TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/110689/p59

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 3.7 KB | 73 lines

                                                                                WORLD, Page 59

America Abroad

Why Bush Should Sweat


By Strobe Talbott


    When George Bush proclaimed himself the environmentalist
candidate in an outdoor campaign speech on Aug. 31, 1988, he
had to mop his brow several times as he spoke. Last year was
the hottest ever recorded, spurring a debate among scientists
as to whether the mercury was registering proof of the "green
house effect." Carbon dioxide and other chemicals are spewed
into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels like coal and
gasoline; the gases trap radiation that has come from the sun
and that would otherwise escape into space. The result is global
warming: over time, sea levels will rise, droughts and floods
could become more extreme, and tropical storms may rage more
destructively.

    But Bush's message was reassuring: "Those who think we're
powerless to do anything about the greenhouse effect are
forgetting about the White House effect. As President, I intend
to do something about it." He should be held to that promise not
just by his own countrymen but by the whole world. The U.S.,
with 5% of the earth's population, produces nearly 25% of all
the CO2 from fossil fuels.

    Reducing those emissions by any meaningful degree will
require tough new federal standards for automobile fuel
economy; government-sponsored inducements to make production of
electricity by utilities -- as well as consumption by homes and
businesses -- more efficient; and a major
research-and-development program for alternative sources of
energy. So far, the Bush Administration has not pushed for any
of those measures. Nor has it proposed or endorsed any
legislation mandating cuts in CO2 emissions.

    Energy and transportation policies control what comes out
of a nation's smokestacks and exhaust pipes. Yet there has been
little coordination among the Environmental Protection Agency
and the U.S. Departments of Energy and Transportation.

    In the '88 campaign and in some of his presidential
statements earlier this year, Bush accepted the proposition that
the time to act is now. But the Commerce and Interior
departments have waged constant guerrilla warfare against any
effort to make good on the President's prior commitments.
Meanwhile, the President's chief of staff John Sununu has taken
to questioning aspects of the greenhouse theory. There is room
for debate over the exact magnitude of climate change that will
result from CO2 emissions, but no respectable scientist denies
that if humanity keeps pouring gases into the atmosphere, the
earth will heat up. The U.S. has spent several trillion dollars
over the past 40 years buying insurance against a Soviet nuclear
attack. Global warming, by contrast, is not just a risk but a
certainty. It would be a shame if quibbling and ambivalence on
the part of some Bush aides were to play into the hands of those
who are looking for an excuse to do nothing.

    Next week environmental officials from around the world
will meet in the Netherlands to discuss concerted steps on CO2
emissions. The U.S. will be there, but probably without a
policy. In February the U.S. will be host to an international
conference on climate change in Washington. Bush is expected to
address the conference. The temperature in the hall will
probably be more comfortable than it was when he gave his "I am
an environmentalist" speech in the hot summer of 1988. But
unless he has more to show on the greenhouse effect than
rhetoric, the President should be mopping his brow anyway -- at
least in embarrassment, and perhaps in anxiety for the future
of the planet.