EPA admits the problem, refuses to act
A Supreme Court decision from 2007 (PDF here) mandated that the Environmental Protection Agency was required under the Clean Air Act to determine if anthropogenic carbon dioxide represents a threat to human health. In December, the EPA sent an email to the White House outlining its findings; the White House simply refused to open the email, childishly thinking that would make the problem go away.
Yesterday, the EPA finally released that report to the public:
US government scientists have warned of a rising death toll from heat waves, wildfires, disease and smog caused by global warming, in a study the White House repeatedly tried to bury to avoid regulating greenhouse emissions.
In a 149-page analysis released last night, experts for the first time laid out the grave risks that climate change poses to human health, and to the supplies of food, water and energy on which populations depend.
"Risk to human health, society and the environment increases with increases in both the rate and magnitude of climate change," scientists at the Environmental Protection Agency said. In a more absolute pronouncement on the science of climate change than the White House has so far been prepared to accept, they said that global warming was "unequivocal," and that humans were to blame.
Not surprisingly, the EPA intends to stonewall the issue long enough to avoid taking any action until after Bush leaves office; nevertheless, it's astonishing that the EPA has finally dropped its hostility to nearly universal scientific consensus. That counts for at least some progress, although the agency's hypocrisy on the matter is beyond ridiculous, given that they both acknowledge the threat and refuse to do anything about it.
January cannot come soon enough.