Hurricane Katrina couldn’t force President Bush to say the words "global warming," but a huge storm that has drenched the East Coast just did — thanks to an elm tree dropped in front of the White House.
Interestingly, Bush claimed in a brief statement that he has "consistently said" that global warming is a "serious problem," even though just last fall, according to a book by his adoring biographer Fred Barnes, Bush met with author Michael Crichton and declared himself "a dissenter on the theory of global warming."
Is he readying a climb-down from stage one of the four stages of climate change denialism?
For more, take a look at this devastatingly sharp report by Bill Blakemore of ABCNews. The first three graphs read:
June 26, 2006 — A perfect storm of drenching rain, irony, political rancor, public fear and — at the last minute like a fierce stroke of lightning — word from the highest court in the land, descended on the nation’s capital today.
This storm — pulling in many parts of the global warming emergency — also broke through the White House perimeters and helped bring down a century-old elm tree, laying it across the driveway.
Even President Bush was drawn into the storm this morning, talking about climate change in a way he may find difficult to explain.
If there’s one piece of good news regarding global warming of late, it’s the increasing willingness of the national media to talk bluntly about the issue. More on this soon.
For now, let’s remember this tree for doing what it could to awaken us to the crisis.
Kit Stolz 