The US government admits for the first time that human activity causes global warming
Andrew Rabkin New York Times
In a sharp departure from the previous positions of the Bush administration, the United States sent a climate report to the United Nations last week, detailing the effects of global warming on the quality of the environment in the United States - in the immediate and long term. The administration states in the report for the first time, that the actions of Humans are to blame for global warming. According to the report, the main culprit lies in the burning of mineral fuels, which emits heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
The report states that the United States will change significantly in the coming decades. It is "very likely", for example, that there will be a disruption in the water supply fed by melting snow, that there will be more heat waves and that the valleys in the Rocky Mountain range and the swamps in the coastal areas will disappear altogether. Despite this, the report does not include a recommendation for any significant change in government policy regarding greenhouse gases.
The report recommends adapting to inevitable changes. It does not recommend immediately reducing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to limit warming - the approach preferred by many environmental protection organizations and countries that accepted the Kyoto Protocol (the climate treaty written during the Clinton administration, and rejected by Bush). The report states that in no way will it be possible to prevent or minimize the environmental damage caused by emissions of carbon dioxide and heat-trapping gases in recent decades.
The predictions of the new report stand in stark contrast to previous statements of
The administration in relation to climate change. In the past, the Bush administration used general statements
and emphasized the need for more research to resolve scientific questions.
In fact, the report distances the administration from companies that produce or depend on fuels
Minerals, such as companies in the automotive industry. Many companies and commercial organizations
They continued to conduct advertising and lobbying campaigns that challenged the validity of the studies
indicating the harmful results of global warming.
It is possible that moving away from the position of these bodies is an effort on Bush's part to improve
his image in the field of environmental protection, following a series of painful defeats to a position that favors energy production over environmental preservation. One of the most notable defeats was Bush's failure to win a majority vote in the Senate vote on the proposal to allow oil exploration in the Arctic Circle National Wildlife Refuge.
Environmental activists do not accept the report's findings. At the end of last week, after it was published on the Internet, private organizations for the environment attacked the report, claiming that it points to a jarring disconnect between the government's findings on the climate question and the proposed solutions.
"The Bush administration now recognizes that global warming will forever change America's unique natural sites and wildlife habitats," said Mark Van Putten, president of the National Wildlife Federation, a private environmental organization. "How can the administration recognize that global warming is a disaster in the making, and yet refuse to help solve the problem, especially when the solutions are so obvious?"
