I lived outside the US for majority of the Bush presidency, most of the time spent in a city that had a large number of people from all parts of Europe coming through. And to this day I still have a difficult time understanding the antipathy towards Bush. And what’s important to note in this is that I’m not pro-Bush. I’m quite critical of many of his choices. But what I found interesting about this was the number of people I ran into, from places that were essentially unaffected in any meaningful sense by the Bush presidency, who were more upset than I was, someone who deeply felt that Bush was harming my country.

It still amazes me. I’ll even give them Iraq as an issue, as a number of people from around the world are quite put off by that whole issue. And yet they are essentially silent, and frequently completely ignorant, about conflicts anywhere else in the world.

Freedland’s article in the Guardian just brings me to a greater awareness of this. He’s not too sure what it is that’s so bad about Bush. Iraq is mentioned, of course. And there’s some griping about global warming. But I’m left with no sense at all of what it is Obama would do over McCain with regards to this. For, if you believe that carbon emissions are the ultimate cause of global climate change, the US is certainly becoming an ever increasingly smaller source of all of that compared to the other rising powers. Furthermore, the advances in alternative energy, particularly solar power, that have originated in Bush’s America are absolutely stunning, a rate of progess unmatched by the research in the rest of the world combined, and far greater than in any previous administration. Granted, I don’t believe Bush deserves much credit for this and he could have done much more. But the point still remains.

I’m sure that these developments will continue at a rapid pace. I’m also sure that additional major advancements in how to deal with climate change will continue to come from the United States: improved modeling capabilities, more advanced analysis techniques, cleaner energy technologies, and more. Simply put, if global warming is a problem and some corrective action is necessary in order to address it, only the United States has the IT technology to adequately model and predict and calibrate and monitor any possible corrective actions. The biggest threat of carbon emissions will undoubtedly be the developing world. All of this will be unchanged regardless if Obama of McCain end up in the White House.

I really find it all rather odd.