Jan. 19, 2006 - 19:54 MST

UNDERWATER

What is the old saw ? Too soon old, too late smart." Or some words to that effect. There is an article in this mornings Rocky Mountain News by John Heilprin of The Associated Press which talks about a group of people who should and probably are in the know on things as they are and probably will be if things are not changed in the world. In full then:

EX-EPA CHIEFS BERATE BUSH ON WARMING

WASHINGTON --- "Six former heads of the Environmental Protection Agency -- five Republicans and one Democrat -- accused the Bush administration Wednesday of neglecting global warming and other environmental problems."

"I don't think there's a commitment in this administration," said Bill Rukelshaus, who was EPA's first administrator when the agency opened in 1970 under President Nixon. He led again under President Reagan in the 1980s."

"Russel Train, who succeeded Ruckelshaus in the Nixon and Ford administrations, said slowing the growth of '"greenhouse" gases isn't enough, "We need leadership, and I don't think we're getting it," he said at an EPA-sponsored symposium centered on the agency's 35th anniversary. "To sit back and just push it away and say we'll deal with it sometime down the road is dishonest to the people and self-destructive."

"All of the former administrators raised their hands when EPA's current chief, Stephen Johnson, asked whether they believe global warming is a real problem, and again when he asked whether humans bear significant blame."

"Agency heads during five Republican administrations, including the current one, criticized the Bush White House for what they described as a failure of leadership."

"Defending his boss, Johnson said the current administration has spent $20 billion on research and technology to combat climate change after President Bush rejected mandatory controls on carbon dioxide, the chief gas blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere like a greenhouse."

"Bush also kept the United States out of the Kyoto international treaty to reduce greenhouse gases globally, saying it would harm the U.S. economy, after many of the accord's terms were negotiated by the Clinton administration."

"I know from the president on down, he is committed," Johnson said. "And certainly his charge to me was, and certainly our team has heard it: "I want you to accelerate the pace of environmental protection. I want you to maintain our economic competitiveness.' and that's what it's all about."

"His predecessors disagreed. Lee Thomas, Ruckelshaus' successor in the Regan administration, said that, "if the United States doesn't deal with those kinds of issues in a leadershlip role, they're not going to get dealt with. So I'm very concerned about this country and this agency."

"Bill Reilly, EPA administrator under the first President Bush, agreed.

"The time will come when we will address seriously the problem of climate change, and this is the agency that's best equipped to anticipate it," he said."

"Christie Whitman, the first of three EPA administrators in the current Bush administration, said people obviously are having "an enormous impact," on the earth's warming."

"You'd need to be in a hole somewhere to think that the amount of change that we have imposed on land, and the way we've handled deforestation, farming practises, development, and what we are putting in the air, isn't exacerbating what is probably a natural trend," she said. "But this is worse, and it's getting worse."

"Three former administrators did not attend Wednesday's event: Mike Leavitt, now secretary of health and human services; Doug Costle, who was in the Carter administration; and Anne Burford, a Regan appointee who died last year."

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All these different people, different organizations, different nationalities, Republicans and/or Democrats and EPA to boot all seem to agree on two things,

1. - We have a problem.

Nobody seems to be willing or able to predict how big the problem is or how fast that problem will grow.

Mr.Bush seems to fear that if he agrees to controls it will harm our economy (now), but apparently doesn't want to look ahead and see the harm to our and the worlds economy, welfare and pure survival if a measure of control isn't used.

I am somewhat suspicious of the aim of the research he has instigated, is he trying to come up with (?)facts(?) that indicate there is no worry ?

So why worry about the stinking thing, until Washington, D.C. is UNDERWATER . . . . . . . . . . . .

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