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David Ignatius writes a scathing indictment on US politicians' inaction on climate change. I doubt there's any global-warming denier that can hold a candle to the precise description he offers:

Congress is no better. Most members apparently are waiting for permission from lobbyists and campaign contributors before getting serious about climate change. The McCain-Lieberman bill to cap emissions languishes in the Senate; Pete Domenici, the powerful chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, has issued a white paper calling for ideas for legislation, but there's no word when a bill might emerge from his committee. Meanwhile, the Senate environment committee is also claiming jurisdiction. So what we have in the Senate is a turf fight. And don't even talk about the House. Maybe members would get interested if they thought Dubai was behind global warming. ...

And now we come to the Bush administration -- the folks who once warned that it would be folly to wait so long for evidence that the "smoking gun" might be a mushroom cloud. Their spirit of vigilance was applied to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to exist -- but not to climate change, which does. In a meeting in Montreal last December, the chief American delegate, Harlan L. Watson, got so peeved about a proposal for new global "mechanisms" to carry out the 1992 Kyoto Protocol that he walked out. The American side relented after the wording was softened to "opportunities," and there's now at least a hope for future talks about talks about global warming. ...

Usually, America's political antics are forgivable, but not on this issue. As evidence grows that human activity is accelerating dangerous changes in the world's climate, the Bush administration's excuses for inaction are running out. History will not forgive political leaders who failed to act on this issue, and neither should voters.

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