Bush or Obama: Who is the real climate hero?

Posted on: August 15, 2010

Many of us have been following the unfortunate turn of events that have befallen climate change legislation in the US Senate this summer. The Senate energy bill has been delayed to a fall vote and will be a shell of the original cap and trade bills passed by the House and tabled by Kerry/Lieberman. Even renewable energy standards have been axed. It seems like a good time to pose a question about the influence of the current and former presidential administrations in dealing with the issue of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

President Obama has been talking about the need for a strong federal plan on climate change since taking office and certainly can’t be accused of ignoring the issue. Yet most of us would agree that it hasn’t translated into any concrete action.

And President Bush? One of the areas where he was most scorned during his tenure was the environment. This is due in large part to his administration’s ignorance of the climate change issue. Indeed his unwillingness to deal with climate change, or even to admit that it exists, is one of the main reasons that President Bush was vilified by most people that consider themselves to be environmentally aware. 

Only time will tell how history will perceive these two men in terms of their environmental legacy. I would like to pose a question that might not sit well with many of my eco-minded colleagues: Was President Bush’s ignorance and outright refusal to act on climate change actually a positive thing?

President Bush’s inaction on climate change left no question in people’s minds – if anything was going to happen it would be done at the state or multi-state level. While shockingly short-sighted of the President Bush to ignore climate change, at least it was such a strong refusal to address the issue that there was absolutely no uncertainty that other levels of government would have pick up the slack. President Bush’s inactions spurred a number of regional initiatives across the country (RGGI, WCI, to name a few) that have been embraced across state lines and even international boundaries.

This is in no way an endorsement of the Bush method - obviously it would have been better to have had strong support from the White House several years ago. But at least Bush made it clear that he wasn’t going to deal with greenhouse gas emissions, and that left the door open for others to take the lead. Given the difficulty in getting anything passed in today’s bipartisan Congress, we might actually look back to the Bush years as the golden age of climate change progress (although I certainly hope this isn’t the case).