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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%.)"
IIRC, its not 7%, only 5% but below of the level of 1990. The final goal is 30%. Germany allready lowerd the emissions by about 10%.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Really why is it the US, as the biggest polluter in the world can't they make a significant effort to ratify the treaty like the rest of the world. Why should the US be treated to a special treatment when they set the worst example ?
:)
Sometimes life just isn't fair
Let's talk about glory when the USA joins the Kyoto treaty.
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If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
The pact would have required the United States, which accounted for 36 percent of the industrialized world's greenhouse gas emissions in 1990, to trim emissions by 7 percent from 1990 levels. But the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010, the European Commission said.
The keyword here is "would." The US isn't ratifying squat, but who's surprised? Financing election campaigns is a costly business, and you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Bush is just behaving like the good boy he promised to be."If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
Well, on the up side for the USA, this will drive up energy costs in Europe, which will in turn drive American economic growth with its cheaper but less environmentally friendly power.
I'd be all in favor of Kyoto, but we would need to build more nuclear power plants to keep energy costs down, which the environmental lobby won't support either. (The only people who think solar and wind are viable are people who own stock in companies that produce solar and wind energy. Gotta love those subsidies)
It's unfortunate sometimes when arguments are won by the people who shout the loudest.
I live in Canada, and we are being asked to reduce our emissions by stupid amounts in 8 years. I think its on the order of 10% (i'm probably way off, but correct me if i'm wrong). Now Canada has about 30M people in it. China has over 1 Billion. China is NOT bound by the Kyoto treaty in any way. If each member of their population increases their CO2 usage by a few percent, it will totally wipe out any benefits that Canada, the US, and many other countries could make happen.
If this is a global question, why isn't their anything approaching global participation? Shouldn't the largest country on earth be bound by it as well?
And for a 2nd perspective, there is a lot of controversy in my Province over a proposed Alternative strategy to CO2 reduction being developed in Alberta. Most people supporting Kyoto say "NO! Do Kyoto NOW! It's the only way!" Well Mr and Mrs Environmentalist, if other plans don't reduce enough, fast enough, then you must be in favor of mass genocide of all polluters! In fact, wipe out 99% of the world's population! That'll put a big dent in CO2 production! Or if not mass deaths right away, how about banning the use of all types of fuels that produce CO2! "Sorry Mr Freezing person. Your wood campfire doesn't follow Zero Emmissions Guidelines. You'll need to freeze in winter. Sorry." Anybody can see both of these are unreasonable (well i HOPE everybody thinks these are unreasonable...), but we have to realize that Kyoto is not necessarily the best way of doing things.
There ARE better ways that reduce CO2 emmissions, perhaps not as fast, but not as devastating to economies traditionally dependant on "dirty" fuels. And ignoring other countries that aren't developed yet, just makes them more dependant on CO2, and doesn't help long-term. Get solutions for them implemented right away, because it is easier to change an infrastructure that isn't there yet, rather than try and make a dramatic shift.
Erioll
the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010
That's a far cry from "The US agreed to 7%."
Well, I guess that's technically true - they did agree to it - they just didn't stick to that agreement. At least they're consistent - is there any treaty the US is still party to?
/me waits for the Hague invasion.
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.
"all 15 member states of the European Union have just ratified the Kyoto treaty"
I'm going to instead "rapify" the Kyoto treaty:
We've agreed to cut back on our greenhouse emissions
Maybe use something clean like nuclear fission
The only thing now that this rapper be dissin'
Is the US of A, 'cos the point they be missin'.
graspee
Termites and other similar insects are probably the most prolific producers of greenhouse gasses on the planet, easily outstripping cattle, and motorvehicles.
Perhaps we could call all of their colonic (heh) Queens into some room somewhere, and demand that they chill for a while?
No? Didn't think so.
Duh.
Brak: What's THAT?
Thundercleese: A light switch.. of TOTAL DEVASTATION!
Uhm, I think, a point is that a large part of money will be spent in another place. As in enviromentally friendlier businesses will grow, it's not wasted money, it's money moved away from traditionally powerful companies that wish to keep going about things the same way they have for 200 years. But then, of course they will make it sound as an impossible task and that the Kyoto treaty is unamerican and could also pose a threat to national security.
Yes, it will give the US an advantage, just as your low taxes (compared to Eu) promote buying the industries products, just like your labour laws give the employer a lot of security and the employee a lot less. Low taxes, few labour laws, few restrictions means industry can bloom and keep prices low, of course, it all has a price that might not be obvious at first.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
The keyword here is "would." The US isn't ratifying squat, but who's surprised? Financing election campaigns is a costly business, and you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. Bush is just behaving like the good boy he promised to be.
Bush couldn't ratify Kyoto even if he wanted to, since the Senate voted against it 95-0 in 1997 (admittedly it was non-binding, but it needed 67 votes to pass). Clinton signed the treaty, but during his term, he did nothing to try to implement it.
The recent increase in tarriff was largely aimed at non-European steel producers (namely S. Korea). Europeans also raised their steel tarriffs because Europe would have then been a dumping ground for cheap steel. Now China has also followed the Europeans in raising the tarriffs.
Free market - great huh?
Not nearly so much as you think. Every time environmental regulations are imposed, people say that the economy will tank as a result. It just doesn't happen.
For instance, when CFCs were banned, some companies discovered they could use water or lemon juice in place of CFCs and actually wound up saving money, and the economy wasn't hurt by the end of CFCs either. Congress imposed new mileage restrictions during the oil crisis and while Japanese car makers innovated to meet them, American car makers sued and didn't. The result was it helped the Japanese to seize a huge portion of the global car market, causing major harm to the American economy. Business has cried wolf too many times about this sort of thing; everytime it turns out it's better for them to quit their whining and find a way to make money and help the environment.
The long-term trend is toward getting more and more $GDP out of a certain amount of fossil fuel anyway, and a large portion of Kyoto is just to give this an international shove forward. A lot of fossil fuel is burned pointlessly in the US. Emissions could be reduced substantially IMHO if SUVs had to meet real fuel economy standards and the nation's railways and mass transit systems were adequately funded and upgraded. Also, US reliance on foreign oil has never done anything good for it, and alternative energy sources offer the only way out. Kyoto would definitely encourage them, so from a political as well as environmental standpoint Kyoto makes sense. The treaty is good for the US, it just takes foresight to see it.
I posted and all I got was this stupid sig
Wonder how accurate this is.
"Break out the gin, and the small violin, I'm a raging success as a failure." --Firewater
I can't believe all the skeptism here against kyoto in certain posts. here's an analogy:
you are in a sinking vessel, do you refuse to bail out the water just because the deck is not below water? do you refuse to bail out the water because other people is not bailing out the water? do you refuse bailout the water just because you can't realistically save the ship? do you refuse to throw out the bagage on the ground that you don't want to reduce your comfort of living?
The truly important things in this world are never profitable economically, but without them we wouldn't be here.
Yep, you Americans get the government your bosses pay for. Forget the treaty for a moment and reform the campaign finance system that means you get such callow, brain dead politicians that they would sell your country and its future for a few bucks.
By the way, if you are one of those right wing morons who thinks global warming isn't real, or worse, doesn't matter, go ahead and mod me down. Because I have got a brain I've posted enough intelligent contributions to have karma to burn!
Nope, Clinton and Gore put us exactly where we are today by killing any program related to nuclear power, including but not limited to:
- Killing the Integral Fast Reactor program at Argonne Nat'l Lab. This reactor design would recycle fuel, reducing the amount of waste produced.
- Killing transmutation experiments which might have been used to treat existing waste.
- Stalling waste disposal programs e.g. Yucca Mountain.
Ahh, so the pension plans of steel magnates have nothing to do with it?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
No, I'm european :p
Yes, a lot less security, when I'm hired here I can count on not being laid off with an hours notice because the boss had an off day.
Independence? You mean those with money have choices don't you?
A booming economy is great, good for you, but as I said above, it has a price. I do like your american kneejerk response thoguh.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Kyoto is nothing more than another European inspired attempt at hobbling the United States and improving European competitive position.
So is that why the EU ratified the treaty now, long after it became abundantly clear that the US never will?
bill clinton, check out michael moore's book stupid white men. read the chapter entitled ``democratic party.. doa'' or something like that. the democrats are no more innocent than the republicans. they get their funding from the same people-the citizens who think there is a difference are just lying to themselves.
-- john
Off topic? Now I HAVE to say something about how the moderating is going on this story... What IN my above post was NOT about the Kyoto treaty, which is the SUBJECT of the story?
/., then perhaps I should quit contributing.
But then, to the "true believers" of the "green" movement, ANY ARGUMET against them is "off topic".
I also note that anyone not bashing the USA for NOT ratifying Kyoto are having their posts modded down. If this is the attitude of
The facts are facts. Kyoto would have caused SERIOUS damage to the US economy. Which means fewer jobs. Which is why the Senate voted 95-0 to send a message to Clinton not to bother sending the thing up for ratification.
Now, we will see that they were right to do so. IF the EU actually impliments this thing, not just symbolically, we will get to see how right or wrong it is for economic development.
BTW, Kyoto exempts countries like China and India, and other "developing" countries who collectively pollute more than the US/EU ever dreamed of.
=== The price of freedom is eternal vigilance
Yeah, how dare those pesky employees ruin their bodies working a company and then want to get a decent pension out of it? Don't they understand that it reduces the shareholders profits? Sounds very communistic to me, damn unions putting people ahead of profit, down right unamerican I say!.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Jeez, don't take it personally. I only stated what I knew of the situation, I never agreed on what was happening. Chill dude.
Are you for real? I love the bit about the road deaths, and the vision of oppressive governments forcing people into tiny cars.
I'm glad to say that there's currently a long US waiting list for the BMW Mini, which is a truly fun car to drive (hint: it doesn't roll over when you go around corners).
To return to matters vaguely relevant to Kyoto, the nihilist "it's hopeless so why bother" argument IS dealt with by the treaty - Kyoto is part of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, not a single set of regulations but a mechanism to establish fair rules as required. The hard part is establishing the level playing field, not playing the game.
The USA is the world's biggest polluter, both in total and, by a huge margin, per capita - it has a responsibility to lead. Do you really think that the US, Europe and Japan would be unable to bring remaining countries into line when necessary?
Actually, I am going to the US shortly, and no, I have no intentions of trying to impose my stupid rules. I would like to understand the american way of thinking, but it seems that it is impossible to get an american to share the basis for their views and thinking, they rather quickly resort to namecalling or childish arguments if anything about their lifestyle or system is questioned.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Scientists have been able to get much older air sample through ice cores in the artic/antartic region. There are often air pocket in these cores which they can analyze to get some idea.
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Europe has recently engaged in many meaningless gestures in order to enhance its "moral" standing over the US. Europe has yet to understand that it is no longer the center of world affairs. It has no military worth discussing, and no will to create one. It has a living standard 2/3rds that of the US. It has a demographic problem that is causing its population to rapidly age and diminish relative to most of the rest of the world.
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Europe will not change its behavior as a result of the signing, so it is a no-cost effort.
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The EU is a bureaucracy, not a democracy. The Brussells bureaucrats are far removed from the votes of individuals in Europe, and acts on its own. Bureaucracies have significant intertia and often do irrational things just because they appeared rational when the process was started (see Laws of Bureaucracy).
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It is not clear that the US will never sign the treaty. We have had previous fits of insanity, and as long as the treaty is out there, it could be signed in the future if we ended up with a sufficiently foolish senate. Furthermore, European signing of the treaty makes it easier for US environmental organizations to pressure the US into signing it. It is a no cost effort by Europe that could pay off big in the future.
Oh, btw... I am not a Europe hater. I have spent much time in Europe including living in France. I am, however, distressed at the irrational behavior of Europe in recent times.Furthermore, Europe has been losing other moral edges it had over the US. For example, the violent crime rate in Britain and France is now significantly higher than that in the US. The recent anti-semitism should be a source of great shame in Europe, but the rapidly rising percentage of muslims in France and England (see demographics above - the muslims are having more children) has muted the reaction to this.
