Destroying The World

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. Bush has said that he is pulling the United States out of the 1997 Kyoto Treaty aiming at controlling global warming. This is probably the most reactionary decision by any American administration in recent history. Bush says that he is not prepared to sacrifice economic growth and the American standard of living for the sake of controlling global warming. The Kyoto Treaty put limitations on the emissions of greenhouse gases by power stations, cars and other machines. Over time, this could result in modest but significant increases in electricity charges and car prices. For Bush, it is unacceptable that the American citizen might have to pay slightly more for his electricity or motor vehicle to protect the planet. His decision is incredibly shortsighted. Already the whole world including the USA is feeling the effects of global warming. These effects have a high cost in themselves. We saw this with El Nino in East Africa in 1999 when bridges and roads were washed away by torrential rain. Florida has felt the effect of increasingly ferocious hurricanes resulting from global warming. The USA will also lose arable and residential land as ocean level start to rise through the next century. George W. Bush wants to save pennies today even if it costs him pounds tomorrow. The Kyoto Treaty was probably too little too late but at least the world community had come together to try and bring global warming under control. Now Bush has taken the world's largest contributor of greenhouse gases out of the treaty. Bush may go down in history, if history remains, as the man who destroyed the world. Ends