I'd like to start out this week's column, oh fearless readers, with a little etiquette lesson: Remember, everyone, if someone gives you a gift, you must be grateful and give thanks. And when you are in the position that you can do a favor for the gift-giver, please be gracious and do so.

Take for example, our president, Mr. George W. Bush. During his election, the electric utility and coal mining industries gave the gift of almost $560,000 to his campaign. Mr. Bush, proving to be an ever-gracious head of state, showed his thanks for the gift by deciding to withdraw United States support from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol that regulated international carbon dioxide emissions.

In showing his appreciation for such big business' fine monetary gifts, Mr. Bush has won the "Mike Still Gentleman of the Week" award. Thank you, Mr. Bush. You have once again made the world a better place.

Oh jeez, I'm sorry everyone. I just spilled sarcasm all over my keyboard.

President Bush, in his first 80 days of office, has redefined shortsightedness. And in no place is this more recognizable than his irresponsible and ecologically disastrous approach to U.S. environmental issues.

No one imagined that Bush would be an ecologically conscious president. After all, he was the governor of Texas, and I've seen "King of the Hill" — I know what it's like down there.

Or, for those of you who aren't as well-versed in Fox television programming, the Sierra Club nicely painted a picture of the environment in Texas when they said "Texas ranks first in toxic releases to the environment, first in total toxic air emissions from industrial facilities, first in toxic chemical accidents, and first in cancer-causing pollution." Ye-haw.

Even if no one suspected that Mr. Bush would be the greenest president ever, the fact that he has approached the environment in such a callous manner has shocked many. By overturning and blocking key ecological measures, Mr. Bush has set the world on a course for a very warm 21st century.

For the first time in the five billion-year history of this blue sphere called earth, significant global environmental changes have been forced into motion by an organism that the earth itself created. These changes, caused by humans spilling billions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the air over the course of two centuries, will wipe out entire populations of species, flood large portions of land, and basically lower the earth's resell value by quite a bit.

At this rate, we're not getting our security deposit back.

Most Americans recognize the fact that our planet earth is faced with an environmental crisis. Our president, unfortunately, is not most Americans.

Bush believes that the jury is still out on global warming and believes that the problem must be studied further before action can be taken.

Humm . . . studied further as in assembling an international team of scientists to gather data and run countless computer simulations to attempt to glean what the next century might look like if we keep going the way we are going? Well, that's already been done.

Just a few weeks ago, the U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the most authoritative report yet on global warming. Bill Easterling, a Penn State professor in geography and agronomy, was one of the lead authors of the report, and although he hails from "Happy Valley," his team's findings are anything but cheerful.

Using seven different computer climate models, they came up with 235 independent predictions of global temperature change. From the data collected, the IPCC has predicted that the global temperature rise over the next century will be anywhere from 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit.

If climate change ends up being at the high end of this range, parts of land all over the world will begin to be engulfed by the rising seas.

Most of Louisiana will disappear as will the entirety of coastal Florida. (President Bush, I know that you had some trouble in Florida last fall, but I don't think this is the best possible revenge.)

So what should the world do about this? Well, way back in the 20th century — 1997, to be precise — world leaders came together to draft the aforementioned Kyoto Protocol, a set of international guidelines that would reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.

But Mr. Bush recently pulled our country out of the treaty. He didn't see any reason why we should have to answer to the rest of the world for our polluting ways.

Forget about the fact that America holds only 4 percent of the world's population, but produces one quarter of the world's greenhouse gases.

We're pulling out 'cuz ain't nobody gonna tell us what to do.

Meanwhile, the European Union, Mexico, and China — all formerly notorious polluters — have been making concerted efforts to clean up their act.

All the rest of the world needs is America's support, and the goals set by the Kyoto Protocol could be met.

Unfortunately, Bush seems to think that reducing carbon dioxide levels means reducing the luster of the economy. And while, yes, some businesses might initially be harmed by reducing carbon dioxide levels, by earnestly investing in alternative energy sources and figuring out way to responsibly clean up our act, the resuscitation of the environment does not require the smothering of the economy.

America needs to stand up and acknowledge the responsibility for our share in harming the earth. By actively committing ourselves to the fight against global warming now, the unnatural rise in temperatures can be stymied.

But as long as our president worries more about satisfying corporate donors than about cutting carbon dioxide emissions, we cannot and will not be able to stop this oncoming ecological catastrophe.

Who knows, though? As sea levels rise, maybe our grandchildren will have a great time vacationing in Ocean City, Pennsylvania.

With Bush's backwards ecological policy, we just may find out.