Due to all of these factors, Europe is humiliated, and is reacting by attacking the United States wherever it can in the realm of ideology and international affairs.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Kyoto is nothing more than another European inspired attempt at hobbling the United States and improving European competitive position. Europe, because of its much greater population density, needs less fuel than the US.
This is such a bullshit, that I can't resist. Europe isn't pushing the Kyoto protocol, because they want to "hobble" the US. Come on guys, it's not always about you... Europe is pushing Kyoto, because they actually care about the environment! What many Americans don't get is that environmental concerns are far more common and usual in Europe than in the US. And I'm not talking about environmental extremist. People DO care about pollution and the environment in general here. BY FAR more than in the US. (Yes, and I've been and worked in both places...)
Furthermore, its citizens already drive in tiny cars (due to extortionate fuel taxes and other laws)
Bullshit Nr. 2. Yes, people drive smaller cars. (I do, for sure.) But it's not only because of the fuel taxes and "other laws", but more because most Europeans don't feel the need to have two meters of steel around you. I (and no European I know) never understood the American affection for SUVs (especially in Texas. Why do you need all that trucks??). And people look for cars with high mileage not only because of the costs, but mainly because it's perceived as bad for the environment, if the car uses to much gas.
There's actually a lot of research going in this field. VW just presented the first one-liter-car (translates to about 230 miles per gallon) as a prototype.
and already suffer a much higher traffic death rate per mile.
Would you care to back this claim with some official numbers?
China got nailed for flooding the U.S. market with brake drums and rotors not too long ago. I know, that's not the same as the raw material, but they have been known to use tactics like this. If the Chinese are willing to sell a product for less than it cost THEM to produce, how is an American company supposed to compete. Oh wait, we could get serious about the war on drugs, bust some more potheads, and use prison labor... build some foundries next door to our federal pens! Of course, the Chinese would never do something like that...
Hehe, sorry for jumping on ya, just that it's fascinating to see the US perspective of things.
I'd rather say the steel industry is paying the price for the cheap labour they've had over the years. I imagine it is(and was) a hard job which took its toll on employees bodies. The money the business then saved by hard working conditions they have to pay now in the form of pensions, seems fair to me.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
I don't think the US aiding Europe was done totally out of kindness, the US could see the long term gains that would come out of a shorter financial penalty. And Sovjet dominance over europe would have been a very bad thing for both Europe and the US. Likewise in adapting an enviromental plan (not saying Kyoto is the plan to end all plans) that would reduce pollution it's a short term financial penalty with long term gains. I don't think anyone can say pollution is good, but yet people don't want to reduce it because it costs a bit.
And yes, if you want friends in Europe, then you pay for it as with the Marshall plan. If we want the US the be friends with us, we pay for it, simple as that, if we're to be allies, then we take turns picking up the tab.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
In the USA it takes 15 men to make process the steel 1 man makes in Japan for example.
We have not upgraded our technology.
Do YOU want to pay 15 uneducated men $50 an hour to make your steel? Or do you want to import it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_U.S._Election_c
Folks,
No matter what happens over the next 20+ years we will require industry to produce and transport the consumer goods we can no longer live without.
Subsequently, we will need factories and low labor cost countries to produce our 'necessities'.
Germany cut emissions? Guess what? It moved to China/Malaysia/Eastern European States, etc.
Analogous to the so called 'drug problem' in South America. We require drugs, they are farmed in S. America.
Then we spend tens of millions of dollars going after farmers who supply demand to. Then it shifts to another region.
Guess what? We still use the drugs: squeezing the balloon.
?sp
Actually, the mafia is currently trafficking in CFCs, and assumedly making huge profits. Maybe that is why the economy didn't suffer, because people kept using CFCs.
I'm not kidding, look it up.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Not to mention the fact that they actually make a genuine effort to implement cleaner public transport infrastructure. If Bush really wants to reduce US reliance on Middle Eastern oil why not go the extra mile and start taking some initiatives to reduce reliance on oil all together. Notice I said take initiatives, not abandon it all together tomorrow morning. Oh right, I forgot his administration cares about issues like that.. there's an abundance of evidence in his National Energy Policy to support that.
Furthermore, its citizens already drive in tiny cars (due to extortionate fuel taxes and other laws) and already suffer a much higher traffic death rate per mile.
So how about driving midsized cars rather than the tanks you're accustomed to? They also have more options when it comes to choosing fuel efficient cars (hybrids) because there is demand in the region, as compared to North America where the majority seem content consuming more and more resources.
But its true. The gasoline taxes in Europe are extortionate. The fact that some European small cars are fun to drive does not negate the facts that Europe has a much higher percentage of people driving tiny cars with high mileage than the US - people make rational choices and it is rational to trade off some amount of safety for some amount of freedom as represented by the increased mileage of the tiny cars (although most environmentalists will deny us that freedom in any other areas). However, that choice is significantly dictated by the governments which set standards including the cost of gasoline.
Don't forget that big Mercedes and BMW's are also very popular exports to the US. And there is nothing like driving on the Autobahn and seeing the big European owned, gas guzzling Mercy's and Beamers zipping by at >200 kph. Of course, only those rich enough to afford them and the gas can drive them in Europe. In the more democratic US, our gas taxes are low enough that almost anyone can have a big car and drive it fast, if that is their choice.
In matters relevant to Kyoto, the "its hopeless so why bother" is not the US argument at all. But you imply that the Kyoto treaty is rational, when in fact it is not. Yes, now that the absurdities of the treaties have been shown, environmentalists are at last admitting that it is only the first step. Steps that would really make a difference (assuming that the science and other projections are correct) are obviously even more onerous, or they would have been put into the treaty in the first place!
The US is only the worlds biggest polluter if you consider CO2 to be pollution (not a totally unreasonable assumption). But we are not nearly the largest polluter relative to our productivity, which is a more rational measure. Every time somebody in the world uses a US product (including information/service products) they are benefiting from that pollution, but it does not get credited to us. Your use of internet technology and PC technology was directly subsidized by the pollution produced by our technologists!
Furthermore, Kyoto ignores China and India. If the US faces onerous charges for pollution, we will export much of our pollution to those countries, which are not required to reduce theirs. Net result: more pollution, since they are less efficient due to less capital available for technology.
What is fair in your mind is massive sacrifies by the US compared to Europe, and no sacrifices by rapidly growing, non-democratic countries such as China. This is fair?
Also, you ignore the points I made originally. Kyoto is based on global warming science. But that science is not in very good shape. Ignored is the fact that it has yet to come close to proving that the recent warming is anthropogenic, although I will grant that it possibly is. But more important is the highly bureaucratic assumption that somehow the magic signing of such a treaty will actually compel the world's population, for the next 100 years, to change their behavior even when it is against their best interests! In other words, it imagines that people will willingly suffer the degradation of their economies based on these treaties, and will continue to do so in the next 100 years.
Tell me, it were 1902 and you had the same science, would you be so confident in the treaty?
There were a few surpises during the subsequent 100 years that would have made the treaty meaningless: World Wars I and II, the rise of fascism, the rise of communism (the worst environmental disasters occurred in the USSR and Eastern Europe - I saw many of these myself in 1991), the development of the automobile, aviation, electronics, telecommunications, nuclear energy, etc.
Of course, you will say, it is part of a framework. This hardly inspires confidence.
The general increase in faith in the power of bureaucratic entities and international organizations seems inversely proportional to the ability of the faithful to enforce that power.
Finally, once again, you are pointing out what is the biggest problem with Kyoto.
Kyoto does nothing significant for the environment without further measures anticipated by its framework. Which leads one to the question of:
Why should we sign on to it, which clearly requires causes us more economic damage than the rest of the world, when even its proponents admit it won't do any good except to further the procedural path?"
The only good weather is bad weather.
Here's the text of the first article google pulled up about China's actual progress: DOMESTIC: World Bank Funded Research Contradicts China's Pollution Claims SUMMARY: (8/15) - New evidence funded by the World Bank contradicts China's claims that it is significantly lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Nobuhiro Horii, of Japan's Institute of Developing Economies, said coal mines in Hunan province that the Beijing government ordered closed were in fact kept open. Horii maintained talks he had with people in other provinces indicated the problem was nation-wide. Horii also said improving energy efficiency takes about a decade, and China's claims to be increasing energy efficiency in carbon dioxide production in much faster time are not credible. "Yes, China is increasing energy efficiency, but they are doing it slowly, like everyone else," he said. In April, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California reported that since 1996, China's energy output had fallen 17 percent and its carbon dioxide emissions had fallen 14 percent even as China's economy grew by 36 percent. That same month the European Union office in Beijing found that over five years, China had increased energy efficiency by 50 percent and diminished coal use by 30 percent. However, a report put out by the U.S. embassy in Beijing this month claims China's greenhouse gas emissions have hardly dropped any, if at all. And at a recent conference in Beijing, a Chinese scientist maintained that China will modify its coal consumption total for 1999, taking away half the reductions it previously claimed. Other research indicates China has underreported consumption of oil. Vehicle traffic in Chinese cities has approximately doubled every five years, yet China reported oil consumption increasing just 11.4 percent between 1996 and 1999. Zhou Dadi, director of the Energy Research Institute of the Chinese government's State Development Planning Commission, said while doubts about China's energy statistics are understandable, "we are clearly decreasing our coal consumption." (from uscpf.org)
This post makes me swell with pride at being an American. I have always believed on an individual level that if I found my opinions were in harmony with the vast majority of other people, that perhaps I should re-examine them. It is heartening to know that my entire culture has the same moral courage to go against "the crowd."
It gives me great pride to think that while the rest of the world may be willing to sacrifice everything for "peace and harmony", we Americans still know that Freedom and Liberty are worth going to war over and that evil must be resisted even when that makes you unpopular with everyone else. I do feel bad, however, for those poor souls in the rest of the world that continue to throw away control of their lives and their communities to national and transnational governments in exchange for the promise of "peace and harmony", safety and popularity. I hope they at least enjoy the road to serfdom, because I don't think they are going to like the destination.
I'll take uncertainty and war. I'll take an increased chance of being murdered by a gun if it means that future generations of Americans will get to maintain the ability to resist tyranny. I'll take being unpopular with the global community if it means that we do not sell out our businessmen and laborers to a bunch of champaign socialist and watermelons armed with dogmatic junk science and scare mongering. I'll take the risk of contamination or disease in order to have a real deterrence to our enemies using weapons of mass destruction instead of burying my head in the sand and hoping that a signature on a piece of paper will be sufficient to restrain our enemies. You can have your peace and harmony; I'll live in the world of both risks and reality.
Your calculations aren't very deep.
Let's add a few factors:
1. CO2 production. This is not a bad thing in and of itself. CO2 is not pollution. It has yet to be scientifically determined what effect an increase in CO2 will have on our environment. It is very easy to say "greenhouse! greenhouse!" But the fact is NO ONE KNOWS! Combined with the devestation of vegetation PLANET WIDE... all we can say is that it will probably have an effect. Good or bad... who knows?
2. Non-emission pollution. I would rather drink the water from a U.S. river than from a third world country. Why is that? Because "pound for pound" the United States is one of the cleanest in the world. By focusing on emissions only, you really don't see the big picture.
3. U.S. environmental laws. I have met the man that was primarily responsible for the 40 CFR... and worked with him for several years. He (and a few other environmental engineers) sat around for a few months and worked out what they thought to be "acceptable regulations" within the guidelines presented to them by the Fed. These laws were pretty much passed carte blanche without any modification from the government... because after all, these engineers are experts. Then the engineers turned around and made lots of money hiring themselves out as consultants to companies. They made $300/hr instructing corporations how to circumvent these laws.
