ve been aware of the potential for climate change since well, at least 1957 when they produced booklets as part of the International Geophysical Year that pointed to it as a possibility. Then lots of research in the 1970s and 1980s… Pleaded with Dubya’s dad, to little (no?) effect. (see January 5,1989 – National Academy of Science tries to chivvy Bush.)

What happened next, Bush won the 2004 election and we had another four years of denial, obfuscation, outright stupidity. It is what it is.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

Also on this day: 

Feb 18, 1978 – “#Climate Experts see a Warming Trend”

February 18, 2011 – Scientist quits advisor role (because ignored on climate?)

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United States of America

May 7, 2001 – The American way of life is non-negotiable. Again.

Twenty two years ago, on this day, May 7, 2001, George “W” Bush’s spokesman was telling the truth.

 “The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy-makers to protect [it]. The American way of life is a blessed one . . . The President also believes that the American people’s use of energy is a reflection of the strength of our economy, of the way of life that the American people have come to enjoy.”

https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/briefings/20010507.htm

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 374ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that George Bush had pulled the US out of the negotiations for the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol. The September 11 attacks were still four months away (Bush basically read about them, was warned about them over the summer and did nowt). 

Anyway, this idea that the American way of life, which is actually about the high hydrocarbon way of life for a minority of people within the US,  – the wealthy, is somehow sacred. It’s fascinating from a theological point of view, prosperity, gospel and all that nonsense. 

See also Bush Snr  “American way of life is non-negotiable” in 1992.

What I think we can learn from this

Humans are very good, at pretending things that give them comfort and power are somehow ordained by a bearded sky god.  It can form a last redoubt of “Oh, you don’t respect my beliefs as a member of the faith-based community?” (Well, no, I’m a member of the reality based community.)

What happened next

Bush continued to shit all over the planet. And in my fantasy, he’s in the next cell along to John Howard, at The Hague to be charged with crimes against humanity and future generations…

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs.

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Media United States of America

March 7, 2001 – CNN unintentionally reveals deep societal norms around democracy

 Twenty two years ago, on this day, March 7, 2001, the US news network CNN showed what is “normal” and what is “bad” in its cosmology, when reporting on old white men in suits versus protests…

7 March 2001 CNN reports on climate protests “marring” (pointless) climate talks – Protests mar climate talks 

https://edition.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/italy/03/03/environment.summit/index.html

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 372.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was that there were  climate negotiations in Italy, at which the Americans were – surprise surprise – basically saying “fuck you.” This was shortly after George Bush was selected as President. 

The Hague negotiations in November 2000 had ended in such a disaster that the meeting wasn’t finally closed. And so with your big Cheney as his vice president, it looks pretty perilous for international climate negotiations.

What I think we can learn from this

What’s important here is the framing that protest activity by civil society would besmirch the nice, cool, rational debates of our lords and masters. Now, if you put it bluntly, the journalist who wrote it, or the sub-editor who wrote it, would either say, “Well, look, it’s just a headline. And we don’t have much space.” They might agree with the point about the politics at a superficial level. But if pushed, they would say “No, why should the mob be able to influence what the smart technocrats are doing?” 

And that hatred of ordinary people, and their involvement is persistent. And it’s the case that if you don’t abide by that, then you don’t get your role as a journalist or as an academic or whatever. 

If you’re interested in this stuff, then obviously, reading Chomsky is a good idea, but also the life and times of Randolph Bourne who died just after World War One. Obviously Gramsci on the power of hegemony. If and how the popular press works, and any number of publications by the Glasgow Media Group etc

What happened next

Bush pulled out of Kyoto, an entirely sane and rational decision “marred” by protest.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

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Agnotology anti-reflexivity Denial United States of America

March 4, 2003 – “Luntz memo” exposes Bush climate strategy 

Twenty years ago, on this day, March 4, 2003, President Bush’s greenwash strategy was revealed in all its steaming glory 

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases.

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science.”

Burkeman, O. 2003. Memo Exposes Bush’s New Greenwash Strategy.  The Guardian, March 4

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 376.6ppm. As of 2023 it is 419ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that George Bush was clearly not going to do anything about climate change. It’s not clear that Al Gore, who actually won the  2000 presidential election, would have either, but there you are. So it became a question of how to position the issue. So-called “perception management.” And the Luntz memo basically says, 

What I think we can learn from this

The battle for the control of the public mind is a never-ending battle. (Or rather, the propagandisation and the attempts to combat it, so that we can have a public sphere not dominated by rich vested interests, is never-ending). And as reality, physical reality, impinges more and more, you’re gonna find more and more people spewing propaganda and more and more people and this is the crux, wanting to believe it. So, this is not brainwashing against resistance. This is going with the grain.

