Legacy of Bush

[kaima]

so it starts ... the historians are on the march before the Disaster is out of office ....

The Bush Presidency: The Historians (Start to) Weigh In

By The Editorial Board

The nonprofit History News Network is reporting that in an informal survey of 109 historians, 98.2 percent considered President George W. Bush’s presidency to be a failure, while 1.8 percent called it a success.

On the question of whether he is the worst president in history, there was greater difference of opinion: 61 percent said he was, while others disagreed or are withholding their opinions. (The survey also made clear that James Buchanan has some work to do rehabilitating his whole catapulted-the-nation-into-Civil-War reputation.)

We take most unscientific surveys with a large grain of salt, and this certainly falls into that category. On the other hand, we like the idea of historians starting to think about the George W. Bush presidency, and how it fits into larger patterns of American history.

We’d be interested in knowing more about the 1.8 percent of historians who regard this presidency as a success.

Given the disastrous Iraq War, the sub-prime mortgage meltdown, the economy hurtling toward recession, the huge budget deficits, the plummeting dollar — to name just a few problems — these historians sound a lot like the 20 percent of dentists who don’t recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum.

followed by "350 comments so far... " at

theboard.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/14/the-bush-presidency-the-historians-start-to-weigh-in/

[kaima]

Rather than start a new thread on Bush the environment, I will tack on a German report on the European response to Bush's latest comment on global warming - wait until 2025 ...

from Der Spiegel

Bush Has 'Understood Nothing, Learned Nothing'
Bush's plan for global warming? Wait until 2025. Only then, he said in a Wednesday speech, should the US cap greenhouse gas emissions. Germany is not impressed.
US President George W. Bush is in no hurry when it comes to global warming.
When it comes to global warming, much of the world has been resigned for years to waiting out the end of the George W. Bush presidency. Under Bush, the White House has altered climate change reports, spiked global calls for action and maintained that it would simply be too harmful to the US economy to address the growing dangers of a warming climate.
With just months to go before Bush makes way for his successor, the US president on Wednesday (more...) once again confirmed that waiting for number 44 is the way to go. Bush called for the US to halt the growth of greenhouse gas emissions -- but only in 2025. As the San Jose Mercury News wrote on Thursday: "Allowing emissions to rise for the next 17 years is not a plan; it's an abdication."
Europe, not surprisingly, tends to agree. German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel (more...) called Bush's presentation a "Neanderthal speech," and said it represented "losership, not leadership. European Commissioner of the Environment Stavros Dimas was also critical. "President Bush recognized the need for mandatory federal legislation to tackle climate change," he said. "But what he proposed will not contribute to the effective tackling of climate change."
Others were more receptive of Bush's foray into environmental policy and saw it as a move away from his legacy, which includes steadfast refusal to honor the Kyoto Protocol and leadership of a decidedly conservative Environmental Protection Agency.
"It's good to have something on the table," said Yvo de Boer, head of the UN agency that oversees international climate treaties, including the Kyoto Protocol.
German commentators on Friday weren't in the mood to be quite so generous.
In an editorial headlined "Understood Nothing, Learned Nothing," the center-left Süddeutsche Zeitung writes:
"For the first time, Bush has concretely said what the world's most dominant industrialized nation will do in the future to address global warming. His solution can be condensed into two words: absolutely nothing."
"That's a slap in the face to every citizen, local government and industry trade group -- including a growing number in America -- working to preserve the Earth's atmosphere. And it’s a mockery of those nations that have set climate protection goals, as well as a free pass for developing countries that have refused to sign a binding international treaty on climate protection."
"Far more important to climate protection than the year 2025 is the fall of 2008, when America will elect a new president. Whoever wins the election, it can only be a good thing for the atmosphere of the Earth."
The center-right Frankfruter Allgemeine Zeitung writes:
"America's president stayed true to himself. What's new about Bush's climate protection announcement is the definite deadline that greenhouse gas emissions must not climb after 2025. But Bush could not bring himself to comply with a broader agreement on emissions caps or carbon trading."
"If Bush's plan has a redeeming quality, then perhaps it's his insistence that climate protection occur without losing sight of economic goals. Indeed, the experience of the EU shows that a poorly conceived emissions trading scheme can be more trouble than it's worth."

www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,548288,00.html

[Atlantis5]

Kai certainly holds my fullest agreement on this issue. It is both of a monetary issue, but this is our world, it is all we have that we must share with.

I think perhaps it was best visioned as the motto of the UN {Agenda 21}-{Think Global, Act Local}

www.germany.info/relaunch/business/new/bus_Climate_LocalGlobal_04_2008.html

With this: For some years of now, wind generation equipment has been shipped to the US as a sharing of technology in as much as to new generation solar cell units. All to be manufactured in the US using those units as pilot units for reproducing and improvement in re-engineering.

It may be argued that for why of developed industrial countries to risk high investment in emissions reduction whilst that of countries as of China, 3rd world countries in South America and Africa care less and emit an enormous amount of industrial wast into the atmosphere, in self, making a mockery of the efforts of others. A very blatant example is that of the slash and burn practices currant in Brazil. Much due to forest and jungle clearing for mineral/cutting of large trees for the valuable lumber.

The slash and burn clearing method is widely practiced by the small farmers for land use of generally 3-4 years, then they move on as the soil is worn out for crops, and of the miners for gold using placer mining techniques {high pressure water used to blow off the surface soil to gain access to mineral deposits such as free gold}.

I am not a mind reader, but this suspicion arrives to my mind as perhaps this is a reason Mr. Bush {president} is using in thought and mind set, not sure. For it is true, each effert will drain off most any industry profit margin from the top.

But non-the-less, it is up us as people/our respective governments to show the leadership with development and use of technology to use as tools to solve these issues as a technical problem.

Charles

[kaima]

we forgot history

[Jaga]

+++We’d be interested in knowing more about the 1.8 percent of historians who regard this presidency as a success.+++

these historians are either FoxNews contributors or working for big corporations