alexlockwood.net

Bush, pollution, delusions: did he really say that?

The timing of these two stories was interesting. First, George Bush reported as signing off from the G8 with the line: ‘Goodbye from the world’s biggest polluter‘. Picked up the Independent, Telegraph and across the blogs; Climate Progress or, perhaps, the Greenpeace US blog probably says it best:

193 days, 19 hours, 22 minutes until Bush finally stops leading my country.

Can you still suffer from delusions of grandeur even if you have legitimate claim to being the most powerful individual, within the foremost institution, on the planet? As others have pointed out, the reason why the U.S. has not acted on climate change could well be to do simply with the fact that George Bush finds it funny. Did it stop there? More »

Tags: Bush, climate change, G8, media reporting

Scrapheap Kyoto, Failures in leadership at G8

Back in 2005 I analysed Kyoto as a document of economic privilege rather than environmental protection. Now the G8 statement on climate change is announced with considerable chatter on the margins gaining pace for the scrapping of Kyoto. Some links:

• Global Dashboard: Kicking Kyoto
• Democracy Journal: Nordhaus and Schellenberger say ‘Scrap Kyoto’
• Nature: Gwyn Pryns and Steve Rayner on ‘Time to Ditch Kyoto’

What needs careful watching by the media is that Kyoto is replaced or built on for the right reasons.

Compare this: UK leading the way?
These are some key parts of the G8 statement on climate: More »

Tags: climate change, discourse analysis, environmental coverage, G8, kyoto