Tag: George W Bush

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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

Categories
Kyoto Protocol United States of America

Feb 14, 2002 – George Bush promises “Clean Skies” to distract from Kyoto-trashing…

On this day, 14th of February, Valentine’s Day 2002, 20 years ago, George W. Bush, the minority US president sent a Valentine’s Day love letter to the future called the “Clean Skies initiative.” And although the wrapping was attractive, the contents were deeply unhealthy. Clean Skies was supposed to solve the political problem created by Bush for Bush when he had pulled the US out of the negotiations around the Kyoto Protocol, and when Cheney (the real Prez?) had tried to kick start, yet more coal fired power plants. Folks weren’t fooled.

Why this matters? 

We need to remember that those in charge of society who got there being elected, or in this case being elected by their mates on the Supreme Court, do not have our best interests at heart. They have been kicking the can down the road, blindly making ridiculous promises based on unproven technologies. 

What happened next? 

Clean Skies was a “failure” if you judge it on reducing pollution. Looked at another way, it was a success, giving enough of an impression of “action” so the issue of air pollution couldn’t be used against him, even had the Democrats been minded to. Bush was reelected, or elected for the first time in 2004, relatively fair and square, if you don’t count, the swiftboating of John Kerry. And the emissions keep rising, the atmospheric concentrations keep rising. The only thing that doesn’t really rise are the viewing stats on this website.

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United States of America

Feb 1, 2007- Jeremy Grantham slams Bush on #climate

On this day in 2007 as the IPCC’s 4th assessment report was about to be released, Jeremy Grantham, chairman of a Boston-based fund management company, sent out another of his quarterly letter to clients. It included a commentary on the United States’ policy toward climate change, particularly that of the current administration. 

Its title was “While America Slept, 1982-2006: A Rant on Oil Dependency, Global Warming, and a Love of Feel-Good Data,”

It included the observation that 

“Successive US administrations have taken little interest in either oil substitution or climate change and the current one has even seemed to have a vested interest in the idea that the science of climate change is uncertain.”

David Roberts of Grist called this a “four page assault on US energy policy.”

Given Cheney/Bush’s enthusiasm for coal and oil, and hatred of all things environmental,, it was a fair cop.

Why this matters.

There’s this idea – carefully cultivated and promulgated – that the only people banging on about climate change are Luddites and “leftists.” As Grantham, and others, show, plenty of capitalists can see the nose on their face (n.b. that doesn’t mean capitalism is sustainable).

What happened next?

Grantham has kept it up. In November 2012 he wrote another piece, in Nature, that is well worth your time – “Be persuasive. Be brave. Be arrested (if necessary)”

According to Wikipedia, that source of all reliable information “In August 2019, he dedicated 98% (approximately $1 billion) of his personal wealth to fight climate change. Grantham believes that investing in green technologies, is a profitable investment on the long run, claiming that decarbonizing the economy will be an investing bonanza for those who know it’s coming.[26”
Oh, and he thinks the bubble is about to burst.

Categories
Agnotology Science Scientists United States of America

Jan 29, 2006: Attempts to gag James Hansen revealed

Jan 29

On this day, the New York Times released a report, written by Andy Revkin, about how famed climate scientist James Hansen was being subjected to attempts at gagging him by some of George W Bush’s appointed goons. You can read all about it here. There’s a whole (very good) book about the campaign, called Censoring Science.

Hansen had already been up against this sort of stuff in 1981, when the incoming Reagan administration had cut his funding in retaliation to a previous front page story on the New York Times.

Why this matters? 

Because if scientists, charities, think tanks, civil trade unions, etc, are gagged and silenced, then the public don’t get a real sense of “what’s up” (though by now, it amounts to wilful ignorance, and anyway, information on its own counts for nothing). This is all part of the long war against impact science, usually by no means exclusively, on the part of the “ right “. You have to remember that when the “left” is in charge, it also doesn’t go particularly well for independently minded scientists.

What happened next

Hansen is still publishing. You can see his Google Scholar page here  because Hansen is in the old Yiddish term, a mensch.