I've lost the link, but the environmentalist accusation was all from local Aussie residents, in an Aussie paper. I don't know to what extent they're right. As Bec says, it wasn't the whole cause.

I'll agree with you that Americans are fairly insular. I think there's a somewhat widespread attitude of live and let live; we'll worry about our problems, you worry about yours. That said, the American people (private citizens and companies) donated millions in one day after the Boxing Day Tsunami a few years back, and our military was promptly on its way to help (along with the Australian navy).

And I always laugh when people talk about Bush rejecting Kyoto. He was pursuing the exact same policy that Bill Clinton had, and they both knew it would be a waste of time to even try to get the Senate to agree on it. (Treaties have to be approved by our Senate) If Al Gore had been president, the US still wouldn't have entered Kyoto.

By the way, how's that Kyoto thing working out? What's it accomplished? Apart from making liberals feel smug about their moral superiority to Bush, I mean.

PJ

"You told me you weren't like other men," she said, shaking her head at him when the storm of laughter had passed.
He grinned at her - a goofy, Clark Kent kind of a grin. "I have a gift for understatement."
"You can say that again," she told him.
"I have a...."
"Oh, shut up."

--Stardust, Caroline K