Oh, so that’s why he withdrew from Kyoto

We all know votes can be bought.  This article reveals that one of Bush’s biggest campaign contributors is also one of the world’s biggest polluters.

   But it is the enormous carbon footprint of Southern Company – among the    largest financiers of Republican Party politicians – which has raised    eyebrows. Southern’s employees handed George Bush $217,047 to help him get    elected twice, and they and the company have contributed an extraordinary    $6.2m to Republican campaigns since 1990  according to the Centre for    Responsive Politics.

A single Southern Company plant in Juliette, Georgia already emits more    carbon dioxide annually than Brazil’s entire power sector. The company is in    the top two of America’s dirtiest utility polluters and sixth worst in the    world.

The good news, I guess, is that Canada’s election system is slightly less dysfunctional so this scale of bribery isn’t possible.  The bad news is that in the US, which accounts for a quarter of global emissions, equal-opportunity bribery is permitted, so it’s possible to buy all political candidates and sweep the field.