The Washington Post still can’t bring itself to address openly the reality vs. the rhetoric of greenhouse gas emissions. Instead, they obsess with serially nasty editorials complaining about our lack of European-style promises, all of which consistently ignore how the U.S. has led the world in growing the economy while reducing the rate of growth of emissions.

Sunday’s story went with the following:

Even developed countries are not cutting greenhouse gases as fast as they had anticipated.

The obvious implication is that, unlike the U.S., these countries are actually cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Actually, not one developed country is cutting emissions at all since making the Kyoto promise a decade ago. The U.S. approach – in practice – has proven far superior to Europe’s “cap” approach, Japan’s various efforts, Canada’s…well, Canada hasn’t done a whole lot policy-wise, but they have increased emissions quite a bit, but without the economic downside of a more interventionist policy.

But in typical Washington fashion, the Post reveals a dogma that “doing something” has nothing to do with what is actually done by the wealth-creating private sector, but about how deeply the regulators insert themselves. This is why journalists should stick to things other than governance; getting back to the basics of journalism is a good place to start.

As if on cue, the New York Times also weighed in yesterday with the editorial “It’s about laws, not light bulbs,” which included this risible construction:

As it has for years, America’s inertia remains in sharp contrast to the work by Europe, which took an early lead in efforts to curb global warming by establishing the world’s most comprehensive carbon management system. Recently, Europeans pledged to cut emissions by 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2020.

Again, notice how they cleverly elide actual discussion about who is doing what in favor of obsessing about who is pledging what. “America’s inertia remains in sharp contrast to the work by Europe”? To the U.S. press, broken promises on emissions targets are “efforts” worthy of applause — and making pledges is what constitutes “work.” Would the NYT and WaPo stop decrying the U.S.’s environmental record if we were to do what Europe does — increase emissions while making, and breaking, unenforceable promises? What does that say about them?