4. Lost jobs. If you have ever worked in industry, you'd realize that the first cost cut is with lost jobs. "Robots don't get benefits." Any increase in costs will result in the loss of unskilled jobs. These new jobs that you speak of will be very few and far between... not to mention drawn from the skilled labor pool.
5. Your "formulae." Is sparse at best. It's a bunch of unconnected reasoning. By themselves each point seems pretty clear... but let's look at what happens when you combine them all together:
Third world countries don't produce emissions higher than the United States, they make up for it by poisoning their only water supplies, cutting down vast stretches of rain forest and by having the highest unemployment (=poverty) rate in the world.
We are free to make our laws anyway we like, but there are only a handful people in the country that have experience in both environmental and industry... and when called on as "experts" there will be no one to look over their shoulders.
As costs increase, the use of energy will decrease as plants close and corporation presidents retire a few years earlier than the typical baby boomer. Without demand for energy at power plant dictated prices, power plants will also close down. As people lose their expensive union jobs, there will be no money for expensive solar and H2 cells.
And the funny thing is, if you remove the CO2 from the emissions, where exactly does it go?
Scientists have been able to get much older air sample through ice cores in the artic/antartic region. There are often air pocket in these cores which they can analyze to get some idea.
The thing is, getting "some idea" doesn't compare to the more recent methods the other poster alluded to. Yes, various methods have been used to indicate that the Earth was much warmer than it is now during the middle ages, etc. That's not the same as the exact records of more recent years that we have been obsessing over. For instance, it's hard to tell whether or not the small variations we have been seeing are normal, or just a function of the fact that we are collecting more precise measurements than before.
Oh, and people care about the environment here in the US also. But we also care about freedom, and we would like our environmental sacrifices to be meaninful and likely to produce success.
Regarding smaller cars, your motives are fine. But you are you, and are not representative of all Europeans. Of course some people drive smaller cars out of environmental reasons (and they do in the US also). But there are other reasons (narrow streets in old European towns for example). You cannot deny that economics has a significant effect on the choices people make, however.
You ask about SUV's. I own two - one made by the Japanese (Toyota). I can tell you exactly why Americans drive SUV's - safety and comfort.
You ask... why SUV's?
Because of environmentalist-pushed regulations!
"WHAT?" You say.
Environmentalists pushed the Corporate Average Fuel Economy law. This requires manufacturers to have an ever rising average fuel economy in the fleet of cars that they sell. However, light trucks were exempted, and SUV's are light trucks.
Thus, Americans who desired larger and safer automobiles were forced by the environmentalist regulations to buy SUV's!
Environmentalists, and statist in general who try to use the coercive force of government to alter individual behavior too often ignore The Law of Unintended Consequences, as this shows so well.
Of course, a reasonable question at this point is why Americans want larger cars. I have already mentioned safety. The National Academy of Science estimates that several thousand American lives are lost each year due to smaller cars resulting from CAFE. Americans understand this instinctively and they know that larger cars are safer (and they are).
Okay... but beyond safety, there is another reason that Americans want large cars. One of America's greatest innovations, and a significant reason for our very high standard of living, is our innovations in the consumer distribution network. In this case, supermarkets, large department stores (now almost obsolete), shopping malls, and large discount outlets (Walmart, Costco) have greatly reduced the cost of distribution to consumers by eliminating middlement and bringing wholesale prices to the final buyer. A side effect of this is that consumer goods are concentrated in central points, and these central points are a significant distance from where most people live. In comparison, in European cities (and older US cities), one can walk to the grocery store, the bakery, etc. But Americans, if they want to be efficient in their shopping (and coincidentally fuel efficient) need larger cars just to carry home the results of the shopping trips. This is also why mass transit is a loser of an idea in the US.
Another reason for larger cars is the fact that the US is a very big country. I just returned from an 8000 mile driving trip (hunting tornados). And yet I only touched a small part of the US. Just driving across Texas is equivalent to driving the length of Europe! And when you must drive long distances, comfort is important! Most foreign cars and even US CAFE limited cars are too small for a significant percentage of Americans (who on average are fairly tall) to drive long distances in.
Now, Europeans, with their provincial viewpoint don't realize most of these factors. They want us to follow the same rules that they, with their high population densities and inefficient retail systems must follow.
I will post another direct reply to the main article on what I consider to be a rational response to global warming.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I saw this in a science magazine way back and just remebered it while crusising through this hate filled, biased thread.
"Sprinkling iron on the ocean may recreate the climate changes seen in Ocean scientists believe they have recreated one of the key processes that triggers the beginning and end of ice ages."
I'll let you read the rest of the article, but it also theorizes on how to prevent or stave off global warming effects. Have fun.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
This will give American companies an economic advantage. The Kyoto restrictions, if implimented, would bring any industrialized nation's economy to it's knees. Does anyone have any CLUE as to how expensive it will be to reduce all emissions 8%?
Germany follows the Koyto "restrictions" since the talks are over. The former german governmnet and the actual government field laws to direct the economy in that direction.
We suffer not at all by the economic changed based on CO2 reduction. We suffer far more from the dot com crash in the US as our economy likes the exhaustive living of teh US consumers buying our products.
You see, the money to do all that will come from somewhere. Largely from money that would have been used to build and grow companies, and thus, employ more people...
You can build and grow companies producing materials to reduce energy consumption.
You can build and grow companies producing H2 technology.
You can build and grow companies producing Solar Power technology.
You can build and grow companies producing Wind Power technology.
You can build and grow companies producing recycling technology.
You can build and grow companies producing low energy air conditioning technology.
[... furhter 30 to 100 technology areas ommitted]
I would bet in one or the other of such companies a job or two would be available.
Tzss
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
One of the major safty factors in having a larger car is having a larger car than the car you collide with. By this logic, you can't make a car large enough. By the same logic, everyone in America should carry a handgun and violent crime would be completely eliminated. I think the kind of safty you are talking about is giving more than you get.
The science behind climactic change is beyond any serious dispute.
Sure it is... and the indisputable proof of that is the way that you will dismiss any evidence of serious dispute (like, say, this) as frivolous. Makes a nice pretty circle... and it's all kosher since you are a self-proclaimed scientific authority, too, right?
When Germans let me drive the speed recommended by their politicians on their roads, maybe I will let them lecture me as an American about energy conservation.
"The science behind climactic change is beyond any serious dispute."
Nothing in science is beyond serious dispute; as that is the nature of science. Good science, anyway. Even someting as simple, elegant, and obviously correct as Sir Newton's theory of gravity was improved upon, and will likely be further refined in the future. I certainly think the science behind climate change is in its infancy, and if our present models of it are correct enough to make predictions centuries into the future then it is so only by some bizzare coincidence. We do not have nearly the amount of data we need to have refined our models that well through deliberate efforts.
In the interests of full disclosure, I should reveal that I am not a computer scientist. I worked for 5 years as an environmental enginneer doing research on air pollution from stationary sources. I now work for the "evil" oil industry (the one that builds the giant Gaia destroying, oil spraying robots that Capt. Planet fights in the cartoons... you may be surprised to discover that besides fighting the forces of Mother Nature, we also have a small side business providing the fuel that powers almost all the transporation in the modern world).
Yeah, you are soooo right.
Look at all those old scientific theories coming back - the heliocentric theory is totally discredited, the Milky Way is the only galaxy in the universe, and the electronic signals generating this message propogate through the ether - or was that pholgiston, I dunno, these old theories come back so often.
And I am sure you follow Bishop Ussher's view of cosmology, as that never went out of fashion with the sort of right wing morons you must hang around with.
A few million dollars and stock options to an outgoing executive are pennies compared to the obligations held to the pensioners. Pension plans are notoriously difficult to handle efficiently. I used to work at an oil company, and pension management was bigger than the payroll department. I think we had something like 5000 employees, and almost 20,000 pensioners. That's a huge obligation.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
It's funny to see that everybody here is so concerned about this issue but a recent slashdot poll had the car as the top form of transportation chosen by /.ers.
If you want to do something you need to change yourself and the sytem will bend to accomodate your need.
To start with stop buying V8s till there will be more enviromental friendly and powerfull vehicles on the market. On the other hand stop purchasing products that involve high polution in their creation.
While science is far from proving that the current warming is caused by mankind, let us assume that in fact the hypothesis is correct. CO2 is a trace gas in the atmosphere, especially compared to the greenhouse gas called water vapor, but the actions of man have indeed caused CO2 to increase by over 30% in the last 150 years. So... assuming this increase will cause further warming, what should we do about it?
Kyoto attempts to simply reduce the warming. Environmental advocates also advocate a simple (if terribly expensive) strategy of stopping the warming and maintaining the status quo.
However, actually stopping the increase in CO2 is impossible without a massive reduction in population (i.e. a massive human catastrophe or global war). It won't happen for a number of reasons, the most important of which is the resistance of people, especally in developing countries, to the measures necessary to do so.
A more rational approach follows the following principles and facts:
The most rational approach is to accept that global warming is inevitable (if we believe any predictions at all from the imperfect science). We should:
The only good weather is bad weather.
You don't get out much ... do you ?
I'm currently planning my 3rd trip abroad this year, why?
I know many , many people who still hate Germany and frankly are afraid of its famous warmongering.
Sure, I don't doubt that. If you had employed your reading skills, you just might have noticed that I was talking about countries, not individuals.
Anyways, this is getting off-topic and I'm tired of talking to ACs. I put my name on my opinion, do likewise if you want a reply.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
How pathetic.
BTW... Americans have a pretty good grasp of the facts in that conflict, and we get both sides of the story also. In fact, most of our major media is biased against Israel, and has been for at least a decade. The American left, which strongly influences our mass media, always sides with the "struggle against oppression," or what it views as such, regardless of facts.
The only good weather is bad weather.
I read Slashdot for tech-related stuff, not political posturing. This stuff is freely available in the mainline media and has no place here.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
I come here to read about tech-related stuff, not to see a soapbox for political trolling and argument. This piece of news is available in the mainline media and has no place at Slashdot.
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast.
I still don't believe that. I don't even see, where the big advantage for Europe would be. We have to reduce our emissions, too. (Well, now only _we_ have to) Anyway, the motives are not really important in this case.
Oh, and people care about the environment here in the US also.
I know. I didn't say otherwise. I just said, that concluding from my observations the average "environmental awareness" is lot higher in Europe than in the US.
But we also care about freedom, and we would like our environmental sacrifices to be meaninful and likely to produce success.
Oh, and people care about freedom here in Europe also.
Honestly, I don't really get that CAFE law argument. Why are you forced to buy SUVs, because manufacturers have to make their cars more efficient?
Americans understand this instinctively and they know that larger cars are safer (and they are).
Yes, against other SUVs. I don't buy this safety argument. And of course if you add pedestrians and cyclists to the calculation, the safety record may look differently.
[Americans need big cars, because they have big shopping centers...]
You know... We have shopping outlets too. I agree, that they're much more integrated in the American culture. But anyway: The connection "Big shopping center" --> "Need for SUV" is totally bogus in my eyes.
Just driving across Texas is equivalent to driving the length of Europe!
Not even close... :-) Look at a map.
Most foreign cars and even US CAFE limited cars are too small for a significant percentage of Americans (who on average are fairly tall) to drive long distances in.
ROTFL!! You're not serious with that one, are you? Americans need bigger cars, because they're taller? Compared to Europeans? Come on, Americans _by_definition_ have to be smaller than Europeans in average, because the largest part of the US population originally steems from Europe, but you also have a lot of (originally) asian people, which in general are smaller than European people. Anyway, taller or not, I'm 6.6 feet tall and find my small car quite comfortable...
Now, Europeans, with their provincial viewpoint don't realize most of these factors.
I do. I agree that the US has far bigger distances than Europe and that having a car is much more important in the US. I also agree that that's the reason why US mass transportation (outside the cities) pretty much sucks and that it's probably impossible to change that.
Oh, and talking about "provincial viewpoints". Americans don't exactly have a great track record in having viewpoints other than their owns (i.e. considering out-of-america stuff...).
