John Olver
John Olver
John Walter Olveris an American politician who was the U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 1st congressional district from 1991 to 2013. Raised on a farm in Pennsylvania, Olver graduated from college at the age of 18 and went on to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and later taught chemistry at the University of Massachusetts Amherst for eight years...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth3 September 1936
CountryUnited States of America
Americans were told repeatedly by President Bush and Vice President Cheney that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.
As a scientist, my attention became totally focused on global warming some 15 years ago by the elegant and powerful measurements of carbon dioxide trapped in ice cores taken as much as 2 miles deep from the great East Antarctica ice sheet.
As this body of knowledge has evolved, a much more critical job for researchers and scientists has evolved into explaining and educating policy makers and the public to the risks of global warming and the possible consequences of action or of no action.
We all know we have a problem, a broad problem. Ninety-eight percent of the fuel that is used by our vehicles, our autos and trucks for personal and commercial purposes, for highway and air travel operates on oil. The world has the same problem.
President Bush's war on Iraq is viewed broadly in Islamic communities as an attack on Islam, and thus the President has alienated a large part of one fifth of the world's population.
The conduct of President Bush's war of choice has been plagued with incompetent civilian leadership decisions that have cost many lives and rendered the war on and occupation of Iraq a strategic policy disaster for the United States.
Since 1850, burning of fossil fuels, coal, oil and natural gas has increased 100 times to produce energy as the world has industrialized to serve the world's more than 6 billion and growing population.
We need to make it clear that we will withdraw from Iraq within 6 to 9 months - so that the Iraqis will know that they must stand up and defend the opportunity given to them.
We all know that China is industrializing at a growth rate of 8 to 10 percent per year. China is on track to pass the U.S. as the largest economy in the world in 20 to 25 years, and China is determined to give its people a chance at this high standard of living that we enjoy.
The scientists who do climate research understand that much of the ever increasing concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since 1850 must be attributed to burning those fossil fuels to produce the energy that drives industrialization.
The military's own report says that one-third of deaths and casualties could have been avoided if proper body armor and vehicle armor had been provided from the start of the war.
The industrialization of China alone would increase by 90 percent the concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere and would at least increase the atmospheric CO2 by at least another 100 parts per million.
The incompetence regarding body and vehicle armor rises almost to a level of criminal negligence.
So a truthful assessment of how America is doing in the war on terror as a result of President Bush's war on Iraq is that we have been set back by decades.