Mr. Bush doesn't intend all the catastrophic consequences of his simple decision to offer legislation to regulate carbon emission. But then, by this point he should be quite familiar with the concept of unintended consequences. And he needs to recognize that he cannot pass "sensible "legislation. (I have serious doubts that any legislation on this topic could be sensible.)

All he can do is set the stage for next year's legislation, by giving away the rhetorical store and weakening the already modest backbone of Republican legislators. The liberal world order will not let go of their global-warming assault on free economies until hell freezes over -- by which point, obviously, the global-warming theory will be visibly disproven.

Noting the goal, “seriously” stated by the Group of Eight, to cut world CO2 emissions in half by the year 2050, a couple of techies at the Tokyo Institute of Technology sat down with their calculators, and coolly worked out what will be required to meet this goal, on an equal per capita basis, around the planet. The 88 percent is the figure for North America. The Europeans get off relatively easily: they only have to shut down 83 percent of their economy; the Japanese 85 percent.

Only 35 percent of the Chinese economy will have to go. And good news for India, much of which is still living in the Arcadian low-carbon past. The Indians get to gun their carbon emissions by 137 percent over the next four decades.