Here is some pretty stark statements coming directly from the Bush Administration. Why now, in the seventh year of his administration? Why spoil the streak? Wouldn’t a continuation of current policy — delay and denial — have worked for just these last few months of his lame duck administration? Where is Dick Cheney on this?
“Sharon Hays, deputy director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the report did not represent a changed assessment but ‘a rolling up of a whole bunch of reports on the science, showing that climate change of the past 50 years is primarily caused by human activity.’ ” — White House report backs climate change warnings, LA Times, May 30, 2008. (This is a corrected quote, emphasis added)
From the report’s fact sheet: “Studies that rigorously quantify the effect of different external influences on observed changes (attribution studies) conclude that most of the recent global warming is very likely due to human-generated increases in greenhouse gas concentrations.”