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Jan 6, 2009 06:30 PM | 8
The environmental legacy of the Bush administration is a matter of some dispute but by designating three more marine monuments in the Pacific today, George W. Bush has entered the annals of history as the protector of 335,000 square miles of ocean. In fact, environmentalists and Bush himself likened the action to President Theodore Roosevelt's creation of the national parks more than a century ago.
"President Roosevelt left office with many achievements and the most enduring of all was his commitment to conservation. As he once said: 'Of all the questions which can come before the nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us,'" Bush said today at the signing ceremony. "That spirit has guided the conservation movement for a century; it's guided my administration. Since 2001, we have put common-sense policies in place, and I can say upon departure, our air is cleaner, our water is purer, and our lands are better protected."
Environmentalists, who have clashed with Bush throughout his tenure, quibble with his claims of cleaner water and air as well as that any lands are better protected. Among the environmental misdeeds laid at his door are failing to impose mandatory curbs on greenhouse gas emissions despite a campaign pledge to do so, weakening the Endangered Species Act and opening more federal lands to energy exploration.
But they do not dispute that Bush is the first president to protect significant swaths of U.S. territorial waters. The three new monuments will protect the Mariana Trench, the deepest canyon on Earth; coral reefs off the cost of the Mariana Islands; and an atoll known as "Islands of Seabirds" near American Samoa.
The three new monuments join Papahanaumokuakea off the shores of Hawaii, designated in 2006 and akin to the creation of Yellowstone National Park in 1871, as the first marine monuments, and make President Bush responsible for the largest area of ocean protections ever, preserving relatively pristine areas from future abuses, though not all fishing.
"This marks the end of an era in which humans have increasingly understood the need to conserve vanishing wild places on land but failed to comprehend the similar plight of our oceans," said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group in a statement. "It comes none too soon."
Credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Bob Thomas
Tags:
ocean protection,
marine park,
president bush,
bush administration,
marine,
marine reserve,
ocean,
marine monument
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8 Comments
Add CommentThank you President Bush! I guess if you were from the other party this would be front page news!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's too bad his actions have increased the amount of mercury the oil lobbyists that paid for his election can dump into the ocean after a long battle before him to prevent that...shame on you bush, shame on you leavitt, shame on you huntsman(s)...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Karin
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, it has nothing to do with being a Republican. "Marine sanctuaries" or not, the Bush administration has done more damage to the environment in the last 8 years than you can imagine -- both through action and inaction. Besides gutting EPA regulations regarding marine and atmospheric pollution, relaxing rules on both terrestrial and marine oil exploration, advocating for drilling in ANWAR, etc, He has done NOTHING --- ZERO, ZIP, NADA -- for halting global warming. In fact, much worse than that, his administration is directly responsible for politicizing the EPA and NASA and getting his minions to interfere with climate change research, personally harass researchers, and even shamelessly manipulating actual scientific papers and statements coming out of NASA to attempt to water-down the threat from climate change and sometimes even question it's very existence!
Honestly, I know that a large percentage of Americans are too d@mn ignorant and stupid (not to mention distracted by intellectually-numbing "reality" television) to really understand the situation, but at some point in the near-future, the full extent of the environmental negligence during Bush's presidency will become common knowledge. Hopefully, it won't require the southern half of Florida to be underwater before all Americans take this issue seriously and stop listening to the special interest skeptics.
@loosely_coupled
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSigh...at least you insult everyone's intelligence which instantly makes you smarter and right!
loosely_coupled I just don't understand your vitriol regarding climate change. Apparently you think the entire northern half of our continent should stil be covered in glaciers. Ohioans beg to differ. But what is really telling is that a President named Clinton with a Democratic controled Congress failed to do anything at all with the Kyoto treaty. I am sure that is Bush's fault too. Or perhaps Democrats can talk the talk but can't walk worth a crap. By the way, you are wrong about global warming and Bush. Bush has stopped it in its tracks and wiped out the last thirty years of warming according to the latest numbers. That's much better than Clinton managed. Let's see if Obama can do better than that.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSure some might claim it is the sun cycle that has brought about the changes but we all know that the sun has nothing to do with climate change. Hence it must be Bush.
@RDH: where those numbers even real or if they were, were they manipulated like many other documents or it was paid by government to say that?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Bush has stopped it in its tracks and wiped out the last thirty years of warming according to the latest numbers."
You must be joking, but no one is laughing.
Well if you wont believe me then time will tell. Also if you not up-to-date ocean levels are rising faster and faster, well and global warming is just as real as Santa Claus is to you.
I don't know if you were even paying any attention to what was going on during Bush administration.
Venting about a problem is good only when it results in a common goal to solve the problem.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe we could flood the biggest problems with e-mails, phone calls, (I always have extra time on my phone) and short to the point letters.
Suggest solutions, or whatever you honestly feel would help.
White House at 202-456-1414
Steven Chu, the new head of the DOE at 1-202-586-5000
CNN and demand an expose at 800-CNN-NEWS
"...and I can say upon departure, our air is cleaner, our water is purer, and our lands are better protected."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]
Is that anything like "the fundamentals are fine" a week before the economy collapsed? Hope not...