Bush and America the Beautiful , By the Numbers

"The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." Genesis 2:15

George Bush, photo-op outdoorsman and hero of outdoorsmen, has compiled a fascinating record on environmental issues and care of our beautiful, beloved land and God's world. This is a small sampling of the facts....

$44 million - Amount the Bush/Cheney 2000 campaign and the RNC received in contributions from the fossil fuel, chemical, timber and mining industries.

200 - Number of regulation rollbacks during Bush 1st 3 years in office, downgrading existing environmental laws

50 - Number of those rollbacks made after 5 PM on a Friday, making it all but impossible for news organizations to report it to a wide audience.

50 - Percentage decline in EPA enforcement actions against polluters under Bush's watch

50 - Percentage decline in civil penalties for environmental crimes since Bush took office

62 - Number of members of Cheney's 63-member Energy Task Force with direct ties to corporate energy interests

0 - Number of environmentalists asked to attend Cheney's Energy Task Force meetings

31 - Number of Bush administration high-level appointees who are alumni of the corporate energy industry (includes 4 cabinet secretaries and the 6 most powerful White House officials)

25 - Percentage of worldwide carbon dioxide emissions the US is responsible for.

14 - Percentage carbon dioxide emissions will increase over the next 10 years under Bush's own global warming plan

24,000 - Estimated number of premature deaths that will occur under Bush's "Clear Skies" initiative.

750,000 - Tons of toxic waste the US miitary, the world's biggest polluter, generates around the world each year.

300 - Estimated number of court decisions citing federal gov'l negligence in endangered-species protection that remained unheeded during Bush's 1st year in office.

100 - Percentage of those court decisions that Bush allowed the gov't to indefinitely ignore.

1 - The rank of the US worldwide in greenhouse gas emissions

5 - Percentage of the world's population in the US

25 - Percentage of the world's oil used by the US

--- Courtesy of Graydon Carter, editor-in-chief for the past 12 years of Vanity Fair magazine,from his book What We've Lost, which is being published this week.