Polluter Quotes (2 quotes)
Goodbye from the world's biggest polluter.
Comment ending a private meeting with other world leaders to discuss carbon emissions at his final G8 summit in Japan. As reported in the media, for example, The Daily Telegraph (9 Jul 2008). Senior sources said Bush was making a private joke. According to the Telegraph, “He then punched the air while grinning widely, as the rest of those present including Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy looked on in shock.” It was about six months before his presidential term ended.
Nowadays everyone knows that the US is the world’s biggest polluter, and that with only one 20th of the world’s population it produces a quarter of its greenhouse gas emissions. But the US government, in an abdication of leadership of epic proportions, is refusing to take the problem seriously. … Emissions from the US are up 14% on those in 1990 and are projected to rise by a further 12% over the next decade.
In 'Global Warming is Now a Weapon of Mass Destruction', The Guardian (28 Jul 2003).
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
