The administration knows no shame. Almost every other industrialized country is ratifying the Kyoto treaty, and yet the reactionary government simply refuses to go along with them.
The reason, according to reports? Well, the head of the country says, "For us to ratify the protocol would cost us jobs and damage our industry." And the "government has also opposed the protocol because it does not order developing countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming." And of course "industries that emit the gases will be forced out of business while similar producers will continue operating in developing nations."
What other decent nation would ever use these as excuses? How disgusting is George Bush?
Well, The Rest Of The Story (as Paul Harvey would say), is that this announcement was made, not by President Bush, but by Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Could it be that these arguments aren't just used by puppets of American corporate interests? Perhaps there's some merit to the position?
(The New York Times, incidentally, thought this was barely worth a mention. Gee, I'm shocked.)