Climate 'Urgency' Takes a Backseat to Progress: Will

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Jul 23, 2009 9:27 AM CDT

(Newser) – At their recent summit, the G8 nations vowed to cut emissions 80% ... within 41 years. That seems like a pretty lethargic response to a so-called “emergency,” but as Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi said, the effort is virtually futile while “5 billion people continue to behave as they have always behaved.” The real problem, writes George Will of the Washington Post, is that they’re behaving—and industrializing—as they never have before.

China and India have made it crystal clear that they’re more concerned with their economic footprints than their ecological ones. By December, when more climate talks kick off, China will have another 14 coal-fired plants. The US, meanwhile, “looks increasingly like someone who bought a closetful of platform shoes and bell-bottom slacks just as disco was dying.”

[Images (2)]

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Family members stand near the entrance to their home, on a hill above a coal mine on the outskirts of Taiyuan, in China's Shanxi province, Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009. (AP Photo/Greg Baker)

In this March 20, 2007 file photo, a man collects coal near a factory in Taiyuan, China. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko, File)

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Skepticism about the evidence that supposedly supports current alarmism about climate change is growing, as is evidence that, whatever the truth about the problem, U.S. actions cannot be significantly ameliorative. - George F. Will

If you do not want to do anything today, promise to do everything tomorrow, which is always a day away. - George Will, on the G-8's promise to cut emissions by 2050

If you're 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you're graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. - Mark Steyn

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