Top 6 Science Blunders of the Bush Administration
— so far
1. CO2 The president kicks off the year by reneging on his campaign promise to establish mandatory reduction targets for carbon-dioxide emissions.
2. Kyoto SchmyotoBush goes for the Big One and rejects the Kyoto Protocol, which holds nations to the Rio Treaty signed a decade ago by Bush Senior and calls for a reduction of greenhouse emissions to 1990 levels — the U.S. is currently 12 percent above that figure. Says the Union of Concerned Scientists: “This is the most anti-environmental act of an American president in modern memory.”
3. Seed Banks ForeclosedIn February, a U.S. delegation blocked progress on an international treaty to protect plant genetic diversity in the world’s network of seed banks. What is at stake? Try global food security.
4. Non-Renewable EnergyBush’s fiscal-year 2002 Energy Department budget slashes core funding for renewable-energy research and development by nearly 50 percent — from $376 million to $186 million.
5. Star WarsAs part of rollbacks to pay for the war in Afghanistan, the administration proposes substantial cuts to the Smithsonian’s budget, including a proposal to radically alter or even eliminate the 111-year-old Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, site of some of the most spectacular discoveries about stars and galaxies.
6. Got Gas? The administration proposes opening up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for oil and gas drilling as part of its new energy strategy. Presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer: “The president believes that [high energy consumption] is an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.”
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