After pulling the U.S. out of the global warming accord negotiations involving 180 nations, Bush has declared an "energy crisis" and is pushing an energy policy that will significantly increase the amount of carbon dioxide that causes global warming. His policy calls for burning more fossil fuels that create carbon dioxide and fails to take immediate steps to tighten fuel efficiency standards for automobiles although the average fuel economy for passenger vehicles is the worst it has been in 20 years. The plan downplays conservation, which could reduce growth in energy demand an estimated 20 to 47% according to experts, and renewable energy like solar and the wind, which will get a token one-tenth of 1% of our energy dollars. Bush is pushing a short-sighted and false prosperity based on the assumption that United States' citizens are somehow ordained by God to have more than our brothers and sisters throughout the world and that it is okay to steal from our children and grandchildren and future generations.

Representing our fellow human beings throughout the world, Secretary General Annan said that a consensus of leading scientists from all nations have "carefully sifted the evidence and concluded that climate change is occurring, that human activities are among the main contributing factors and that we cannot wait any longer to take action." In the twentieth century the earth's surface warmed nearly one and a quarter degrees Fahrenheit and the ten warmest years ever have occurred in the last fifteen. In the past 100 years the Alpine glaciers have lost almost 50 % of their ice.

Most climate scientists agree that the rate of warming will continue in this century and increase at the present rate of global carbon dioxide emissions, resulting in far reaching ecological stress, rising sea levels , extreme weather events, and damage to human health. Many scientists believe these impacts are already being felt with extreme heat causing massive wildfires in Florida and drought and crop damage throughout the South. Guyana has experienced severe drought, Indonesia devastating fires, and China record floods. It is an issue of justice when a Pacific islander discovers that the rising sea level resulting from profligate energy use in the United States and the developed world will obliterate her low-lying nation within decades.

Perhaps the greatest environmental justice issue is inter-generational theft. The Eighth Commandment says "Thou shall not steal", but every day that we live an ecologically unsustainable way of life we steal from our children and grandchildren. The energy policy Bush extolls as the blessed American way of life is unsustainable. The Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy provided that "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." Today's money-oriented politicians seem oblivious to any future beyond the next election. The oil and gas industry gave a record $32.6 million in contributions to politics in the last election cycle with 78% of it going to President Bush's party.

Did "God Bless America" to make a more wasteful and extravagant lifestyle a national civic religion and destroy other species at an unprecedented rate, or do we owe our descendants a duty of care? We must muster the compassion of the good Samaritan, not only to bandage the wounds of the stranger not of our tribe, but also to move us to care for our future generations. When I look into the eyes of my grandchildren I realize that our greatest responsibility is to conserve and preserve our exquisite eco-system for them and generations to come.

Tom Turnipseed, former President of the SC Trial Lawyers Association, is a plaintiff's and civil rights attorney in Columbia, SC. He was co-counsel for the Macedonia Baptist Church, an African American congregation in Clarendon County, SC which won a $37,000,000.00 (Thirty Seven Million Dollar) verdict in 1998 against the Ku Klux Klan for burning their church. A former SC State Senator, he is active in state politics and has been the democratic nominee for state Attorney General and Congress. Tom is President of the Center for Democratic Renewal (formerly the Anti-Klan Network) a nationally recognized civil rights organization based in Atlanta. In 1998, he received the Holmes-Weatherly Award, the Unitarian-Universalist Association's highest honor for the pursuit of social justice. Tom was the founding Chairman of the Citizen's Local Environmental Action Network, CLEAN, a statewide citizen's group opposed to the proliferation of toxic substances in the air, water and soil. Tom was the Executive Director of the South Carolina Taxpayers Association and President of The People are Coming, consumer organizations that opposed excessive electrical rates and reformed discriminatory utility rates for low-income ratepayers. For many years, Tom has spoken and written on political and human rights He has hosted radio and television shows in Columbia, SC and recently appeared on PBS' American Experience in "George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire", April 23rd and 24th, 2000, MSNBC's "Equal Time" with Oliver North and Paul Begala, February 18th, 2000, C-SPAN's "Washington Journal" with Brian Lamb, January 14th, 2000 and Fox Family Network's series "Courage", September 11, 2000. His work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlanta Constitution, The Charlotte Observer and other papers.

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