As the World Burns
Commentary: Long ago, in a decade far, far away, the Bush plan on global warming begins to take shape....
|
|
President Bush has called for a decade of additional research on global warming, but needs more time to decide which decade it will be, assistants to the president announced today. So far, 2060-2070 "looks nice," said one insider, though other decades have not been ruled out. "We don't want to pick just any old decade," the source continued, perspiration beading on his forehead. "Finding just the right decade for this type of in-depth climate research might take as long as 10 years."
Privately the White House expressed regret that the decade from 1790 to 1800 is past, and thus not able to be a part of their plans. In other respects, it would be an ideal decade for the purposes of research into climate change. Most of the Founding Fathers were still alive then, and with the Revolutionary War over and much of the work on the U.S. Constitution completed, they had free time. The thought of all that talent being brought to bear on the problem is indeed exciting, as the White House likes to remind critics. President Bush himself is known to have a special fondness for many of the years between 1790 and 1800, particularly 1797, and he has asked his tech staff if anything can be done to get us there. Advances in time travel, or at least in movies about time travel, offer some possibilities, but for now those solutions aren't feasible for political reasons. Inquiries on this subject went unanswered by the White House press office, which had closed early in the February heat.
Other members of the Bush administration who have the president's ear on energy matters refused to give out any information, including where the ear is kept when not in use. They have argued, so far successfully, that that is nobody's business, not even their own. In several recent off-the-record interviews they told the media that an excellent job is being done on national energy policy, now go away. Someone who sometimes delivers their take-out barbecue says he's seen them working really hard, but adds, "Who can formulate policy, or even think, when it's s'dang hot like it's been?" According to an individual who knows this delivery person, he believes the whole process of deciding when we might want to start thinking about global warming would function better if we didn't rush around so, but just laid out by the pool and let the ideas come.
Photo: AP/Wide World Photos
