EU Ratifies Kyoto Treaty

An anonymous submitter sends: "Yahoo! News is reporting that all 15 member states of the European Union have just ratified the Kyoto treaty to cut greenhouse emissions by 8% over the next ten years (the US agreed to 7%.)"

Comments

Why Kyoto is a bad idea

[vldmr_krn]

Here's a good article which explains why the Kyoto Protocol is a bad idea and the US was wise to stay out of it.

Re:right

[mesocyclone]

The United States could not have an efficient public transportation infrastructure without destroying 90% of our housing stock and rebuilding it as high density. Obviously we are not going to do that. Certainly the environmentalists consistently ignore that, with the result that we have expended huge sums on urban subways, light rail, etc, without any impact on automobile usage.

Having used European mass transit extensively, I think I am in a position to argue that it would not work well for Americans. The biggest reasons are our very low population density, and our highly concentrated (and efficient) retail distribution, which means that people need to be able to bring back a significant amount of goods per trip when they shop, because they have to go a significant distance to do so. In Europe, one is much more likely to have a short distance to go to a store, because they are not efficiently concentrated.

As far as reducing reliance on oil, the best way to do that is nuclear power, which is consistently blocked by environmentalists. We have not had a new nuclear plant started since 1979!

Many americans drive mid-sized cars. Hybrids are microscopic, they are kludges (extra parts). Many American drive small cars. However, unlike Europe, we seem to have more of a belief that freedom is a virtue, not a sin.