On Jan 26, 10:23 am, hummingbird <RHBIYDTNP...@spammotel.com> wrote:

Bush is still in denial according to US environmentalists
...but at least he's looking after the American 'way of life'.

==========

"There is no revolution in global warming policy in anything the
President is proposing, no matter how the White House tries to spin
it," said Philip Clapp, the president of the National Environmental
Trust. "The numbers are calculated to sound big and impressive but
the President is being just as intransigent on global warming as he is
on Iraq,

And you need read no further! Iraq has no connection whatsoever with
global warming. What mention of this question does betray is the
weaving of a political agenda into an important issue.

Both the National Environmental Trust Natural Resources Defence Council
(below) are "Donate now and save the planet setups".

http://www.nrdc.org/

http://www.net.org/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=29175

As such they have little if anything to offer on this question. In
addition they tend to be infested with political activists of
inappropriate qualifications who distort the issues and divert their
associations energies and resources in inaapropriate directions.

At the end of the day, if this issue needs addressing, and it looks as
though it might, then the solutions will come not from organisations
like these, not from politicians but scientists, technolgists and
business enterprises.

These people will function better in a situation where politics (which
resolves nothing) is simply stripped out.

"Wrongheaded approaches would prove counter-productive - we could
end up with somewhat more efficient vehicles running on much dirtier
fuels that further accelerate global warming," said Frances Beinecke,
the president of the Natural Resources Defence Council.
"Turning coal into liquid transportation fuel, for instance, would
generate nearly twice the amount of global-warming pollution that
today's petroleum-based fuels do."

Of course that would depend upon the fate of the greenhouse gases
generated through both processes.

Whatever the case, I might be wrong but I fancy GWB didn't suggest in
his speech the turning of coal into liquid transportation fuel. Perhaps
he leaves such details to those who have a better understanding of such
things. However, GWB made the sppech and so there can be nothing of
merit in it.

"Similarly, producing alternative fuels such as ethanol from wood
chips that come from endangered forests could inflict widespread
ecological damage."

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2183876.ece

Again, it depends. young growing trees fix carbon more efficiently than
do older mature trees which are more prone to depletion through storm
damage and disease. From that time on they release the greenhouse gases
they have fixed back to the environment anyway through the process of
decay, albeit over a period of years perhaps decades.

The fact that timber processing industries produce millions of tons of
waste woodchip and sawdust every year and millions of tons more of
scrap all of which is burned or buried seems not to enter into the
argument. This of course doesn't include yet more millions of tons of
wood and paper products discarded every year.

Again I don't think that GWB is proposing the desecration of eco
sensistive environments. Most forests don't come into that catagory. I
live in a commercial forest. The price of raw timber has fallen through
the floor. To maintain the amenity and indeed ecovalue of such a forest
the timber has to be harvested and re-planted even if at a loss. Such
initiatives could provide a much needed alternative market.

The patronism of such organisations is at times beyond belief in their
claim to exclusive understanding and sole repository of knowledge on
such matters. They must indeed think us very naive indeed to find it
necessary to warn us of such obvious shortcomings.