No Free Rides: President Bush -- remember him? -- had some interesting things to say about climate change and related matters at an International Renewable Energy Conference in Washington yesterday.

 

Bush said the U.S. must "get off oil" to lessen our dependence on foreign suppliers. He touted his administration's efforts to increase the use of renewable energy sources. And he talked about the ongoing international talks aimed at creating a multinational agreement to counteract climate change.

 

Here's a key passage from the Associated Press report on Bush's address:

 

Many nations want firm -- and big -- greenhouse gas emission-reduction targets that are mandatory, but Bush has opposed that. He favors voluntary targets set by each country for itself and steep reliance on burgeoning energy-efficient technologies to get there. Bush also insists that developing countries like China and India that are growing energy guzzlers be subject to any agreement.

 

We doubt the honor system would work in this case. But we agree that the big guzzlers must be brought to the table, dragged kicking and screaming if need be. The exercise will be pointless if the top energy users aren't required to participate fully in the process.

 

Something In The Air: Weather Channel founder John Coleman has proposed suing Al Gore and others who advocate the sale of carbon credits and who perpetuate what he sees as the great hoax surrounding global warming.

 

"That lawsuit would get so much media attention," Coleman said at a conference on climate change yesterday in New York City. "And as the experts went to the media stand to testify, I feel like that could become the vehicle to finally put some light on the fraud of global warming."

 

Media attention today comes in many varieties. At one end of the spectrum lies serious, real news -- unfortunately a fast-shrinking slice of the mass media pie. At the other end lies the carnival sideshow: "Let's see who can talk loudest and say the nuttiest stuff to grab the spotlight."

 

If Coleman were to proceed with this litigation stunt, I believe he might end up getting more of the latter type of media attention than he bargained for.

 

Pete Fehrenbach is managing editor of Waste News. Past installments of this column are collected in the Inbox archive.

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