Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said to a delegation of Small Island Developing States:
"Climate change is for real. We have just a small window of opportunity and it is closing rather rapidly. There is not a moment to lose."
The twist? Mr. Bush lobbied for the appointment of Dr. Pachauri in 2001 after Exxon petitioned the White House for a new chairman. But after Dr. Pachauri's comments, the Independent reports:
His comments rocked the Bush administration - which immediately tried to slap him down - not least because it put him in his post after Exxon, the major oil company most opposed to international action on global warming, complained that his predecessor was too "aggressive" on the issue.
The most staggering paragraph from the article... (MORE)
Afterwards he told The Independent on Sunday that widespread dying of coral reefs, and rapid melting of ice in the Arctic, had driven him to the conclusion that the danger point the IPCC had been set up to avoid had already been reached.
And... wait... It gets worse:
He also cited alarming measurements, first reported in The Independent on Sunday, showing that levels of carbon dioxide (the main cause of global warming) have leapt abruptly over the past two years, suggesting that climate change may be accelerating out of control.
This is an expert lobbied for by the Bush White House in order to appease Exxon. Far from what El Rushbo would call "an environmentalist wacko".We're so damn screwed.