US experts and environmental activists on Tuesday slammed US President George W. Bush for threatening to veto a far-reaching climate change bill that is before the Senate for debate.
“We have had seven years of President Bush trying to mislead the country about the science of global warming and the urgency of taking action,” Dan Lashof, climate center director at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told a news conference.
“Now he’s trying to mislead the country about the economics of taking action,” Lashof told reporters listening in to the tele-conference, called to mark the publication of a report on how building a green economy in the US would create jobs.
Bush warned on Monday that the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill, which calls for a “cap and trade” system to try to cut emissions in the US, “would impose roughly US$6 trillion of new costs on the American economy,” and threatened to veto it.
“Nay-sayers for taking action now on solving global warming keep pointing to solutions as being a cost to the economy. Nothing could be further from the truth,” Bracken Hendricks, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress think tank, told the news conference.
“It’s critical that all of us question the assumption that global warming is a cost when in fact it represents the future of the US economy,” Hendricks said.
The “cap and trade” system suggested in the climate change bill proposes that companies trade permits, giving them the right to emit a certain amount of pollution, “capped” below current emission levels.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Monday that the climate change bill would have “a devastating impact on the US economy ... and result in massive job losses.”
But the report released on Tuesday pointed in the opposite direction.
“Millions of US workers will benefit from the project of defeating global warming and transforming the United States into a green economy,” it said.
The report highlights a “chance to revitalize this economy with green energy growth,” one of its authors, Bob Pollin, said.
Ignoring the economic opportunities inherent in building a green economy has cost the US its competitive edge and leadership role in developing technology, Hendricks said.
“We’ve seen solar manufacturing and markets taken up by Japan and Germany ... because the United States, which invented solar photovoltaic technology, has had a complete abdication of leadership in building this as a strategic industry,” Hendricks said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not