Bush, corporatist cheerleader and protector and global warming denier continues to try and deceive the American people and other nations.

As Progress Report states, "President Bush 'called for a national goal of halting the growth of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 2025, mostly by curbing power plant pollution.' Bush's voluntary goal, however, is one 'that the scientific community says is too little, too late, to prevent dangerous global warming.'

"Bush is calling for rising CO2 emissions for another 17 years," despite the fact that the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, says that 'if there's no action before 2012, that's too late.'

" 'After squandering seven years, President Bush still refuses to respond to alarm bells, says Daniel J. Weiss, the Director of Climate Strategy at the Center for American Progress. At a time when most agree that 'forceful action is required to save the planet, Bush's essentially empty words are not very different from silence.' "

However, the governors of 18 states are sick and tired of Bush's deliberate foot dragging and stonewalling on climate change and have signed a declaration committing themselves to the effort to stop global warming at a ceremony at Yale University.

(Somehow it's fitting that this occurred at Dubya's alma mater where he was a  mediocre "C" student (and still proud of it).  Which proves that legacy admissions and family name can ensure a place at Yale even for an idiot like the Shrub.)

As IPS News reports, " 'In the absence of federal leadership the states have stepped up,' said Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who spoke at the ceremony with California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine.

"The U.S. is the world's number one greenhouse gas polluter, and the 18 states emit as much greenhouse gas as the biggest nations in Europe combined. Any reduction would be significant for the health of the planet, said Daniel Esty, director of the Yale Centre for Environmental Law and Policy.

"Many of the states, like New Jersey and Massachusetts, have acted on their own, without federal encouragement or support, and put in place plans to significantly reduce greenhouse gases by 2020, through tougher controls on power plants, financial incentives to encourage more green power, grants and discounts for businesses and consumers who use alternative energy and changes in land use.

"The 18 states made their declaration while Pres. Bush was attending climate change talks in Paris, where his proposal that the U.S. would decrease greenhouse gases slightly by 2025 was roundly criticised as too little, and much too late.

"The states feel the same way.

" 'We're going forward because we've been waiting for seven years for federal leadership,' Sebelius said.

"The Bush White House has barely invested any funds to reduce climate change, Sebelius said. In seven years, it has spent 1.5 billion dollars on climate change. 'To put this in perspective, the American public spent five billion dollars on Halloween,' a children's holiday, she said.

"The U.S. has also refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol, an environmental pact that calls for reductions in greenhouse emissions worldwide.

"But Michael Northrop, programme director of Sustainable Development for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, said that lobbyists of private energy companies will pose formidable foes to any aggressive national plan to reduce greenhouse gases.

" 'They will want to maintain the status quo. This will be a gigantic battle,' Northrop told IPS."

And these are the corporate interests that Bush and his flunkies protect and champion to the detriment of the common good.

The article continues, "The states that signed the declaration are: Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Virginia and Washington.

"Petr Kolor, the Czech ambassador to the U.S., was present at the declaration as an observer.

" 'It's surprising that you need local governments to push the federal government to do something,' he told IPS. 'Progress on climate change in the European Union is much more advanced.' "

No, Ambassador Kolor, it is not surprising.  This happened because the Bush administration is the most regressive and absolutely the worst in US history.