<a href="http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpmck062734168jun06.story?coll=ny%2Dviewpoints%2Dheadlines">U.S. Is Icing Our Warming Report</a> from the <a href="http://www.newsday.com/">New York Newsday</a> talks about a recent report issued by the U.S. federal government about its stance on global warming, the <a href="http://www.epa.gov/globalwarming/publications/car/">Climate Action Report 2002</a>. In it, the U.S. government finally admits <iq>what every other important institution in the world has long insisted: that global warming will wreak massive damage on every corner of the planet.</iq> However, the logic of the U.S. empire being what it is, this does not lead to a call for curtailing of activity that leads to global warming. No, you see, according to the report, the <iq>U.S. production of greenhouse gases will rise 43 percent by 2020</iq>. Why? Well, their admission of global warming is not half-hearted. In fact, now, <iq>the administration insists that it is so enormous that very little can be done about it</iq>. So, if you can't do anything about it, you might as well just keep doing it and do it with gusto. <bq>It's as if a drunk had finally hit bottom, announced ... that he was an alcoholic and that it was destroying his life - and then said that his plan was to drink three bottles a night from now on instead of two ...</bq> The U.S. is Nicolas Cage in <a href="http://us.imdb.com/Title?0113627">Leaving Las Vegas</a>. After all, we can't change our energy policy now or risk damaging energy company profits, not with a weakening economy and all of these terrorists to fight. Wave your little flags, pull on your gas masks, build your seawalls and slather on that SPF 100 sun cream, we've got to pull together to fight the good fight! What's that? What are we fighting for? Our freedoms! The freedom to drive a tank to work, the freedom to make policy decisions that keep profits flowing for enormous U.S. corporations even when the economy is in recession, the freedom to think in the short-term and make decisions for the entire planet because they don't matter because they aren't Americans. As the article goes on to note, this is a sound policy decision. The continued strident claims that global warming was not <i>proven</i> were growing increasingly laughable to more and more people, even in the U.S. However, the Bush administration could never back away from this claim because they're so strongly vested in energy interests. Note that the report contains an admission, but doesn't change the policy at all. It sleazily concedes the point, then concedes it with such gusto so that there is nothing to be done about it. <bq>As "a senior administration official" explained to reporters, "policies on emissions or international treaties" would not change as a result of the new admissions.</bq> Of course, this is a sound policy decision only in the context of having no morals or ethics. It's the same logic used by criminals, no? Justifying further crime because of the deleterious effects of previous crimes? The implication of the report, that the administration gladly accepts wide-spread ecological disaster in order not to have to change any policy in the short term, is breathtaking in its gall. After all, building seawalls around major U.S. cities will contribute handsomely to the GDP, so, you see, capitalism (and neoliberal economics) works. And think of all the sun-cream and gas masks to sell to city dwellers. This is the logic of the rulers of the world. He mentions that <iq>We pour a quarter of the world's greenhouse gases into the atmosphere already, and with each year that passes our stance makes everyone else angrier ... [a]nd the rest of the world simply won't stand for it.</iq> That remains to be seen. The rest of the world won't want to stand for it, but really, what can they do? Who's going to tell the U.S. empire what to do? The U.S. pumps out one-quarter of the world's CO₂, one-half of the world's garbage and uses about a quarter of the world's energy. What are you going to do about it? Huh? I thought so.