posted January 27, 2005 12:36 PM            

This week, researchers at Yale and Columbia, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, published its latest index of global environmental stewardship. Out of 146 nations, the United States, the world's richest nation, ranked only 45th for protecting the environment.

This is even more ridiculous based on who is ahead of us. The United States, with a gross domestic product of $37,800, according to the CIA World Handbook, trails Gabon, Peru, Paraguay, Costa Rica, Bolivia, Colombia, Albania, Central African Republic, Panama, Namibia, Russia, Botswana, Papua New Guinea, Malaysia, Congo, Mali, Chile, Bhutan, and Armenia. Those 19 nations all have GDPs of under $10,000, going as low as Bhutan's $1,300, the Central African Republic's $1,100, Mali's $900, and Congo's $700. The average American has 54 times more money in GDP terms than the average person in Congo. Yet the Congolese exhibit better stewardship of the planet.

An angry man in one of America's largest gas-guzzling cars in one of the most chronically congested parts of the city throws some of the nation's most expensive coffee at a working-class woman.

At the same time, we receive yet more evidence how we blow smoke in the face of the world with our pollution and refuse to join the other 136 nations and regional economic groups that signed the international Kyoto agreement on global warming. The incivility at home and arrogance abroad makes for one ugly American.

On environmental stewardship, it is easy to forget that in the 1970s, the United States led the world in cleaning up air pollution, said Marc Levy, associate director of Columbia University's Center for International Earth Science Information Network, one of the authors of the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index. ''Europe was way behind us," Levy said over the telephone yesterday. ''Our big advance in the '70s was clear targets on air quality, with incentives and punishments, putting catalytic converters in cars and smokestack scrubbers in industrial plants. But we pretty much stopped there. In the past 10 years, Europe has passed us and we're 50 percent below most countries over there on average."

Levy said that Europe has vaulted past us with far more strategic efforts to promote rail transportation, reduce coal burning, and recycling solid waste, all of which are stifled in the United States by special-interest lobbying that turns politicians into cowards and wrongfully convinces working-class workers that less pollution means less jobs.

''There is absolutely no reason we cannot move to levels other countries have already shown to be possible," Levy said. ''We don't have to keep filling landfills and churning up the incinerators the way we do.

''The striking thing on the positive side is that we're still not only the world leader but remain far ahead of the rest of the world in the science and technology available to us. If we put our resources to work effectively, we may not only get our own house in order but help alleviate things globally."

Five years ago, poor standings in a pilot version of the index sparked a cabinet-level review of environmental practices in Mexico. In 2002, bad rankings moved the governments of South Korea, the United Arab Emirates, the Philippines, and Belgium to also conduct policy reviews.

Those nations, Levy said, took the index as a ''slap in the face." So far, Levy said, the United States under the Bush administration has shown no interest in the index.

Stewardship, as defined by Bush, was taking a draft report by the Environmental Protection Agency and deleting the part that specifically mentioned vehicle exhaust and industrial pollution as major factors in global warming. In his second inaugural address, Bush talked at length about spreading liberty throughout the world. We can grant no liberty when we enslave the planet to our consumption.

The United States refuses to stop hogging resources. A man in a giant car in a dense neighborhood refuses to accept the result of hogging an illegal space. The United States leads the world in heating up the planet. The man burns a woman's face. Globally and locally, we are creating a fiery place.

posted January 27, 2005 03:38 PM            

Never would have happened if he had been driving an electric golf cart.

I sure hope the prosecutor will charge the right party...the man and not the Hummer.

Bush is never going to sign the Kyoto Treaty and if he did, the US Senate would not vote to ratify it. Clinton already tried that and the Senate rejected it....about 97 to zip, as I recall. Nor should the US ever enter into an unequal treaty that leaves other nations free to pursue courses of action denied to the US.

One thing this leftist reporter failed to mention is that the nations listed in the article would not be subject to the rules the Kyoto Treaty would impose on the US...and other developed nations.

posted January 27, 2005 08:53 PM              

Jwhop, that is so silly - and I think you know it. I think you can usually tell a whole bunch about a person from the sort of car they drive. That Hummer sure says a lot.

I'm not afraid to enter the dreaded and forbidden Generalization Zone. The nature of the man compelled him to buy the Hummer. You know, the sort of man who would park in a loading zone, the sort of man who would throw coffee in a woman's face, the sort of man who feels entitled to choose who runs which country and when, the sort of man who feels the earth is his to rape and pillage and "subdue".

posted January 28, 2005 12:21 AM            

What kind of Democrat would show up at a gathering to talk about the environment, SUV's, global warming, CO2 emissions and then fly off on a private jet?

What kind of Democrat would rail against gas guzzling SUV's and then depart to their mansion with a 23 hole garage or fly off to their 50,000 square foot mansion?

What kind of Democrat would rail about oil companies, drilling on sensitive environmental land and then increase drilling by more than a third on their own environmentally sensitive natural gas holding land?

Personally, I refrain from telling people how they should spend their own money, what they should or should not spend it on and mind my own damn business.....unless they are inclined to rail and rant about the subject in regard to others. In that case, I enjoy pointing out their gross hypocrisy.

posted February 02, 2005 01:34 AM              

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~*~ Cusp: Gemini/Cancer, Cancer rising, Taurus moon ~*~

posted February 02, 2005 01:50 AM            

Aren't you a PC Queen...like the rest of the left leaning weenies of the democrat party?

posted February 02, 2005 02:02 AM              

YOU DON'T LIVE HERE. DON'T EVEN SPEAK ABOUT THINGS U DON'T KNOW.

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~*~ Cusp: Gemini/Cancer, Cancer rising, Taurus moon ~*~