Global warming has been tracked annually by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for the past six years. Apparently global warming is no longer seen as a problem by the Bush administration—or at least not a major problem—because it is not included in the annual report on air pollution trends from the federal government. The New York Times reports the EPA made the decision for two reasons:
- The EPA has already published two other reports on climate this year;
- The annual report is intended to track pollutants and carbon dioxide, which causes global warming and is produced by burning fossil fuels, isn’t a pollutant.
The decision to delete the chapter on global warming was made with the approval of the White House.
Last year President Bush repeatedly linked carbon dioxide to global warming. While favoring voluntary emissions reductions, Bush claims that the evidence is lacking to mandate emissions reductions.
In May, the Bush administration approved a climate report that included more severe projections of the repercussions of global warming. The report was subsequently edited to “emphasize scientific uncertainty about the effects of global warming,” according to the Times report.
The policy appears to be that if we ignore global warming it will go away. It won’t.
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