They want us to follow the same rules that they, with their high population densities and inefficient retail systems must follow.
Inefficient retail systems??? Anyway, they don't want you to do any of this. What they want you to do, is to be more aware about gas usage. That was the whole point I was trying to make. In my experience many Americans just don't REALLY care how much gas their car uses. Well, it's cheap, so why should they? I was just saying, that the awareness for these kind of things is a lot higher in Europe than in the US.
I've been wondering about this for a while now, so I think I'll post here.. maybe someone can help me out.
I live in a sea-side town. One of the popular arguements for environment efficiency around here is that an increase in global tempratures will result in the melting of polar ice caps. The melting will cause an increase in the water level such that towns like mine will become submerged.
My problem is this: Water in a frozen state (especially that with salt content) is of greater volume than in a liquid state. While some of the volume can be discounted as the ice floats, the ice within the water will melt and reduce the total volume of the water in total.
Am I crazy or would that mean the global water level would be lowered?
Peter
But we are not nearly the largest polluter relative to our productivity, which is a more rational measure. Every time somebody in the world uses a US product (including information/service products) they are benefiting from that pollution, but it does not get credited to us. Your use of internet technology and PC technology was directly subsidized by the pollution produced by our technologists!
.
I think you too the pledge of alegance a bit to seriously in grade school.
US is not some flawless country, as it appears to be in your eyes.
But anyway, to the point. You argue that we drive SUV's because we have the freedom to do so. You argue that because of our low tax on petro we can afford to waste gas for comfort
Now your arguing that we are more productive because of all of this choosing to waste gass for comfort
I'm not going to spell out the flaw there, but hopefully you can see it yourself. The problem with americans is they view anyone concerned with the enviroment as your 'extreme enviromentalists', while I'm not going to deny such people exist, they are not the reason we should be woried about our envirment.
Next you argue that we are limiting our options, well considering that polution does change the atmosphere composition and thusly must at least trivially change the climate, it is logical to assume that a solution that requires more man-hours to impliment but dosen't change the atmosphere composition and also advances research in alternate fuel devices, instead of stagnating on fossel fules would be a prefered solution.
You argue that researching alternate fuel technology will destroy economies. Unfortunatly you don't understand economics it seems, because if 1: there is a demand for a product, and 2: there are people to produce the product then 3: you have a working economy. No matter what form of energy you have, an economy will sprout up around it, because thats the way capitalism works.
Following the logic that capitalism always finds the best solution, with no regulation is falwed, it's a fairly trivial argument to state that it would be benifical to hunt wales to extinction in order to aquire thier oil, when cheaper solutions exist. This is what pure unregulated capitalism causes, and obviously it is not the prefered solution.
You also argue that americans are taller than europeans, all I can say is "WHAT?". Have you even looked at statistics to back this up, or is it just your ego talking? That dosen't even mildly make sense, unless your going to start trying to say that the european gov's are all taxing thier citizens into malnourishment during childhood now. They are not doing that, and they come from a similar genetic line, so it is ludacrist that they would be shorter than americans.
You state the law of unintended consequences (the what?) as the reason SUV's are popular. You state that this obviously makes all envirmental action 'stupid' and 'limiting your freedom'. Unfortunatly, the only thing that can limit our freedom, is censorship, I'm not going to debate this point farther, but if you provide a real rebutal, I'll argue it. Asking people to avoid being need-lessly wastefull is not adverting freedom, nor is it stupid. I'd like to modify a quote at this point "Your right to freedom stops at my grandchildrens grandchildrens grandchildrens enviromental wellfare", if you purpously do something that has a good chance of destroying the envirment for a later generation, that is no better than littering today. While I have not researched global warming personally, I do feel compeled to think that by being wastefull I'm not benifiting anyone except the workers at the oil refineries.
You argue that SUV's are more comfortable than small cars, this is a real debatable point, but I'm going to venture into it. I'm going to venture to guess that a mid-sized car with an efficent/powerfull engine and a well designed interior is just as comfortable for most people in most situations. Obviously there are some people who have always needed the size of a van for whatever legitimate reason, and there is nothing wrong with that. But I would like to say have never felt my Tarus was too small for anything except once when transporting lumber, and I just used a famers truck for that. Now obviously a SUV can be more comfortable, espeically if you have a large family, but that does not mean it needs to be designed with a motor that accelerates as fast as a small car.
You claim your more productive than the rest of the world, really? I'd like to see that backed up. I go to work every day at a corperate situation, and make sure my network and applications work, is this more productive than the same job in brittan, how? Obviously we have a larger GNP than brittan, but our per-capita income. If there is a diffrence, how much of it can be explained directly because of import/export laws? I obviously do not have the answers to this, but you don't provide them either. I find it hard to believe we are the most prodicutive country in the world, I know alot of people who don't do anything productive at all. A great deal of our money is in the servicing of people, to make thier lives easier, not in the production of any tangeable good. Obviously being the most productive society isn't a good thing (slave labor ect), but I don't think saying the US is the most productive, because we use the most gass for convenience, holds any weight.
I'd like to close with, have you ever been overseas? I think you would find brittan shockingly similar to America. Sure they have a slightly diffrent economic setup, but I don't think they are as radically diffrent as you think they are. And the are most definatly not inferior to us, no citizen of earth is, and it is ludacrist to imply that they are.
I live in a giant bucket.
As I explained. If Americans are to buy safe cars that are large enough to hold a couple of people and the results of a weekly shopping trip, they need a relatively large car. Because of CAFE, the auto manufacturers do not make many large cars, and they charge a lot for them, because of the poor mileage of CAFE. But SUV's are exempt from CAFE, which is why Americans buy them.
Yes, against other SUVs. I don't buy this safety argument. And of course if you add pedestrians and cyclists to the calculation, the safety record may look differently.
Against other vehicles period. It is not only the relative mass of head-on vehicles that count, but also the relative mass of the vehicle vs. the person inside of it. And then there are side collisions, and collisions with stationary objects, of course. The National Academy of Sciences, not exactly a biased group, has estimated that somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand Americans die every year due to CAFE.
You know... We have shopping outlets too. I agree, that they're much more integrated in the American culture. But anyway: The connection "Big shopping center" --> "Need for SUV" is totally bogus in my eyes.
When I lived in Paris, I could buy all of my daily needs within a block. I didn't need to make a shopping trip. Americans, OTOH, need to go miles typically just to buy groceries. So naturally, they want to combine multiple trips into one, and that means they need to carry more. They don't need an SUV to do it, but a euro-midget car just is too small.
ROTFL!! You're not serious with that one, are you? Americans need bigger cars, because they're taller? Because they are on average tall, and because they drive much longer distances. It is the combination.
Oh, and talking about "provincial viewpoints". Americans don't exactly have a great track record in having viewpoints other than their owns (i.e. considering out-of-america stuff...). I know. I just put that one in their to tangle your tail :-) Americans in fact are pretty provincial. What Europeans tend to be is "superior" in that Americans are constantly getting lectured by you guys (at least in the media). So occasionally we feel like teasing back.
Inefficient retail systems??? Anyway, they don't want you to do any of this. What they want you to do, is to be more aware about gas usage. That was the whole point I was trying to make. In my experience many Americans just don't REALLY care how much gas their car uses. Well, it's cheap, so why should they? I was just saying, that the awareness for these kind of things is a lot higher in Europe than in the US.
I think Americans are more skeptical of environmentalist claims than Europeans are, and are (IMHO properly) much more skeptical of government intervention. But we to say that americans care less about the environment would be wrong. We care a lot about it - after all, we have a lot more of itI would argue that Europeans have the luxury of worrying about such things because it doesn't cost them much personally to do so. It costs us more to do something about it, so we do less. I don't think it is a matter of inherent superiority of attitude... it is more the matter of human nature. But... I also would argue that the Europeans are much more likely to approve of government regulating their lives and in general interfering more in their economy. Where this trust comes from, I don't know, given the apalling behaviour of many European governments in the first fifty years of this century.
Finally, I would agree with the Europeans on government intervention (and disagree with many free-market americans) in one way: pollution problems cannot be solved without the intervention of government, because the costs are not felt by the polluter and thus market mechanisms are not sufficient. The difference is that I have far less faith in governments to make correct interventions than Europeans seem to have. And in the case of global warming, a good argument can be made that no action other than research is appropriate at this time. The uncertainties are too high as I have mentioned in previous posts. The most important difficulties are not scientific, but rather human: getting the whole world to adopt a policy like Kyoto and keeping it in force for 100 years, in order to delay global warming for 6 years, is just not a reasonable expectation!
The only good weather is bad weather.
The sun only delivers 2400 watts / m^2 maximum -- do some calculations, you'd need a lot of cells to supply the average household, let alone business!
Hmm, let's see. 1000 W/m^2 * 15% efficiency / 1000 W per average household = 7 m^2 per household. Gee, my roof is only 160 square meters. I don't know where I'll ever find 7 square meters for solar panels.
Also, you don't recall correctly about the composition of solar cells. The most efficient lab cells a little while ago used gallium arsenide, and they may have moved on to something more obscure since then. But the vast majority of commercial solar cells use silicon, which doesn't present much of a disposal problem. Solvents used in manufacturing are also reused within the factory, so solar cell manufacture is not especially dirty.
Wind power: the best solution until it shows up in your backyard.
Wind power goes mostly on open land where there is lots of wind. The farmers and ranchers who own this land love it, because they keep on farming and ranching below the turbines, and they get extra income from their land. There is no reason to put turbines in cities (except maybe this).
Bush couldn't ratify Kyoto even if he wanted to, since the Senate voted against it 95-0 [globalwarming.org] in 1997 (admittedly it was non-binding, but it needed 67 votes to pass). Clinton signed the treaty, but during his term, he did nothing to try to implement it.
Well. If you feel unhappy about it, you know what you have to do, don't you? I don't think giving authority to 3rd party in anything has much popular support Stateside right now. But if you don't vote, you didn't do anything. In any case, Kyoto requires nuclear power if you're being a realist. We're building a shiny new one right here.. You'd need to build 40 in US to have same effect per capita. You think that's going to happen?
Note I didn't say it wouldn't be a good idea to do so. Just that I don't think it'll happen, at least not until the deserts in US soil start creeping..
Hey, your computer really isn't using much power compared to other things in your house. Laser printers that never turn off enough are bad. Monitors are really nasty bad. Your Air Conditioner is really bad. Your fridge is too. My dehumidifier scares me even though it *is* energy star compliant. My furnace is only 80afue. 90afue+ units are out these days. My AC unit might be 'high efficiency' but I have no idea what they mean by that scrawling on the side of it.
The idea is to further programs like energystar and promote the use of less energy with the same technology. You dont have to degrade your lifestyle, you just need to start *buying smarter in the future*.
I'm pretty new to the whole house thing, so I've been trying to do so as much as we can. It costs more, but in about 3-8 years (or less) some of these units can save on monthly fees and be paying you back for buying them, assuming they are of good quality.
I'm also looking forward to home fuel cell units that output hot water as a byproudct and increase efficiency over many other types of energy production. Yeah, they use nat gas, but if we are lucky nat gas will be a good idea for about another century or two along with hydrogen until fusion or something else is reality.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
Tedious, emotional, nationalistic and irrelevant as this rant is, as some goddamned fool has decided that it counts as insight, I might as well trawl through the drivel:
1. The fact that the USA has withdrawn from so many international activities (climate change, international criminal court, land mines) has resulted in it being subject to criticism. I'm glad that the poster regards this as placing the USA in a morally inferior position, but that is entirely his interpretation. To suggest that these initiatives were deliberately developed to embarrass the USA is completely delusional.
Quoting random statistics about Europe internal difficulties, whether real (anti-immigration policies) or imagined (crime rates vs. the USA) have no bearing on the case for action on climate change. One might as well decide to ignore Nelson Mandela given the crime rate in South Africa.