What happened next

Luntz sort of kind of recanted ,in 2019

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/21/frank-luntz-wrong-climate-change-1470653

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

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United States of America

January 29, 2001 – President Bush announces “energy taskforce” #TaskforceAnnouncementGrift

Twenty-two years ago, on this day, January 29 2001, newly-installed President George “Dubya” Bush announces an “energy taskforce”

The National Energy Policy Development Group was a group, created by Executive Order on January 29, 2001, that was chaired by Vice President Richard Cheney. The group, commonly referred to as the “Cheney Energy Task Force,” produced a National Energy Policy report in May 2001. [1] In a cover note to George W. Bush, Cheney wrote that “we have developed a national energy policy designed to help bring together business, government, local communities and citizens to promote dependable, affordable and environmentally sound energy for the future.” [2] (pdf) The composition of the task force, according to the report, was confined to government officials.

https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Cheney_Energy_Task_Force

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 371ppm. As of 2023 it is 419.

The context was that Bush had won the Presidency (if not the actual election – but, you know, details) with the help of his Dad’s mates on the Supreme Court. The power behind the throne, Dick Cheney, was clearly interested in coal and nuclear, not this carbon emissions reductions nonsense.  So, there had to be a process for backtracking on loose talk of regulating carbon emissions that had been made during the campaign. A “taskforce” should do the job…

What I think we can learn from this

Taskforces are absolute catnip to liberals.

They function either as “cooling out the mark” – the way that a promise can be broken (“we consulted independent experts.. Changed circumstances… therefore…”), or as a way of delaying (perhaps indefinitely) any actual ACTION on promises, while offering CV tokens and grin-and-grip opportunities to would-be trouble-makers, who become obsessed with maintaining their spot at the table, rather than actually keeping tabs on what is (not) being done, or building political power outside ‘the Beltway’/’Westminster’ etc.

What happened next

Bush pulled the US out of the Kyoto Protocol negotiations, and started mangling the language in the direction of absurd techno-fantasies. True leadership.

Cheney fought two legal challenges against releasing the records of this Taskforce. Of course he did.

https://www.npr.org/2007/07/18/12067186/cheneys-energy-task-force-records-revealed

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Do comment on this post.

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Australia Kyoto Protocol United States of America

June 11, 1997 – US ambassador says Australia should stop being so awful on #climate

On this day, 25 June, 1997, (25 years ago), the Clinton Administration was making life a little difficult for Prime Minister John Howard, who was sending emissaries around the world in an effort to find allies for his “Australia should get an opt out from this Kyoto thing” position.

According to Johnston and Stokes (1997)

“As late as June 1997, the US Ambassador to Australia, Ms Genta Hawkins Holmes, stated that the US would seek “binding, realistic and achievable” targets at Kyoto; she claimed that Australia should make greater use of renewable energy sources and improve its “relatively inefficient use of hydrocarbon energy.” 

Johnston, W.R.  and Stokes, G. 1997.  Problems in Australian Foreign Policy: January- July 1997. Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol.43(3), pp.293-300.

See also – “Shared Values Drive US-Australia Alliance”. The Australian, 12 June 1997: 

“Ambassador Holmes Gives Elementary Warning on Warming”, Sydney Morning Herald, 12 June 1997.

Why this matters. 

Australian federal governments have usually played a spoiling role in international negotiations (at the behest of powerful fossil fuel companies)

What happened next?

Australia, although diplomatically isolated, got a sweet sweet deal at Kyoto (via good luck and dummy spits).

And then refused to ratify. It was helped in this, enormously, by the selection of George W. Bush as President in 2000.

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UNFCCC United States of America

June 1, 1992 – “environmental extremists” want to shut down the United States, says President Bush

On this day, June 1, 1992, President George H.W. Bush, says that a habitable planet is an extremist demand. 

“We cannot permit the extreme in the environmental movement to shut down the United States. We cannot shut down the lives of many Americans by going extreme on the environment.”

