Clearly, Gergen had been getting an earful from European business and political leaders on the failure of the U.S. to move forward seriously on greenhouse gas reductions. The Davos meeting, however, yielded a decidedly mixed message on the subject of climate change. John Browne of BP, long considered the greenest of the fossil fuel CEOs, predicted a continued rise in oil consumption for at least the next 10 years and possibly thereafter. And despite the fact that the world leaders gathered at Davos had acknowledged a year earlier that climate change was the greatest threat facing the world, the index apparently assigned the issue relatively little weight compared to other environmental problems. As to how the Bush administration will respond to the climate change challenge, I remain agnostic.
Some names being floated for important climate change posts within the administration provide hope.
Both events show just hard it will be to get real political support for the higher energy prices necessary for the world to break its addiction to fossil fuels. According to a study to be published in the February issue of Current Directions in Psychological Science , a temperature increase of 2 degrees Fahrenheit may result in an additional 24,000 murders and assaults in the U.S. alone. Apparently, numbers of both spousal abuse cases and murders increase as temperatures rise. All rights reserved.