The crowning achievement of the Bali climate summit is an historic breakthrough compromise whereby the United States of America (presumably with us in tow) agreed to almost nothing except to keep talking. No target dates, not even any targets. Talk, more talk, and we've all seen just how productive talking with holdout nations like Canada and the US can be.
Bush may have botched Afghanistan and made an even more horrible mess of things in Iraq and came within a hair's breadth of setting the rest of the Muslim world on fire but he has succeeded in one thing. He has relentlessly defended Big Oil and Big Coal from any American involvement in carbon treaties. That, kids, is George w. Bush's legacy.
Every keener in law school learns that an agreement to agree is nothing, can't be enforced. It's virtually meaningless. Here we don't even have an agreement to agree, just an agreement to talk to see if we can maybe reach an agreement to agree sometime within the next two years.
Yes, we've all seen this con game played by Washington before. We're told they're going to really do something about this carbon problem real soon, absolutely. That's where Harper and Baird go to get their lines. Here's how you'll know the United States is serious. That'll be the day when they stop blowing the tops off mountains in West Virginia, that's when. But don't hold your breath.
Bush may have botched Afghanistan and made an even more horrible mess of things in Iraq and came within a hair's breadth of setting the rest of the Muslim world on fire but he has succeeded in one thing. He has relentlessly defended Big Oil and Big Coal from any American involvement in carbon treaties. That, kids, is George w. Bush's legacy.
Every keener in law school learns that an agreement to agree is nothing, can't be enforced. It's virtually meaningless. Here we don't even have an agreement to agree, just an agreement to talk to see if we can maybe reach an agreement to agree sometime within the next two years.
Yes, we've all seen this con game played by Washington before. We're told they're going to really do something about this carbon problem real soon, absolutely. That's where Harper and Baird go to get their lines. Here's how you'll know the United States is serious. That'll be the day when they stop blowing the tops off mountains in West Virginia, that's when. But don't hold your breath.
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