Politics in the real world, where the hatstands are (with apologies to Ravenbait)

[andygates]

Bush, attending the G8 conference, has agreed with the others that climate change is a problem, carbon emmissions are a main driver and that "Global greenhouse gas emissions must stop rising, followed by substantial global emission reductions".  And while green organisations are decrying the lack of numbers or binding detail, everybody seems to be just slightly gobsmacked that Bush, of all people, has gone along with this.  Green-heads in the UK, from a quick straw-poll, expected the existing la-la-la-I'm-not-listening policy to continue until he left office.

Maybe it's just reality catching up with the administration.  Back in 2004 this was ascribed to a Bush aide by Ron Suskind:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Well, the reality-based community may have been sidelined in favour of dogma and ideology, but reality has the trump card.  It really really exists, in the real world where the hatstands are.  And here, when your head comes away from your neck, it's all over.  It doesn't matter a damn how neat your ideology is if the weather's turned batshit.   

Comments

"Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I am, I confess, amazed that he would say such a thing. Less so now that I've examined the statement more carefully, and noticed that he makes no particular call for the US to reduce emissions specifically. I suspect that this means he'll feel entirely justified in the US not reducing admissions by (say) 20% until everyone else on the planet does so first.

Re: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

[thudthwacker.livejournal.com]

...he'll feel entirely justified in the US not reducing admissions...

That should of course read "emissions." The US already doesn't admit anything, so a reduction there would be impossible.

Re: "Reality has a well-known liberal bias."

[andygates.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I was pretty staggered to see it too. I fully expect a pattern where nations don't reduce anything, and trade their obligation away with carbon credits, with any real targets stalled until they can be pushed onto an incoming opponent administration.

[ravenbait.livejournal.com]

Betcha Blair takes credit.

Betcha.

[andygates.livejournal.com]

I ain't taking odds that short.