TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/110689/p59

Text File | 1990-09-22 | 4KB | 65 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.