Just in case you haven’t seen it yet….

“President Distances Himself From Global Warming Report,” the New York Times reports:

Under intense criticism from conservatives, President Bush distanced himself today from a report by his administration concluding that humans were to blame for far-reaching effects of global warming on the environment.

The report, drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency and reviewed by several other agencies and the White House, was sent to the United Nations early last week. The report said the United States would be substantially changed in the next few decades by global warming, although it called for no rapid response. Reporters asked Mr. Bush about the report today.

‘I read the report put out by the bureaucracy,’ he said. He said he still opposed the Kyoto treaty, which Japan ratified today. The treaty calls for the mandatory reduction of greenhouse gases by industrial nations.

Critics across the political spectrum said that Mr. Bush was trying to appear more moderate to environmentalists while signaling to conservatives and industry that he would not promote the views contained in the report.

Mr. Bush’s spokesman emphasized that the report carried numerous caveats about the uncertainty that still exists about the science of climate change.

Ari Fleischer, the spokesman, obviously anticipating a question about the report at the daily White House briefing, said: ‘There is “considerable uncertainty” — that’s in this recent report — relating to the science of climate change. This report submitted to the United Nations also recognizes that any “definitive prediction of potential outcomes is not yet feasible” and that “one of the weakest links in our knowledge is the connection between global and regional predictions of climate change.”‘

Instead of the Kyoto treaty, Mr. Bush has called for voluntary measures that would allow gas emissions to continue to rise, with the goal of slowing the rate of growth.

The more things change, the more they stay the same…