Climate crisis politics scare George and Stephen

The resistance to the science that says that the globe confronts a climate crisis is (no pun intended)melting. Even George W. Bush is now rumoured to be planning to make it a central theme of his State of the Union address.

See this post from Kevin Drum, who comments: "Color me massively skeptical. Remember how last year we were addicted to oil? Remember the sweeping changes Bush proposed to deal with that? Me neither."

Update: There is much more in this Daily Kos post.

Of course, the johnny-come-lately environmentalist conservatives are responding not to science, but are swallowing their ideological convictions under public pressure. Thanks goes to the blog Section 15, which found this 2002 story from Now, the weekly Toronto newspaper, about an Ontario Tory reception for the anti-Kyoto Canadian Coalition for Responsible Environmental Solutions:

There were speeches by coalition organizers, and a particularly passionate Ontario energy minister, John Baird, made his anti-Kyoto rallying cry. Needless to say, the audience was very receptive. Baird's parliamentary assistant, Scarborough MPP Steve Gilchrist, who at one time helped block developers' plans for the Oak Ridges Moraine, was busy propping open doors with chairs to give relief to a very hot and stuffy room.

Of course, what's good enough for George Bush must be good enough for Stephen Harper. If North America's two most powerful global warming skeptics are about to change their tune, as cynical and politically driven as it clearly is, the environment might nonetheless get some benefit from it.

The problem for both is that, like any huge policy reversal, it is potentially a source of as much political harm to the two of them, as potential benefit.