2. Europe will continue to make a number of changes in its economy to keep to the protocol. Whether you view this as changing or not changing its behaviour is irrelevant.
3. Your confident assurance that "Brussells" bureaucrats are not democratically elected will come as something of a surprise to the European Parliament responsible enforcing the Kyoto protocol. Or is democracy outside the US of A not democracy by definition?
4. I'm at a loss as to how to respond to this bit of incoherent blather. It appears to be a recitation of the first point, with a dig at evil US environmentalists thrown in for good measure. Presumably they are also making 'meaningless gestures to enhance their moral standing over the US'?
US is not some flawless country, as it appears to be in your eyes.
Nothing like starting out with an incorrect and ad hominem assertion about your oponent. At least my ad hominem assertion is correct!
But anyway, to the point. You argue that we drive SUV's because we have the freedom to do so.
WRONG. I argue that we drive SUV's because we cannot buy large, safe cars instead.
Next you argue that we are limiting our options, well considering that polution does change the atmosphere composition and thusly must at least trivially change the climate, it is logical to assume that a solution that requires more man-hours to impliment but dosen't change the atmosphere composition and also advances research in alternate fuel devices, instead of stagnating on fossel fules would be a prefered solution.
In addition to be grammatically incorrect, the above is utterly illogical. It implicitly gives an infinite cost to altering atmospheric composition in regard to all other alternatives.
You argue that researching alternate fuel technology will destroy economies.
I did? Gee... care to put in a quote?
Unfortunatly you don't understand economics it seems, because if 1: there is a demand for a product, and 2: there are people to produce the product then 3: you have a working economy. No matter what form of energy you have, an economy will sprout up around it, because thats the way capitalism works.
Speaking of not understanding economics... the above statement stands on its own! Economics is not about the existence or non-existence of an economy. It's a little more complicated than that!
Following the logic that capitalism always finds the best solution, with no regulation is falwed, it's a fairly trivial argument to state that it would be benifical to hunt wales to extinction in order to aquire thier oil, when cheaper solutions exist. This is what pure unregulated capitalism causes, and obviously it is not the prefered solution.
You mean to hunt whales... to acquire their oil? Anyway... who are you arguing with? I didn't assert that capitalism always finds the best solution. And my argument is not falwed, whatever that means.
You state the law of unintended consequences (the what?) as the reason SUV's are popular.
Hey, you got one right, for a change!
You state that this obviously makes all envirmental action 'stupid' and 'limiting your freedom'.
I did?
Unfortunatly, the only thing that can limit our freedom, is censorship,
Oh, so the only freedom you value is the freedom to bloviate? Some of us value other freedoms.
I'm not going to debate this point farther, but if you provide a real rebutal, I'll argue it.
If I knew what a rebutal was, I'd try to provide it. Or perhaps you meant rebuttal?
Asking people to avoid being need-lessly wastefull is not adverting freedom, nor is it stupid.
I would agree that it is not "adverting" freedom, whatever that means. But governments don't ask, they tell.
I'd like to modify a quote at this point "Your right to freedom stops at my grandchildrens grandchildrens grandchildrens enviromental wellfare",
Oh, so you are so farsighted that you know which of my actions are good for your descendant's welfare?
You claim your more productive than the rest of the world, really? I'd like to see that backed up.
Yes. Go look up world productivity statistics.
I go to work every day at a corperate situation,
My sympathies. I work for a corporation, but I don't go to work every day.
and make sure my network and applications work, is this more productive than the same job in brittan, how?
Weren't you the one asserting that I have no understanding of economics? Get a clue dude... efficiency can be measured, but not by looking at just your own job!
I find it hard to believe we are the most prodicutive country in the world, I know alot of people who don't do anything productive at all. A great deal of our money is in the servicing of people, to make thier lives easier, not in the production of any tangeable good.
So obviously your personal acquaintances are more convincing than real statistics. Why am I not surprised...
And to believe that servicing people is not productive is rather ancient thinking... say 19th century, don't you think?
I'd like to close with, have you ever been overseas?
Yeah, dude. Many times. I've been to Europe, I've been to Korea, Japan, what was called then South Vietnam, and many other places. I've been to communist East Germany and just barely post-Communist Czeckoslovakia. I've been to Latin America and various other countries. I've lived in France and worked in Britain. So much for your assumptions.
However, as far as I know I have never been to brittan!
and it is ludacrist
Uh... is ludacrist a religious figure or a new rock group? Just asking, you understand.
The only good weather is bad weather.
At a stroke you've got a service you can sell, thus generating more of your beloved GDP, you employ people and you cut pollution.
-- "I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting, but I feel better having screamed, don't you ?"
Welcome to capitalism my friend.
Wax-Museum Fire Results In Hundreds Of New Danny DeVito Statues
Which part of But the Bush administration has instead announced policy changes likely to push them up by 30 percent by 2010 did you miss ?
No... I made this mistake at first.
Remember Archimedes. 1g of ice displaces 1g of water, which is slightly smaller than the icecube, so the icecube floats in your glass (about 1/3 of the volume is above the water, I seem to remember). When the ice melts it becomes 1g of water, which displaces...1g of water. No change at all. Fill a glass, add an icecube and top the glass up until it spills. Leave on a windowsill and watch.
However, much ice is not resting on lakes. Antarctica is mostly on rock, so if that melts and runs into the oceans, the water level does rise. Similarly for glaciers, Greenland etc. Another significant effect is straightforward thermal expansion. Heat up water and it expands, like any material (note this is entirely separate from the expansion on becoming steam). I seem to remember that this expansion could be a significant effect (even a 0.05% expansion is quite a large volume of water).
Moving to the slightly more speculative ideas I've heard:
One factor people are investigating is methane clathrates - organic matter that was covered with permafrost, and decomposed anaerobically to give methane trapped in an ice matrix. It is thought that the carbon in clathrates is more than ALL the other fossil fuels put together (51.9% of 21495 Gigatonnes). Methane is much more effective at Greenhousing than CO2. It may pose a runaway risk - a little man-made global warming melts some clathrates, which warms everything a bit more... and the process accelerates away. This is the reason some scientists believe even small reductions in emissions may reduce the probability of a runaway warming.
Cheers.
The United States of America is the world's last hope. Read it and weap, CO2 breathers.
Nowhere here will you find demands for female clitorectomy, nor male circumcision, nor destruction of those who believe not in Allah, the Green Future, nor Socialism. Beyond our borders, well, there be dragons.
As a result we are hated by Usama, the Foes of Pym, The Friends of Pym, The Friends of the Spotted Owl, et al.
Ho hum. Thus the fate of the last defenders of reason.
Fortunately, we're armed. And we have the WTC as guidance.
Adopt ye'r treaties, ye mighty Europeans (you know, ye that surrendered at the first shot of WWIII). We'll be sipping umbrella drinks when the sands cover all but ye'r highest monuments to ye'r own greatness (Oui, j'include la Defense, you sack of decadent scum).
Ozymandias
--
668: Neighbour of the Beast
Ok, got it. Surprises me nevertheless, because I've seen quite some cars in the US, which I would consider "big" (I never said, everybody is driving a SUV). So why are SUVs excluded? Sounds pretty stupid...
The National Academy of Sciences, not exactly a biased group, has estimated that somewhere between 2 and 3 thousand Americans die every year due to CAFE.
At this point, it would be really interesting to see some reliable figures of traffic deaths per capita or per car in the US vs. Europe. Unfortunately, at least my quick google search didn't turn up anything official... Anybody?
When I lived in Paris, I could buy all of my daily needs within a block. I didn't need to make a shopping trip. Americans, OTOH, need to go miles typically just to buy groceries.
When I lived in San Francisco, I could buy all of my daily needs within a block (ok, actually two). I didn't need to make a shopping trip. You're comparing the wrong places. If you live in rural areas in Europe you have to drive to a shopping center too... However, as I said before, I agree that this is more often the case in America than in Europe. But still I don't see, why you would need a SUV for that...
What Europeans tend to be is "superior" in that Americans are constantly getting lectured by you guys (at least in the media).
Right. But it's not like Americans never feel like they know how we Europeans should proceed... :-)
I would argue that Europeans have the luxury of worrying about such things because it doesn't cost them much personally to do so.
You said that before, and I still don't get it. Why would it cost you more to care about the environment? The Kyoto protocol want relative reducement! Nobody says, the US should have the same level of car emissions as Europe. And honestly: The height of the emission per captia figure of the US (2.5 times as high as Europe or Japan) can't really be explained with more transportation usage... So there should be a big area of possible improvement.
I also would argue that the Europeans are much more likely to approve of government regulating their lives and in general interfering more in their economy.
True. On of the fundamental differences in European and American culture. Not a bad thing in my opinion. I never understood this "don't trust your government"-attitude some Americans have.
pollution problems cannot be solved without the intervention of government, because the costs are not felt by the polluter and thus market mechanisms are not sufficient. The difference is that I have far less faith in governments to make correct interventions than Europeans seem to have.
I agree with both points. As I said, I don't know where this gerenal government distrust of many Americans comes from... (And before somebody flaims: There's a big difference between trusting your government in certain area and not questioning anything it does...).
And in the case of global warming, a good argument can be made that no action other than research is appropriate at this time. The uncertainties are too high as I have mentioned in previous posts.
No. First off, there's already disagreement about if there are any uncertainties about global warming. But let's say there are. Let's assume, we don't know for sure if global warming is happening. Then it's still not worth the risk! Reducing emissions now is the only way to assure we're not destroying the environment (well, not more than we already do, anyway).
Mr. Anonymous, what good is an economy if you're unable to breathe and live? The whole 'economic' world view is hopelessly shortsighted. Money doesn't have any value at all, and you'll realize it by the time this planet is scorched dead as the by-product of capitalism.
--
If you moderate this, then your children will be next.
One of the insults was the assertion that the post was "nationalist." Damned right. I believe, and can back up with an argument that doesn't belong in this discussion, that the US is a better nation than any European nation that I know (Britain being a close second) and am not afraid or ashamed to argue that. I realize that Europeans believe that nationalism is out of date and that extra-national bodies and procedures and agreements are the future of man (this is relevant - see 3 examples in point 1 below). I believe this view itself is dangerous and neglects history and the unfortunate nature of man.
1. The fact that the USA has withdrawn from so many international activities (climate change, international criminal court, land mines) has resulted in it being subject to criticism. ...misinterpretation of myargument deleted.... To suggest that these initiatives were deliberately developed to embarrass the USA is completely delusional.
Yes, it would be. Of course, those initiatives were not deliberately developed to embarrass the us, and of course I never suggested that.
I did suggest that there was an economic incentive for Europe to try to get the US into the Kyoto treaty, and there is. And if you believe that your governments are operating solely for the good of man and are not affected by such considerations, you are delusional.
I would also argue that such initiatives are partly due to European discomfort at no longer being the most powerful nations on earth, and in fact are partly an attempt to counter the power of the US, which they feel is dangerous and wrongly yielded, whether in environmental policy or the war on terrorism.
It is also true, that I, like many Americans, believe that all the three initiatives you mention above are foolish and dangerous.
As far as criticism from Europe, we hear it constantly, although mostly in regard to foreign policy. We constantly hear (through our Europhile new media) that we are "cowboys" while Europeans or "more sophisticated" or "more subtle." That criticism, as silly as it is, naturally biases us to be a bit less receptive to other European criticism. If you detect some anti-European ranting here, it is because this is an opportunity to respond to some of the anti-American whining constantly coming from Europe.
Europe will continue to make a number of changes in its economy to keep to the protocol. Whether you view this as changing or not changing its behaviour is irrelevant.
Yes, it is. Why do you bring it up?
Your confident assurance that "Brussells" bureaucrats are not democratically elected will come as something of a surprise to the European Parliament [eu.int] responsible enforcing the Kyoto protocol. Or is democracy outside the US of A not democracy by definition?
