Bush: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter"

by The Environmentalist Staff

Published by Reuters

George W. Bush's farewell to his G8 counterparts would have sounded like an accusation by environmentalists, had it not come from the U.S. President who made this statement to the stunned G8 leaders:

President George Bush signed off with a defiant farewell over his refusal to accept global climate change targets at his last G8 summit.

As he prepared to fly out from Japan, he told his fellow leaders: "Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter."

President Bush made the private joke in the summit's closing session, senior sources said yesterday. His remarks were taken as a two-fingered salute from the President from Texas who is wedded to the oil industry.

Bush's "in your face" farewell was presented both after the outgoing U.S. president blocked specific numerical targets in the G8's endorsement of a cut in greenhouse gases and after Dr. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Space Science's Institute announced to the G8 that the atmosphere had exceeded safe C02 limits (safe being less than 350ppm; the atmosphere at 385 and rising).

This also comes as the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, while touting his own green "credentials," aligns with oil industry donations in return for his support of offshore drilling; something even McCain acknowledges will not lower gas prices for up to seven years.

And as McCain's (now under the bus) economic adviser, former Texas Senator, Phil Gramm -- whose initial support of the "Enron loophole" while his wife served on the Enron Board not only led to California's manufactured energy crisis, but was what opened the door for oil speculators to push up the price of gas , and whose involvement with UBS Swiss Bank coincided with his push to deregulate the mortgage industry, leading to he current sub-prime housing crisis -- states that the economic woes caused by his own actions are: "whining" by the American people and a "mental" recession.

To which Barack Obama replied:

John McCain's attempts at humor? Not so much, as he jokes about causing the deaths of Iranians through the cigarettes American corporations are exporting to Iran -- some joke -- while pushing for yet another oil war:

Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter?

Perhaps there are one or two others, Mr. President, who should accompany you out the door.