These gases concentrating in the atmosphere create a condition called the "greenhouse" effect and soon thereafter everyone will have to paint their house green. Or not. Some people call this global warming. They claim it will lead to infectious disease, skin cancer, water quality problems, festering pustules, string warts and Hogwarts.

During the 2000 presidential campaign, George W Bush promised he would regulate carbon dioxide emissions from power plants. Of course, as in so many other areas, he lied. Early in his presidency he reversed that campaign promise and said that voluntary, rather than mandatory, efforts would be just fine with him. David Doninger of the Natural Resources Defense Council said it was "another big favor for big-polluter campaign contributors". Personally, I’m as shocked as Claude Rains was in Casablanca to find out that gambling was going on inside of Rick’s Café Americain.

You should still be holding your breath. This is because carbon dioxide is a suspected major cause of global warming. The EPA says it cannot be regulated as a pollutant, so it’s up to all of us to breathe less, especially breathing out. They’ve even made a movie about it: Waiting To Exhale.

Just so you’ll be kept well-informed, the other major components on the greenhouse gas pollutant list are nitrogen oxides (NOX), sulfur dioxide (SO2) and mercury. But CO2 is the principal greenhouse gas targeted by the Kyoto Protocol. You remember Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capital- -Tokyo spelled backwards. Canceling the US participation in it was one of the first things the Bush administration did to antagonize the free world. They’ve gone on from there to upset almost everyone. This is basically a reversal of the policy set by the Clinton administration. In case you don’t remember, the Kyoto Protocol is an agreement among industrialized nations to make significant cuts in greenhouse gas emissions. The US official position is now "We hope you all choke. We’re going to be rich, rich, RICH!!"

Well, not all of us. Just those in a position to benefit from being able to switch around their factory equipment without having to actually upgrade and install state-of-the-art pollution control devices.

Thirty-three years after the Clean Air Act was passed, most of the coal-fired electricity generators in the US still have not installed pollution control devices, according to the Institute of Clean Air Companies, a group representing 80 firms in the pollution control business. One such company, Cormetech of Durham, North Carolina, says that business is so slow that all orders for the future are almost nonexistent. Just a few years ago business was booming. Now, no one wants to cough up the money to refurbish outdated pollution-spewing factories, refineries, generators or whatever. It might cost too much to make the air better. Kinda makes you all choked up.

By the way, one of the few great things to come out of this is the name. George Bush’s punditry wizards have taken to calling the administration’s policy "The Bush Clear Skies Plan". George Orwell would have loved it.

What can you do besides wheeze? For one thing, visit the Natural Resources Defense Council’s web site and keep up with events and court cases. Visit them at www.nrdc.org Also, The Sierra Club and The California Attorney General’s office are taking the Federal Government to court on this. Joining already are Maine, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

Melissa Carey, a climate policy specialist for Environment Defense, a New York-based environmental group, was quoted by the Knight-Ridder Newspapers as saying "Refusing to call greenhouse gas emissions a pollutant is like refusing to say that smoking causes lung cancer. The Earth is round. Elvis is dead. Climate change is happening".

It’s simply amazing to me that the Republican administration would rather help out their fat-cat contributors than allow their constituents to breathe easily. The good thing is knowing that this is one more issue that makes Bush vulnerable in 2004. Reagan discontinued mental health programs when he was governor of California and is now dying of Alzheimer’s. Nixon proclaimed he was not a crook and resigned in disgrace after being caught masterminding criminal acts. Bushie’s time is coming. It’ll be a gas.