George Bush at UNCED, quoted in the Guardian, 1 June 1992 – 

This idea of the US “way of life” as “non-negotiable, or “sacred” has legs. Nine years later George H.W. Bush’s son, “Dubya” had become President after being selected by the U.S. Supreme Court. At a May 2001 press conference his spokesperson Ari Fleischer had the following exchange:

 Q    Is one of the problems with this, and the entire energy field, American lifestyles?  Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy Americans consume per capita, how much it exceeds any other citizen in any other country in the world, does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?

  MR. FLEISCHER:  That’s a big no.  The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life.  The American way of life is a blessed one. 

Why this matters. 

What is sacred is beyond discussion. It’s a classic “de-agendaising” technique, where if you push the issue, you cast yourself into the outer darkness.

What happened next?

The USA government ratified the UNFCCC at the Rio Earth Summit, and has spent the last 30 years rendering it meaningless, and basically doing the bidding of various fossil fuel lobbies (yes, it is more complicated than that, but not MUCH more complicated).

See also my piece in The Conversation about George HW Bush.

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Predatory delay United States of America

March 13, 2001 – Bush breaks election promise to regulate C02 emissions…

On this day in 2001, George “Dubya” Bush, recently selected as President by the Supreme Court, backed away from a promise to cut emissions he had made on the campaign trail.

,He sends a letter to Senator Jesse Helms and other awful human beings saying that’s what he’s gonna do. This is part of Bush’s awful behaviour at the guidance of Dick Cheney and other turds in the Republican Party, and thanks to their perceived short term self interest, and they thought that the climate problem was illusory or whatever. Here’s stuff from Malto Mildenberger‘s “Carbon Captured: How Business and Labor Control Climate Politics“, which you should read if you’re into all this stuff…

Why this matters. 

“We” coulda fixed this – or at least slowed things down to give our wisdom time to catch up with our knowledge. “We” didn’t.

What happened next?

Bush pulled out of Kyoto shortly after this, and Kyoto limped on, becoming law because the Russians wanted membership of the WTO. Kyoto was ultimately replaced by a “Pledge and Review”.

Categories
anti-reflexivity Denial Predatory delay Propaganda United States of America

March 4, 2003 – Republicans urged to question the scientific consensus…

On this day in March 4 2003, the Luntz memo was exposed. Frank Luntz was a Republican communications PR guru, and his memo advocated continued casting of doubt.

In the words of the Guardian’s reporter

The memo, by the leading Republican consultant Frank Luntz, concedes the party has “lost the environmental communications battle” and urges its politicians to encourage the public in the view that there is no scientific consensus on the dangers of greenhouse gases. 

“The scientific debate is closing [against us] but not yet closed. There is still a window of opportunity to challenge the science,” Mr Luntz writes in the memo, obtained by the Environmental Working Group, a Washington-based campaigning organisation.”

The broader context is that the Bush administration having already reneged on promises to reduce carbon dioxide and pulled the US out of Kyoto needed to continue its perception management, and that’s what Luntz was proposing, as part of the broader war, to keep people in the dark, ignorant, confused, demoralised and it’s been a very successful effort. So here we are.

Why this matters. 

We need to see how “common sense” (in the Gramscian sense) is endlessly confected and defended…

And here’s the memo, btw

LuntzResearch.Memo.pdf (sourcewatch.org)

What happened next?

Luntz changed his tune, but the damage was done. And the emissions continue to climb. 

Categories
Fossil fuels United States of America

Feb 27, 2003 – the “FutureGen” farce begins…

On this day 19 long long years ago George “Dubya” Bush announces “FutureGen”

Anon. 2003. Bush announces billion-dollar energy project. Agence France-Presse, 27 February.

WASHINGTON, Feb 27 (AFP) – President George W. Bush announced Thursday that the United States would lead a 10-year, one-billion- dollar effort to create the world’s coal-based, zero-emissions electricity and hydrogen power plant. [FutureGen]

The context is his resistance to anything that looks like regulation domestically, or international agreements. Still, in order to preserve electability, you have to mutter something about “technology-driven solutions and the like…” And that is pure catnip to people who don’t want to face facts (most folks, most of the time, some folks all of the time).

What happened next?

It failed, got rebranded (“FutureGen 2.0”) and failed again. Wikipedia has a decent article. fwiw.

See also

February 27, 2003: Abraham and Dobriansky announce “FutureGen” | Department of Energy