Leaders fiddle while world burns

This week, in Japan, the leaders of the world's wealthiest nations promised they would "move toward a low-carbon society" by reducing greenhouse gas emissions 50 percent by 2050."

Big whoop! Global warming is not nigh, it is here.

In other words, they did nothing. Bush has been praised for finally agreeing on "an explicit long-term target for eliminating the gases that scientists have said are warming the planet." Unfortunately, this agreement contains no "goal for cutting emissions over the next decade..."

Some scientists are warning that coastal areas could be underwater by 2012.

Philip E. Clapp, director of the Pew Environmental Group, not that "the emissions reduction goal is extremely weak; the language in the communique is almost meaningless."

Bush and company have long maintained that he would become part of a global pact to reduce global warming only if "developing" nations such as China and India are included in any treaty dealing with climate change.

You can put it this way: The neighborhood is burning down. You and your wealthy neighbors refused to install fire hydrants and now refuse to fight the fire because other neighbors down the street, who are poorer than you and thus live in less expensive homes, failed to install smoke detectors.

Furthermore, you have argued for years that there is no danger of fire and when the fire department provided you with documentation that fire was a very real possibility in the near future, you altered the documents to mesh with your beliefs.

The neighborhood is burning down. You and your wealthy neighbors decide to wait for a few more years and then call the fire department.

Welcome to the netherworld of Bush and company.