Actually, you are right. Sorry about that. I had out-of-date information.
4. I'm at a loss as to how to respond to this bit of incoherent blather. It appears to be a recitation of the first point, with a dig at evil US environmentalists thrown in for good measure. Presumably they are also making 'meaningless gestures to enhance their moral standing over the US'? Perhaps English is not your native language. Or perhaps you casually throw around terms like "incoherent blather" just for the fun of it. The fact that you cannot understand coherent English is, of course, a possibility. To spell it out in detail for you, Point 4 shows that contrary to what the previous poster represented, it is in fact possible that the US will sign Kyoto. It also points out why. I am sorry that the injection of my personal opinion into this point made it impossible for you to understand the factual information contained therein.
What would be more interesting would be for you to actually debate the issue of global warming, instead of picking at a reply to a reply to a reply.
Oh well...
The only good weather is bad weather.
For everyone who has never been to a country like India, but just compares per capita pollution, let me tell you how wrong you are. The pollution in India will make your headspin, literally. I was caught in a bigger than usual traffic jam once, Literally _Gasping_ for air, wanting to leave the car right there and run for some breathable atmosphere, a reaction not unlike being held underwater. For the rest of the day I had numerous symptoms of CO poisoning, among other unpleasant things.
Vehicles there have no (enforced) emmissions controls, some barely have exhaust systems at all, on top of which almost everything is diesel, which means black smoke out the exhaust of everything. Vehicles, and the landscape around them in Calcutta literally have a black tinge to them, which is so consistant you don't even notice until you look up close and you can scrape it off with your fingernails.
Not that it should be an excuse for the US not to do everything it can.
"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." George HW Bush
The US auto industry got into serious trouble in the early seventies, because the energy crisis made people buy smaller cars, and Detroit didn't have the production facilities to produce energy efficient cars. Therefore people bought Japanese and European cars.
I believe, that one day the US congress/senate will wake up, institute some tougher pollution laws, and we Europeans will be happy to sell you these CO2 filters, windmills etc., and Europe will make a very nice profit.
I believe, that the American citizen will some day decide to buy washing machines that use less water, cars that have better mileage and refrigerators that are produced with less pollution.
And yes, I believe, that because Europe in five years has lived with the Kyoto Protocol for a long time, our products will be better, the US industry won't be able to compete and we'll make a tidy profit.
And in the meantime, Europeans already want small cars, more efficient washing machines, GMO-free grain, so the only product US can sell is software and Hollywood movies.
The American media is biased against Israel ? You must be having a laugh. Even a cursory glance at the reporting from the US networks compared to teh rest of the world's media will show a huge pro-Israel bias, to the extend that many stories that run elsewhere that may result in Israel being seen in a negative light are simply not run in the US media.
-- "I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting, but I feel better having screamed, don't you ?"
America is not only one of the largest contributers to pollution but the largest economy and as such, the largest producer of goods and services. I can assure you that energy is needed to produce these goods and services. Allocating polluting "credits" based on a per capita basis is crazy. Look at the depressed economies of Europe. Look at the unemployment rate. Using the dollar amounts of goods and services is still not a good proxy for the amount or importance of the goods produced so please don't oversimplify this issue. In order to come up with a fair solution, it is important to come up with a fair quota that does not unfairly stifle buisiness.
Actually, I think a lot of people would buy environmentally friendly cars if they could. take me for example. Flame this if you want, but it's probably pretty close to home for most people.
I want a new car, and a "green" car would be nice, but I'm far from the richest guy in the world. In one corner I have the 2002 Hyundai Elantra offering a 10 year warrenty, lots of standard options and road side assistance for 5 years totalling up to $11,900 after tax, title and registration. In the other corner is the Honda Insight Hybrid. After a quick price check there's no way I'm getting that sucker out the door for under $19,000 w/o options last I looked. I can have all the good intentions in the world, but the simple facts are that "green" isn't affordable yet. Hell, even that Segway scooter is $8,000. A car that will get me everywhere or a little scooter of limited mobility... Hmmm... Technology in that sector is going to have to be a lot cheaper before the real world goes green.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Ok, got it. Surprises me nevertheless, because I've seen quite some cars in the US, which I would consider "big" (I never said, everybody is driving a SUV). So why are SUVs excluded? Sounds pretty stupid...
It is, but government often does stupid things. This is one of the reasons for American distrust of government (which you asked about elsewhere). It was, of course, a political compromise, which is what democracies do.
At this point, it would be really interesting to see some reliable figures of traffic deaths per capita or per car in the US vs. Europe. Unfortunately, at least my quick google search didn't turn up anything official... Anybody?
I agree. I have read the statistics in the past. I don't have anything current. As of the time I read it, the European rate was quite high. Actually a death rate per mile/km would be more meaningful than per capita.
However, as I said before, I agree that this is more often the case in America than in Europe. But still I don't see, why you would need a SUV for that...
Yes, it is much more the case because so much of our country was developed more recently, and because we have so much land. The reason for the SUV is simply size and safety. And again, I think there would be a lot fewer of them if we didn't have the silly CAFE rules.
Oddly enough, SUV's are also a status symbol. Why, I don't know. I guess for the same reason that many urban Americans who have never been close to a live bovine wear cowboy boots and dress. Sort of odd. I own SUV's strictly for safety and comfort, and also at because I sometimes go into country where I truly need a powerful vehicle with four wheel drive. I live in Arizona and we have plenty of wilderness left.
Right. But it's not like Americans never feel like they know how we Europeans should proceed... :-)
True enough. The difference is that our own media is mostly Europhile and continuously agrees with you guys.
You said that before, and I still don't get it. Why would it cost you more to care about the environment? The Kyoto protocol want relative reducement! Nobody says, the US should have the same level of car emissions as Europe. And honestly: The height of the emission per captia figure of the US (2.5 times as high as Europe or Japan) can't really be explained with more transportation usage... So there should be a big area of possible improvement.
It is because of our dependence on automobile transport, which is where the majority of the reductions would come. You guys are already paying the high taxes on gas and the high taxes for train systems, etc. We are not, but would have to. So the delta is large for us, but not for you.
True. On of the fundamental differences in European and American culture. Not a bad thing in my opinion. I never understood this "don't trust your government"-attitude some Americans have.
This is hardly the place to get into it in detail, but it is a major difference. I know why I don't trust government, but I don't know why you would trust it. I view government as a necessary evil, which means that prudence to me dictates as little government as necessary. I do not view government as an instrument for moral good, but only as an instrument to prevent harm. I value my freedom from coercion, and I deeply resent the already large amount of interference that the US government has in my life (but I recognize the need for that government, of course).
No. First off, there's already disagreement about if there are any uncertainties about global warming. But let's say there are. Let's assume, we don't know for sure if global warming is happening. Then it's still not worth the risk! Reducing emissions now is the only way to assure we're not destroying the environment (well, not more than we already do, anyway).
Ah, here we get to the heart of the matter. Here are some issues to ponder:
These are effects in the human system, which are even harder to predict than the climate itself! Thus my version of the precuationary principle is to avoid such major changes without a good idea of the harm they may cause!
My objection to Kyoto is that it can only be one of two things:
Overall, I do not object to emissions reductions. I object to doing it in a dumb way. For example, in the US we have not built any nuclear power plants since 1979, due to illogical and hysterical reactions fired by environmental extremists. And yet nuclear power is by far the cleanest large scale power source available - i.e. the only one that can make a major difference. The other "power source" that is significant is conservation, but the US has already taken major steps in this direction, with little effect at all! It seems that the more efficient we make things, the more we use them!
An ideal solution would be a hydrogen powered transportation system. Unfortunately, this would require tens of trillions of dollars of investment, just for the US. Furthermore, hydrogen power is far less energy efficient than gasoline (hence my desire for nuclear plants - to produce the electricity necessary to prepare the hydrogen). It may be that over time, we are able to evolve in this direction.
What I will fight is anything that compromises the safety of myself and others so that the people in 2100 can wait until 2106 to get the same amount of global warming. And I will also object to schemes which are likely to result in vast deaths in the third world due to economic losses resulting form those schemes. I would rather see a few degrees of temperature rise (and related sea level rise) if those people can be brought into the second or first world! And that is one of the possible tradeoffs - in spite of the Kyoto attempts to adjust the balance. First... a meta-comment. Thanks for the tone of your post. I just responded to one that was quite disrespectful (of course I responded in kind). Yours is a breath of fresh air.
Ok, got it. Surprises me nevertheless, because I've seen quite some cars in the US, which I would consider "big" (I never said, everybody is driving a SUV). So why are SUVs excluded? Sounds pretty stupid...
It is, but government often does stupid things. This is one of the reasons for American distrust of government (which you asked about elsewhere). It was, of course, a political compromise, which is what democracies do.
At this point, it would be really interesting to see some reliable figures of traffic deaths per capita or per car in the US vs. Europe. Unfortunately, at least my quick google search didn't turn up anything official... Anybody?
I agree. I have read the statistics in the past. I don't have anything current. As of the time I read it, the European rate was quite high. Actually a death rate per mile/km would be more meaningful than per capita.
However, as I said before, I agree that this is more often the case in America than in Europe. But still I don't see, why you would need a SUV for that... Yes, it is much more the case because so much of our country was developed more recently, and because we have so much land. The reason for the SUV is simply size and safety. And again, I think there would be a lot fewer of them if we didn't have the silly CAFE rules.
Oddly enough, SUV's are also a status symbol. Why, I don't know. I guess for the same reason that many urban Americans who have never been close to a live bovine wear cowboy boots and dress. Sort of odd. I own SUV's strictly for safety and comfort, and also at because I sometimes go into country where I truly need a powerful vehicle with four wheel drive. I live in Arizona and we have plenty of wilderness left.
Right. But it's not like Americans never feel like they know how we Europeans should proceed... :-)
True enough. The difference is that our own media is mostly Europhile and continuously agrees with you guys.
You said that before, and I still don't get it. Why would it cost you more to care about the environment? The Kyoto protocol want relative reducement! Nobody says, the US should have the same level of car emissions as Europe. And honestly: The height of the emission per captia figure of the US (2.5 times as high as Europe or Japan) can't really be explained with more transportation usage... So there should be a big area of possible improvement.
It is because of our dependence on automobile transport, which is where the majority of the reductions would come. You guys are already paying the high taxes on gas and the high taxes for train systems, etc. We are not, but would have to. So the delta is large for us, but not for you.
True. On of the fundamental differences in European and American culture. Not a bad thing in my opinion. I never understood this "don't trust your government"-attitude some Americans have.
This is hardly the place to get into it in detail, but it is a major difference. I know why I don't trust government, but I don't know why you would trust it. I view government as a necessary evil, which means that prudence to me dictates as little government as necessary. I do not view government as an instrument for moral good, but only as an instrument to prevent harm. I value my freedom from coercion, and I deeply resent the already large amount of interference that the US government has in my life (but I recognize the need for that government, of course).
No. First off, there's already disagreement about if there are any uncertainties about global warming. But let's say there are. Let's assume, we don't know for sure if global warming is happening. Then it's still not worth the risk! Reducing emissions now is the only way to assure we're not destroying the environment (well, not more than we already do, anyway).
Ah, here we get to the heart of the matter. Here are some issues to ponder:
My objection to Kyoto is that it can only be one of two things:
Overall, I do not object to emissions reductions. I object to doing it in a dumb way. For example, in the US we have not built any nuclear power plants since 1979, due to illogical and hysterical reactions fired by environmental extremists. And yet nuclear power is by far the cleanest large scale power source available - i.e. the only one that can make a major difference. The other "power source" that is significant is conservation, but the US has already taken major steps in this direction, with little effect at all! It seems that the more efficient we make things, the more we use them!
An ideal solution would be a hydrogen powered transportation system. Unfortunately, this would require tens of trillions of dollars of investment, just for the US. Furthermore, hydrogen power is far less energy efficient than gasoline (hence my desire for nuclear plants - to produce the electricity necessary to prepare the hydrogen). It may be that over time, we are able to evolve in this direction.
