Global whoops

You would have thought -- from the way the Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy (also known as the media elite) reacted -- that President George W. Bush had violated last week a sacred pledge made to the American people during the campaign. He didn’t, of course, but the VLWC newsies would have you believe that Candidate Bush swore an oath -- "Read My Lips! No New Carbon Dioxide." And that he had violated that oath last week by declaring that, in developing and implementing a comprehensive energy strategy, he had no intention of restricting the use of clean-burning, non-polluting, hydrocarbon fuels.

Of course the VLWC charge of treason didn’t fly with the American people, for the good and sufficient reasons outlined below. But, you might wonder why the VLWC even tried to make the charge fly. Well, rumor has it that Dubya’s father lost in 1992 because he broke his "Read My Lips: No New Taxes" vow to the American people. The VLWC newsies decided to cast Dubya in the role of the 'none-too-bright chip off the old block' who couldn’t even keep sacred vows for four weeks, much less four years. (Rumor also has it that President George W. Bush keeps on his desk a bust of Ike, who, according to the VLWC, is another of our 'none-too-bright' presidents.)

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What was the occasion for making the charge of treason? Well, first President Bush’s Environmental Protection Agency Administrator announced that she would go ahead and enforce regulations -- developed in the Clinton-Gore Administration -- on diesel fuel that were designed to reduce man’s contributions of "pollutants" to the atmosphere.

That’s cool. We ought to limit the amount of pollutants -- such as sulfur dioxide -- we put into the air that all trees and tree-huggers have to breathe. Diesel fuel -- and coal -- frequently come to us with lots of sulfur included. We ought to remove it -- preferably before we burn it so that we don’t make the pollutants in the first place. But, if we can’t do that, then remove it after we burn it so that it doesn’t pollute the air we and the trees have to breathe.

However, EPA Administrator Whitman went on to say that the Bush-Cheney Administration intended to pursue a "multi-pollutant strategy" which would include carbon dioxide among the "pollutants" EPA would regulate.

It has, no doubt, come as a great surprise to trees -- as well as to tree-huggers -- that the EPA considers carbon dioxide to be a pollutant. After all, carbon dioxide is to a tree what oxygen is to a tree-hugger. Every school child who got out of school before Clinton-Gore came to power knows that. (There is no telling what school children are taught, now.)

Surely, you say, it was a simple mistake to have included the gas that trees depend upon for their very life among the EPA list of pollutants. Surely, you say, EPA Administrator Whitman meant to say 'carbon monoxide,' the gas you get from the incomplete combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. You breathe enough carbon monoxide and it will kill you dead. (That happens, for example, in winter in cabins when a window isn’t left open so that a gas or wood stove in the room can get enough oxygen to make carbon dioxide for the trees and makes carbon monoxide, instead.)

But, no, she meant what she said. One goal of her proposed "multi-pollutant" reduction strategy would be to "meet the demands" placed upon us by the Kyoto Global Warming Protocols of Algore. Furthermore, she claimed, Candidate Bush had made it very clear during the campaign that he, too, considered carbon dioxide to be a pollutant that needed regulating.

As proof, the VLWC newsies unearthed a speech given by Candidate Bush on September 29, 2000 wherein he promised he would develop "A Comprehensive National Energy Policy". He promised that he would -- as president -- "work to make our air cleaner" and "with the help of Congress, environmental groups and industry, we will require all power plants to meet clean air standards in order to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and carbon dioxide within a reasonable period of time."

This inclusion of carbon dioxide in a list of atmospheric pollutants is the VLWC 'smoking gun.' This is their proof positive that Candidate Bush looked the American people squarely in the eye and promised "Read My Lips! No New Carbon Dioxide!" This is the sacred pact made last year by Candidate Bush that the VLWC charges President Bush has now violated after barely four weeks in office.

Come on.

