Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?

The bullies in the White House, it appears. This week in Montreal, the Bush administration’s approach to global warming became increasingly embarrassing. Indeed, to much of the world the U.S. is in danger of resembling a third-world despotism in which the government’s legitimacy runs only as far as the nearest international airport.

 

Things were already going sour when the U.S. delegation refused to allow discussion of the proposal the Bush administration has put forward on global warming. But early this week it turned out that the effective nerve center of American diplomacy on global warming was not the State Department in Foggy Bottom, D.C., but Exxon-Mobil headquarters in Irving, Texas. On Monday the Washington Post revealed that Harlan Watson, the head of the U.S. delegation, had actually been nominated for his role very early in the Bush administration — by Exxon-Mobil itself. According to the Post, the oil company suggested to House Speaker Dennis Hastert that Republicans “make Watson, who at the time worked for the House Science Committee — ‘available to work with the team’ of Americans attending international climate change meetings.’”

sierraclub