CORPORATE FAT CATS REVOLT AGAINST BUSH GLOBAL WARMING STANCE
More and more members of America’s Corporate elite have seen the future and it scares the hell out of them, so much so that they are now willing to get serious about Global Warming, and to use their positions to effect change.
Among the courageous ones are companies including General Electric Co. and Duke Energy Corp, both of whom have come out in support of national limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions, two factors that scientists say contribute to global warming.
Joining them in this battle are key Republican members of Congress including: Representative Bob Inglis of South Carolina; Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the chairman of the chamber’s Energy Committee; Senator Mike DeWine of Ohio; Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, and Representative Jim Leach of Iowa.
Now whether this new found environmental consciousness is heartfelt or an attempt to placate fundamentalist Christians, recent converts to environmentalism, themselves, is unknown. What is know is that in recent months, many fundamentalists have expressed dissatisfaction with the Republican Party, rightly feeling that they had been abandoned after delivering the numbers at the polls in recent elections.
What is also known is that this pro environment position, regardless of its reason, places these politicians in diametric opposition to the administration, which with it’s “end times” mentality refuses to support any environmental regulations and has gone out of its way to gut those already in place.
Supporting the administration in this task is the Republican controlled House Committee on Resources, which as recently as last week, in a taxpayer funded website, referred to potential environmental calamities as “myths”.
What strikes me as most telling, however, about this website, ironically named EARTH DAY and targeted to coincide with the national day of environmental observance, is that nowhere in it’s slickly produced pages is Global Warming mentioned.
What the site does, and quite effectively I might add, is attempt to discredit the environmental movement by attacking specific organizations and individuals who would have Americans believe anything is wrong with the environment in the United States, labeling said persons / groups as extremists.
While the source of this website’s data is not disclosed, the black hand of oil industry lobbyists is ever present.
What is known is that the issue will most definitely figure in the upcoming midterm and presidential elections.
One politician being mentioned as a candidate for President who has made his position on the environment crystal clear is Senator John McCain of Arizona, the co-sponsor of a bill, which would limit carbon emissions.
While McCain’s bill has failed to pass the Senate in two previous outings and lacks support in the House of Representatives, many in the know believe that it will pass in the not too distant future.
Though not a candidate, former Vice President Al Gore, a long time environmental supporter and author of a key book on the subject, “Earth In The Balance”, believes that it may fall to the Democrats to push the political consensus “across the tipping point”.
Next month, Paramount Pictures is scheduled to release “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary about Gore’s decades long campaign to convince Americans to take global warming seriously.
But, unfortunately, it will take more than a documentary and a handful of conscious politicians to convince many of their Republican counterparts, fat on the largesse of polluting corporations, to see the light and change their stance.
Which means that it is up to you and I the voter to effect change. If the politicians will not change, then it is our duty to change the politicians.
Your life and your health depend on it.
LIB- Editor
