European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - February 15, 1990, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Page 10 the stars and stripes columns Jim Fain Bush needs to see environmental Green Light environmental gridlock in the Bush administration wastes More than precious Lime. It takes Ott Slage the Only nation Able to rally a global crusade against this threat to human survival. The gossip Here is that Nice Guy George genuinely wants to be the environmental president but his chief of staff won t let him. President Bush was Alt set to make a Bam Bumer of a speech on global warming to the intergovernmental panel on climate change the pundits chorus. Then John Sununu watered it Down. Nonsense or course. All staff Are hired hands serving at the Boss whim. A lift or the linger and they re gone any Power they Wield is derived. Inner Washington hates to blame a president for anything at least while he s popular. Courtesan to the Core the establishment prefers to take its emperor s hand servants out and shoot them for his goofs. This sordid custom hit its recent Nadir when Nancy led a Lynch mob against president Reagan s chief of staff Don Regan with an ego the size of Alaska. Committed Many sins but Iran was not remotely one of them. Off with his head Wasi ust a Way of letting the genial Gipper off the Hook. Sure. Sununu opposes any environmental measures that would Cost either Industry or government a few Bucks. So do economic adviser Michael Boskin and budget director Dick Darman. Just As Epa director William Reilly and others argue for i hem. True too that a chief of staff ought not meddle in policy. The Best ones have been honest brokers opening the Gate equally to advocates pro and con. But. If a president picks a busybody that in no Way removes the Buck from his desk. Democracy won t work unless we hold accountable the people we Cleet. Its Bush a own two feel that drag. It s his lips that read Quot the economics of our response to climate change arc getting ii As Faung Avirl amp a pirates Wofle arc. Mat i a not go Ltd amp is . Rule just Tod won it x while Asp wet a something a amp turn of to Tel s 6otta be a Skiffi a �3 Luck tar abound Tutu by Fak Feer we i dream up a Srere a of a Union Stew Wyrtle 1 not. Real study Quot his Mouth that issues a stirring Call for a a convergence Between global environmental policy and global economic policy where Bath perspectives Benefit and neither is compromised Quot Sununu is Correct when he argues that science has yet to make a convincing Case for global warming. Its ridiculous however to leap from that to the notion we ought do nothing now. Many of the Steps we May later find Are needed to Deal with the greenhouse effect arc precisely the actions we should be taking now to combat the smog that chokes our cities acid rain and dependence on foreign Oil. A Quick laundry list includes More rigorous standards on automobile and Power Plant emissions an intensified search for alternative fuels and vastly increased research on new Energy sources starting with solar and Safe nuclear. A hike in gasoline tax would put an immediate Premium on conservation. Most important is finding a handle to population growth. Earth clearly cannot Long support the current rate if for to other reason than that Well soon be drowning in wastes. We should be pumping Money into worldwide birth control agencies and leading a crusade to change attitudes about family size. Reagan s appeasement of the religious right on ibis score is his lasting shame. Bush is timid about reversing it. Most of the world agrees that much needs doing now however the greenhouse debate turns out. Even Maggie Thatcher finally has seen the Green Light. Congressional democrats say they want to dramatize the difference Between their Gung hoist and an administration that s stuck in he mud. Global cleanup would be a Dandy place to Start co news bar Cal Flora Lewis world finally waking up from Long Nightmare Ottawa a if a modern rip Van Winkle had been asleep Only a few months he would still Wake up astonished. And he would have to whirl Bis head in All directions because history is playing leapfrog now. As countries jump ahead of each other week by week to escape i he Long Nightmare. Foreign ministers of the Warsaw pact and nato met Here monday for the first Lime and what s More several easterners arc new. Non communist recently Pale faced prisoners. Officially the subject is Quot open skies a a proposal for virtually unlimited Mutual Aerial instruction to assure against military surprises. It revives the idea president Eisenhower offered two generations ago. Rejected then in favor or cold War. This Lime it will be accepted but with the military machines its meant to warn against about to shrink faster than they cart be bargained away. As the officials flew to Ottawa from a breathless series of bilateral meetings All Over Europe Nelson Mandela materialized on world to that was not a coincidence. South Africa too is stirring with the need to gel out of a paralysing past and gel on with Bright Hopes that blossomed after world War ii to be quickly crushed each country each Region has its own special problems in the Awakening. Bui it is shaking people everywhere with the sense that the impossible is about to come True for belter or for worse but in Daylight now. In 1919 the american journalist Lincoln Stef tons went to Moscow and resumed to say. A i have seen the future and it works. It turns out that not Only was he wrong about the prospects it Wasny to even the future Only a horrible hiatus. The world has to pick up where it left off a russian rip Wink Lovitch would find that the Leader of the soviet communist parly had Given up its claim to monopoly and accepted the idea of competing parties which Mikhail Gorbachev called rubbish Iasi year. Soviet republics Are seriously talking about Independence. Moscow has started negotiations to pull its troops out of Czechoslovakia and Hungary is prepared to talk about withdrawal from Poland and is slumped with Only a marking time answer for the moment on what to do about its troops in Germany. The biggest question again is Germany. In Ottawa West German and soviet officials gave contradictory versions of what happened at their meeting last week in Moscow. The signs Are that the soviets Are about to Cany funner the formula that foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze gave to the recent Central committee meeting explaining soviet moves in Eastern Europe. A it is easier to change our policies than their people Quot he said. Las october Moscow s question was the Fate of East Germany sold hat Leader Erich Honecker. By the end of november in was the Fate of the East German regime. Now it is the Fale of the East German slate which officials still Call a a reality but with no More conviction the fact is that Bonn is in control now to the extent that anybody is. Its timetable is to hold off the collapse of East Germany until a new government emerges from March 18 elections and then quickly work out unification procedures. By september Bonn plans o have something organized that in can invite the wartime big four the United Stales Britain. France and the soviet Union to discuss in a larger european context and have it endorsed at a Helsinki All european meeting in november. The russians still talk about a neutrality Quot and a Quot Long process a but that s already obsolete. Even the idea of a German peace treaty has disappeared impossible for 9$ years and suddenly irrelevant. Last week the germans say. East Ber Lin administrators asked West Berlin to Lake responsibility Tor municipal services a hospitals police ambulances transport garbage collection a because they can no longer manage. There arc similar breakdowns in other East German cities but Berlin is going to be he capital again and fairly soon. The West German Central Bank has reluctantly agreed that in will Lake charge of East Germany a currency. Nobody knows How much there is because it s being printed like newspapers. It s another sign that Marks a the Economy living standards a matter More than bombs and tanks and that a a healthy sign of the Way the world is can Bini state department official brushed aside criticism of . Support for Gorbachev saying Quot if he s a Man with a moving Bottom line then our policy should be to help him move where we want him to  its too late to Chew Over the East. Now we re going Back to where live history left off before the deep sleep.  the opinions expressed in the columns and cartoons on this Page represent those of the authors and Are in no Way to be considered As representing the views of the stars and stripes or the United states government