Did Bush Seek to Keep Evidence of Global Warming Secret?

by Deb Cupples |  I like reading foreign newspapers' take on American politics.  Via Memeorandum, the Guardian UK reports:

"Graphic images that reveal the devastating impact of global warming in the Arctic have been released by the US military. The photographs, taken by spy satellites over the past decade, confirm that in recent years vast areas in high latitudes have lost their ice cover in summer months.

"The pictures, kept secret by Washington during the presidency of George W Bush, were declassified by the White House last week."

The big question is this: why would the Bush Administration even seek to keep such photos secret?  It's not as though people plotting to stage a homeland attack on the U.S. would establish a base camp in the Arctic circle -- at least not people with brains enough to successfully pull off such an attack.

So, why would our ex-President deprive the American people of what were -- at the very least --  cool pics paid for with our considerable tax dollars?

Comments

[James Stripes]

Part of former President Bush's legacy will always be his tendency to favor policies enabled by junk science from the gaffs of his aides in the Klamath River basin--who knew that salmon needed water--to his miserable failure to support the Kyoto Protocol. Even more remarkable, however: while Bush softened ever so slightly in his resistance to science, his minions have redoubled their efforts to offer distortions of the evidence in order to hinder understanding of climate change.

Had Bush taken positive actions to release these photos, he might have joined Richard Nixon as one of those ultra-conservatives that some ideologues have dubbed RINOs.

[Buck]

Ummm... James. You're a frickin' idjit. Anyone with half a brain could have googled these photos... and more. There was no conspiracy to keep these pics out of the public view, unless one wanted to make it such. As a matter of fact, scientists contesting the "drink-the-kool aid" view on climate change have posted numerous satellite views showing arctic/Antarctic ice has NOT receded in recent years.

Sorry to have to pee in the Holy Water... but it is what it is.

[Mr. Forward]

"UK Guardian Reproduces Fake Barrow Alaska Pic as Proof of Global Warming"
http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2009/07/26/uk-guardian-reproduces-fake-barrow-alaska-pic-as-proof-of-global-warming/

[Deb]

Buck,

Actually, people couldn't simply google the photos and see them: that's what "classified" means -- and it was the ex-president (or someone who worked for him) that had classified the photos.