Business as Usual

One of Kevin Drum's readers caught a doozy. Yesterday, the NY Times had a piece where the Bush administration was touting it's global warming credentials by pointing to the chart on the right, below. That chart purports to show that, under the Bush policies, the growth in greenhouse gases is slower (by an almost negligible amount) than it would be under "business as usual" (BAU). So far, so good, but look at the chart on the left, also published in the Times article. It shows that the DOE's view of BAU is exactly the same as Bush's policy trajectory. Bush simple made up a new, higher BAU trajectory to show how his policies would reduce emissions. Somehow or other, that fact didn't creep into the Times' story.