Any school child -- who got out of school before Clinton-Gore came to power -- can see that Dubya was talking about producing all the energy we need, while at the same time improving air quality, for tree-huggers as well as trees. There is nothing in that speech or in any other pronouncement of Candidate Bush -- if there were, the VLWC newsies would have found it -- that suggests that President Bush is committed to reducing the use of hydrocarbon fuels so as to "meet the demands" placed upon us by the Kyoto Global Warming Protocols of Algore.

Now, it is true that the Clinton-Gore EPA had been trying for years to get carbon dioxide included on their list of "pollutants." Why? Because they wanted to regulate it, to prohibit the rest of us from making carbon dioxide, by breathing, or driving our SUVs or heating our cabins in winter. If they couldn’t get carbon dioxide on that list, then Carol Browner couldn’t help Algore get elected and couldn’t help President Clinton deliver on his promise to abide by the Kyoto Global Warming Protocols no matter what the US Senate did. But then the roof fell in on Browner and the Greenies. George W. Bush won.

Rats. All that conspiracy and deviousness and hard work for naught.

But maybe not. Maybe they could slip carbon dioxide in as a pollutant in the President’s inaugural address or in his first address to Congress, the same way someone inadvertently (or deliberately) slipped it into Candidate Bush’s speech last year, when he was outlining his Comprehensive National Energy Policy.

Well, double rats. Someone caught the insertion and took it out.

Then, to make sure that there was no doubt as to his intentions, the president sent several letters to various Congressmen wherein he noted that carbon dioxide "was not a pollutant," that the EPA, therefore, had no authority to regulate carbon dioxide emissions and, furthermore, he would not seek legislative caps on carbon dioxide emissions to comply with the Kyoto Protocols because of the "incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change."

Rats, rats, rats.

But, for our own amusement, let’s just consider the consequences of success by the Greenies -- Carol Browner, Algore and various moles still buried at EPA -- in getting carbon dioxide listed as a "pollutant." (Don't you find it amusing that one of the chief Greenies is named Browner? Is that an alias? Is her name really Greener?)

We animals are completely dependent upon plant life. You recall that all life -- plant and animal life -- is dependant upon proteins, which are made up by the cells in your body of long strings of amino acids. There are only about 20 different amino acids, in use by all forms of life, and only plants can make them from scratch. Animals can’t make any of the 20 different amino acids from scratch. That is, all animals depend upon plants to make the amino acids from which animal and vegetable proteins are constructed. (Genes, made of our DNA, 'code' for proteins -- the DNA 'genetic code' of plants and animals is structurally the same, differing only in the genes contained, and we have many genes in common with plants and bacteria.) In order for you to get the amino acids you need to build the proteins (muscles, tissue, skin, hair, hormones, enzymes, etc.) you need, you have to either eat plants (fruits, vegetables, legumes, etc.) or eat another animal that has already eaten plants.

How do plants make the 20 different amino acids so critical to all life on this planet? Well, they take carbon dioxide and nitrogen out of the air and, with the aid of a little sunlight, they somehow manage. (We’re not quite sure how they do it, and there are no industrial amino acid plants.) In the process of cleverly making the amino acids that both animals and plants need, the plants give off oxygen as a waste byproduct. Oxygen! That’s just what we need to breathe! No wonder some of us want to hug all the trees and leave them standing. (We don’t feel the same way about corn stalks.) Not only do they make all these nifty amino acids, but they feed us oxygen for dessert.

Until Algore and Carol Browner came along, we all returned the favor to the plants. We breathe in all that oxygen they make for us, use it to make proteins from the amino acids we get from the veggies, and then breathe out our own waste byproduct -- carbon dioxide! But, that’s exactly what the trees need to breathe. No wonder the trees allow us to hug them. (With cornstalks, it may be different story.)

So there you have it. Algore and the Greenies hate you soccer moms and your SUVs so much that they are willing to suffocate the trees in order to put out your lights, literally and figuratively. But President Bush isn’t buying any of that. Bush is on your side. All of you trees -- and some of you tree-huggers -- might remember that the next time there’s an election.