What I will fight is anything that compromises the safety of myself and others so that the people in 2100 can wait until 2106 to get the same amount of global warming. And I will also object to schemes which are likely to result in vast deaths in the third world due to economic losses resulting form those schemes. I would rather see a few degrees of temperature rise (and related sea level rise) if those people can be brought into the second or first world! And that is one of the possible tradeoffs - in spite of the Kyoto attempts to adjust the balance.
The only good weather is bad weather.
The American media is biased against Israel ? You must be having a laugh. Even a cursory glance at the reporting from the US networks compared to teh rest of the world's media will show a huge pro-Israel bias, to the extend that many stories that run elsewhere that may result in Israel being seen in a negative light are simply not run in the US media.
You do not use a reasonable benchmark. Bias is not measured against other media reporting.. it can only be measured against objective reality.
I make my own judgements on media. I also know the attitudes of american media. Even though there are a disproportionate number of Jewish people in and owning the media, it still has had an anti-Israel bias - especially since the start of the first Intifada. The reason is that the media has a marxist bias (by that I don't mean that the media is marxist, but that it leans in that direction). And the American take on Marxism is to reflexively support the oppressed. And the Palestinians are oppressed. So the American media tends to support them.
It is only since the foolish use of suicide bombers that the American media has started a more favorable showing of Israel. This is because Americans can identify with innocent civilians who look like them, think much like them and live much like them who are mercilessly killed and maimed. Of course, the events of 9/11 amplify that psychological bond. Even our media can identify with these victims. Thus the Palestinians have made the error of turning their enemy into a victim, even more appealing to our media's bias towards any victims than the Palestinians themselves. And of course, the events of 9/11 amplify that psychological bond.
Thus today the American media reports much more of the terrorism than it did before the use of these tactics. The Palestinians have made a terrible mistake, not to mention having committed acts of extreme moral repugnance, by their use of these tactics. They have lost most of the American media's natural bias towards them.
BTW, I also read the Arab and Israeli media and find that the Arab media is by far the most biased. The Israeli media available on the web ranges from right wing to left wing, and get quite a diversity of reporting from there.
What this has to do with global warming... I don't know. But I am simply responding.
The only good weather is bad weather.
the US gets kicked in the nuts with perl harbor and decides to get involved. it gets kicked in the nuts with 9/11 and decides to get involved again..
how many times is the US gonna have to get kicked in the nuts before it realises that the world is small and getting smaller all the time. we all live on the same planet in what is fast becoming a global community and one country cannot ignore issues just because addressing them isn't convenient.
focusing on the short term with complete disregard for the future can be disasterous. 9/11 is a prime example (cia training and funding of nuts anybody?). careless past actions will always come back to bite you in the ass.
the higher good isn't who can make the most money or who has the most weapons. those things are meaningless in the long term. we must protect our species
You do not use a reasonable benchmark. Bias is not measured against other media reporting.. it can only be measured against objective reality.
In the case of an individual story, I would agree but it quite possible, when taken of a range of stories to form an opinion of the bias a news source has in relation to other news sources. Most of my news information comes via US, UK and Indian sources. It is quite easy to see a leaning toward pro-Israeli stories in the US media, and not just since 11/9/2002, compared to a mild bias towards the Palestinians in the UK ( and in much of Europe ), and a general anti-palestinian bias in Indian reporting.
Despite these 'inherent' biases, it was noticable, for example, that shortly after the Sept 11th when Israeli started major offensives against the Palestinian Authority, clearly using Sept 11th as 'cover', this news was barely covered in the ( obviously and understandly otherwise occupied ) US media, yet space was found for other pro-Israel stories, whereas in the UK, and even in the naturally anti-palestinian Indian media this was widely covered.
-- "I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting, but I feel better having screamed, don't you ?"
WWIII - its starting all right ... only you'll fire neither the first nor the last nuke ... hope yer doing what you can rather that missing the point etc: That 'ole terrorism thing's been and gone, background music, now.
Get used to it and pay attention to the new nuclear reality.
Practice random senselessness and act kind of beautiful.
Hmmm... China and India's combined CO2 emissions total about 70% of the United States levels as of 1995. Looky here [geocities.com].
Which by the numbers in the article would mean they accounted for 25% the amount of the industrial nations. (36% [from the story] * 0.70)
Considering the US only accounted for about 11% more of the industrial nation aggregate than that and it is the "biggest polluter in the world" maybe other countries ought to clean up after themselves before getting high and mighty? >64% of the stuff isn't made by the US.
That also goes to show what skewed nonsense these numbers are. Unless developing nations C02 is of some different nature than US created C02, the aggregate numbers should include it. By not doing so, you ignore that there are several other countries combined making as much pollution as the horrible US and greatly inflating the percent created by the US. In this case, the US's 23%, by only including 80% of the total C02 output, inflates the US percentage by nearly 25% from 18%. (23% * 0.80 = ~18%)
Also look at the huge difference in the US and other countries with ton/km. Shouldn't this sort of thing be sorted by amount of space a country takes up? The world would have ended if the US polluted half as much as Japan or Germany per ton/km.
With skewed numbers and "the sky is falling" apocalyptic rational, I'm left wondering if there isn't something else at work here.
--
I'll forgive linking to Geocities, I think I had a site there in 1995 =)
Oh, but it is the way of the geek. To be so concerned about the world we live in, yet not really care that our dual athlons that run 24/7 might be contributing to what we care about. I have to laugh sometimes.
It looks like this:
- The Kyoto treaty caps CO2 emissions. CO2 is believed to cause global warming. Global warming is undesirbable. It would disrupt human and natural habitat, for example by melting arctic ice, raising sea levels and flooding coastal lowlands, renedering most major port cities in the world uninhabitable. So, to put it simply: Either limit CO2 emisions or wreak devastation upon the earth.
- The most popular and convenient source of energy is the combustion of hydrocarbons. CO2 emisions are an unavoidabal consequence of hydrocarbon combustion. Energy is a good. Reducing CO2 consumption requires sacrifice; giving up desired activity which consumes energy. (Either that, or redirecting resources from a more-desired activity to the development and manufacture of efficient forms of consumption. Note this also has a cost, and requires a sacrifice.).
-Europe is reducing energy consumption in an effort to prevent global warming. Europeans are giving up something that they want in a effort to save the planet. This is responsible. The U.S. refuses to reduce energy consumption. We are incapable of limiting our consumption. Because global warming harms the entire planet, our energy gluttony will harm not just ourselves, but the entire world. The U.S. irresponsibly harming others.
What's wrong with this picture ?
- Extreme global temperature change is natural and unavoidable. Even if we reduced CO2 emissions to pre-industrial levels, it is certain that at some point in the future global temperature will rise and the oceans will flood the coasts. How do we know this ? It has happened many times in the past. The history of global temperature change is inferred from oxygen isotope ratios in arctic ice cores. The results are not under scientific dispute. If you have heard of ice ages, then it should come as no surprise that the temperature of the earth fluctuates naturally and dramatically. We are a bit below the long-term mean temperature now. Independent of CO2 emmissions, odds are it's going to get hotter next, though it could also get colder. The great challenge is not to restrain our influence on the climate, but to exercise it so to artifically stabilize the climate.
- The relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperature is not known. The popular press is full of reports of models which show a link. The scientifically illiterate masses mistake a published model for evidence. It is not. None of the models have been validated using empirical evidence. That can't be done, until we know the future of the global climate. Until then, models are only unverifiable speculation.
- The relationship between global temperature and ocean levels is not known. The belief that rising global temperatures melt arctic ice is a solid one. But warmer temperatures raise levels of water vapor in the atmosphere, increasing actic snowfall. Melting and snowfall counterbalance each other, but predicting which effect dominates relies on accurate and validated models of climate, which we don't have.
-Plants, and especially trees, sequester Carbon; they suck CO2 out of the atmosphere. The correct measure of a nation's contribution to global CO2 levels is not the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere by human activity. Rather, it is the difference between the total amount of CO2 released in the nation (from human activity, farting cows, ants etc.) and the amount removed by plants. The United States maintains vast forests for recreation, preservation, and lumber. Measures of net US release of CO2 place it at zero. Note that that zero is heavily disputed, but those who dispute the zero figure nontheless place the figure close to zero. All estimates of net EU CO2 release reveal Europeans to be great sinners in this regard, that is, if you believe, as do they, that CO2 is sinful.
- The US proposed during negotiations that limits be placed on **net** CO2 emissions. What this means is that any country which wanted to increase energy consumption and consequently increase CO2 emissions could do so, so long as they planted more trees somewhere to mop up the extra CO2. This allows for economic growth(good) and concomitant increases in CO2 production while mandating a compensatory increase in forests (good if you like trees) without raising global CO2 levels (for those who believe in that faith). Europe absolutely refused to use net CO2 release as a measure of compliance. This stance is inconsistant with their stated goal, which is to reduce global CO2 levels. Why ? To foster the image of their own ethical superiority while undermining competitive foreign economies. First they did not want a treaty to which the US would agree because if the US were to sign such a treaty, Europeans would have to abandon their attitude of moral superiority. Second, the only treaty allowable by the europeans was one which damaged the US economy. A treaty which reduced net CO2 emmissions from the US, without damaging the US economy, was not acceptable to them.
-Europe is not in compliance with Kyoto and is likely to never be. Some nations (France) already far exceed allowable CO2 emissions, to a degree that they could not cut back without risking major economic collapse (we're talking soup lines). Kyoto is not meant to be enforced, but to be worn as a badge of moral superiority.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Modern civilization causes global warming? More correctly, episodic global warming has allowed modern civilization to develop over the last 12,000-20,000 years. Is global warming the cause of sea level changes? Temperature changes are a cause of sea level changes. Changes to polar region absorbance, changes to atmospheric reflectance such as due to volcanism, the earth's tilt, and convective changes in the oceans and the atmosphere can also cause melting/ ice accumulation. Carbon dioxide is the primary cause of global warming? As trivial as it sounds, the sun is the primary cause of global warming. Variations in the solar flux at the earth over centuries, millennia and even geological eras are likely large causes of what we discern as global cooling and global warming. The simplest and longest historical records to support a frequent type of solar variation are the records of sun spot cycles since Gallileo (~1610). Look up the "Maunder Minimum" associated with the "Little Ice Age". The 11 year sunspot cycle just finished is the second worst on record for the last 400 years. Sunspot cycles are associated with magnetic reversals(!) of the sun every 11 years. Other potentially valid astrophysical/geological theories have much longer period phenomena. Is anthropogenic carbon dioxide is likely to cause global warming? The earth has been in a several million year cold regime with abnormally low carbon dioxide levels and abnormally low temperatures. Geological carbon dioxide levels associated with then "normal" earth temperature were approximately 1000-2000 ppm over the last several hundred million years. More recently, pre-industrial CO2 levels were about 280 ppm, current levels are about 360 ppm. The ocean remains in an undersaturated non-equilibrium state that can absorb substantially all the CO2 produced over the decades and centuries. (ppm is part per million) Aren't only USians and the ogres of industry resisting enlightened global mgmt of CO2? Throughout history, myths have been created for the little people (~99% of us are little people politically or intellectually) to derive power and value for elite groups as well as serving as some kind of socialization medium - how do you view the ancient Greek gods? The current carbon dioxide debate seems to naturally favor (a) aspiring statists and elitists of all stripes, (b) entrenched, non competitive societies that would prefer to restrict others' energy usage and economic advancement, (c ) energy consumers from energy deficient and bankrupt countries that prefer bargaining "if you lower the price enough, perhaps I'll take your dirty, stinkingly sinful oil/gas/coal off your hands" rather than on their knees begging for it, (d) academic recipients of governmental, environmental, industrial grants. Most little people are too ignorant to know the true situation either strategically or scientifically. I am chagrined that our public high schools waste precious time in biology, chemistry and other classes on this issue. Even supposing GW (either one) to be correct, I object to such conclusory, non-fundamental material in basic science classes. The real environmental complaints should be localized demands for consistent treatment of pollution abatements. We consumers are often required to utilitize low sulfur, low particulate fuels (natural gas 4 ppm S, gasoline less than 15 ppm sulfur soon) when industrially exempt or grandfathered facilities get to use coal ("low sulfur" coal is about 0.3% - 0.7 % S and burns about twice as much weight per unit of heat as gas; or dirty residual oil with 1+% sulfur, 1%=10,000 ppm) and spew solids. The real energy issue is that we have enough energy to tide us over until (if?) advanced power systems can be brought to bear later this century or the next. See www.dieoff.org for a pessimistic, statist version of this point. (Statists believe in the State) For some independent background (from energy interests or "environmentalists") see http://www.intellicast.com/DrDewpoint/ClimateWatch / and some interesting paleoclimatology, http://www.salt.org.il/frame_econ.html. On the Maunder Minimum,
http://science.nasa.gov/ssl/pad/solar/sunspots.htm Then do your own research!
By withdrawing from the Kyoto protocol the US showed a lack of interest to decrease the polution of the entire world. What was the reason for this? according to a statement from a US official it was because it was a threat against the american way of life. Well, the rest of the world could accept the protocol so why does the US insist on keeping their polution levels?
The discussion about this has been about how one should meassure the polution but is it not enough to agree to decrease polution? Of course the US must protect their way of life. What does the life of the rest of the world matter compared to that??
Well Mr and Mrs Environmentalist, if other plans don't reduce enough, fast enough, then you must be in favor of mass genocide of all polluters! In fact, wipe out 99% of the world's population!
A brilliant and cunning argument! With such obvious credability too: if we agree to reduce or limit CO2 emmissions it will inevitably lead to GENOCIDE! Wow, you really cut to the heart of that issue.
In fact, I think we should expand upon this idea. I think we should make right turns on red lights illegal because if we don't we're sure to end up with a government sponsored program of MASS SLAUGHTER. Similarly, the Canadian Federal Ethics Councelor should report to the House of Commons, and if you disagree with me, you must be in favour of the MURDER of MILLIONS.
The argument about ratification/non-ratification of Kyoto is an argument between people who say it is environmentally neccesary and people who contend it will hurt the economy. Doomsday scenarios about crimes against humanity don't come into it on either side.
But even if they did (which they don't) you still argue against yourself. "Don't ratify Kyoto," you seem to argue "because if we did it might not be good enough, and then we'll have to do horrible things to finish the job." Well, what happens if we don't ratify Kyoto, according to that logic? We get one of two scenarios: a) there was a never a global warming threat in the first place and we don't have a problem, or b) there was a problem and we did nothing to fix it, and we're still stuck in you're ridiculous nightmare scenario. By your logic the signing of Kyoto adds a third option: c) there is a global warming problem, Kyoto fixes it, and we all go home happy. Even if there is a chance Kyoto would be inadiquate, we might as well give it a try. Better than nothing.
Finally, on the China point: as others have pointed out, China may or may not be on the road to signing on to Kyoto. Now let's just assume, for the moment, that China signing would be a good thing (which is basically what you seem to be saying). If we ratify Kyoto (and not just Canada, but other Western countries as well) then that's a step in the right direction. If we don't ratify Kyoto then we pretty much guarantee that we won't be able to get China to do it, because we'll have no moral suasion when it comes to encouraging them to sign on. China: "Why should we abide by the terms of Kyoto, you didn't." Canada: "oh, um... well we were kind of waiting on you for that" (stares fixedly at shoes). Ok, so Kyoto may not fix everything, but surely doing something is better than doing nothing!
- NG
Basicly China and India CAN'T reduce their CO2 exhaust.
But China and India have other VERY serious pollution problems that is not addressed by the Kyoto Protocols.
I have relatives who have visited China in the last few years and they tell me the smokestack and vehicle exhaust pollution problems in Chinese cities make Los Angeles at a Stage II smog alert seem like a minor problem in comparison. And China has never really developed effective means to combat water pollution, with effluents from their major cities going straight out into the rivers and oceans with what amounts to no sewage treatment.
Like I said in another message, I won't support the Kyoto Protocol because it does nothing to reduce Third World pollution problems.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Look at the average size of a Mercury Grand Marquis, or a Lincoln Town Car. Compare them to the standard models of each fifteen years ago, both of which still appear on most roads. Are these cars even expensive? The Grand Marquis, IIRC, has a sticker price of about $22,000. What does an Expedition go for these days?
So it's crap. The argument "cleaner emissions standards forced people to buy SUVs" doesn't hold water, unless people are refusing to buy large cleaner cars because they're more efficient, which seems absurd to me.
People's decisions were made on the basis of a number of factors: Estate cars were replaced by minivans, but minivans weren't seen as "sexy" by consumers; SUVs appear more versatile than the Boats they competed against and "just as good" as minivans without the bad image; fuel prices were low (arguably too low); drivers of them (ironically, for it isn't true) feel safer driving them because of the height; and they've been well marketed.
That's why SUVs have taken off. Unintended consequences my arse, unrelated occurances perhaps.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
This is a common misunderstanding, based simply on the idea of momentum conservation in a head-on collision. Big cars are inherently safer - even if they collide with each other. Put another way, they are safer in a collision with a stationary boundary, they are safer in a side collision. An important ratio is that of the mass of the car to that of its occupants. This is in addition to the ratio of the mass of the car to the mass of what it collides with (conservation of momentum).
As to your argument about CAFE and SUV's, you just don't understand at all. Without CAFE, there would be much more choice in big cars. There would more choice... period. Certainly some people buy SUV's for other reasons (I originally bought SUV's to go to otherwise inaccessible places), but CAFE standards have a major impact.
If you don't believe me, read what the trade press has to say about it. Americans didn't make light trucks over 50% of total new car sales just out of wierdness!
The only good weather is bad weather.
>True. On of the fundamental differences in >European and American culture. Not a bad thing >in my opinion. I never understood this "don't >trust your government"-attitude some Americans >have.
This is hardly the place to get into it in detail, but it is a major difference. I know why I don't trust government, but I don't know why you would trust it. I view government as a necessary evil, which means that prudence to me dictates as little government as necessary. I do not view government as an instrument for moral good, but only as an instrument to prevent harm. I value my freedom from coercion, and I deeply resent the already large amount of interference that the US government has in my life (but I recognize the need for that government, of course).
I can tell you why there is a healthy need for a distrust of government: the use of force to achieve a goal.
Government, by its very nature, has the ability to use force on YOU to accomplish its goals. If the government decides to imprison you, they can do so at a whim, EVEN WITH A CONSTITUTION. The only thing keeping government powers in check is the willful outrage of the public -- the EXPECTATION that if the government DID start tromping all over citizen rights that the populace would revolt, or riot, or perhaps even "vote the bums out of office" (with the latter not being much of a threat to a truly aggresive government). Even Lincoln, a huge proponent of the Union, suspended habeus corpus. Go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200.
Government is the only legal entity that can deprive you of life, liberty, or your pursuit of happiness. And they get to set the rules by which they operate. True, in an enlightened civilization this kind of abuse is rare, but it could happen anywhere, anytime, historical documents like The Constitution be damned. You could be killed tomorrow by the government, and years later the courts could decide that it was illegal. Someone might be punished, apologies could be made, money may even change hands betwixt your survivors and the government -- but you'd still be dead.
This may sound anti-government, but that's not my stance. "I love my country, I fear my government". We should always have a healthy distrust of any organization that wields power over our individual freedoms. This SHOULD be natural, but apathy and complacency generally work against these instincts.
Remember this: no person, no entity, no organization, NOTHING on this Earth, has your best interests in mind more than YOU. No one is better equipped to look out for you and what you want than you. YOU are BORN with freedom. Every law that exists beyond that is a restriction on said freedom. No one should take that lightly.
Europeans have (IMO) become quite used to a very authoritative governmental structure, so it's apparently easy for them to accept the idea that good 'old big government is quite correct to tell them what to do, when they can do it, and how they have to go about it. The U.S. was FOUNDED on the very principle that when it comes to your personal freedoms, NOBODY has the right to tell you what to do unless exercising your freedom somehow impinges on someone else's freedom. True, we have strayed far from that in the last half century, much to my/our chagrin, but it IS what the founding fathers had in mind.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Well, I live in Canada too, and I think the ridiculous costs of ratifying Kyoto estimated by the energy industry and Alberta are on at least as shaky ground as the estimated climactic effects of not ratifying that are often criticized. It's natural for Ralph Klein, the the Canadian Petroluem Producers Association & Chamber of Commerce, and George "Big-Oil" Bush to spread worst-case scenario estimates on the costs of Kyoto, but these scaremongering tactics just muddy an already difficult discussion. An economic meltdown certainly didn't happen when the state of California introduced stringent vehicle emissions standards and it's not in the cards with California's much greater planned controls, for example. Also, the jurisdictions that adopt such controls early will have a head start on building clean energy business and technologies that the rest of the world will inevitably have to adopt.
Two things nobody can deny: the climate is warming and further warming will have serious consequences. Further, the writing is on the wall that limits on carbon output is the way things are moving, whether we ratify Kyoto or not. We can either choose to join with the rest of the developed world and show some leadership, or not and point the finger to countries that cannot afford to adopt Kyoto as the reason we won't either. If Canada can't even take a (relatively) modest step now, how will we make the much larger necessary cuts in the future?
Try comparing the choice of larger "cars" (including minivans) to that of 15 years ago. It's actually a bigger choice, as not only are the big 3 manufacturing minivans *and* boats, but a substantial number of the other manufacturers are making minivans as well, who simply didn't address that market 15 years ago.
And, yes, minivans are subject to CAFE. Nor would larger cars have been dropped for CAFE anyway - if you can make a Mercury Grand Marquis Saloon comply with CAFE, how could Ford not produce a CAFE equivalent Grand Marquis Station Wagon?
So number of choices has little to do with it (unless one wants to argue that it's TOO MUCH CHOICE that's caused the problem!.) All that we've seen is a real attempt to market SUVs, usually to people who would be actively better off with another vehicle but choose the SUV because it's "sexier".
I keep seeing the phrase "unintended consequences" applied to things that rarely are in fact consequences. Perhaps it's an unintended consequence of that book, Unintended Consequences...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
China has 4.6 times the population of the USA (1210 million people). India has 3.6 times the population of the USA (952 million people). Together thay have over 8 times the population of the USA.
They actually produce less than 1/8th of the USA's pollution per capita.
And both are extremely poor countries whose industry is mostly owned by foreign companies (mostly american).
The USA should save some money on bombs and aircraft carriers and spy satellites and spend some money modernising its industry. US industry needs to be competitive and play by global rules; not live off subsidies and tariffs and produce one quarter of the world's pollution. And the only way the american government is going to chage its policy is if the american people start to make some noise. Unfortunately, some (most) people in the USA don't know there's a planet outside their borders.
Funny thing is, the Earth fights back. The USA has more (and bigger) natural disasters (tornados, earthquakes, floods, etc.) than any other country in the world. Makes you think about the Gaia theory...
RMN
~~~
Who said that we need cooler climate or less "Greenhouse Gases"? Why uis this scam under heading "Science"? This is an offence to every honest scientist.
So we do not understand what kept earth temperature in balllance for cecenturies.
We do not know what caused hotter and climate and ice age before the automobile.
We have calculated that man producecd CO2 is a minor contribution.
We have not observed any measurable warming in past decades, but rather cooling.
The only data we have are incomplete coputer simulations, which do not include major factor such as
- consumption by see algae/plankton and its growth
- difference between natural biomass decay CO2 and maninducecd burning (its nearly 0).
- Need for increased CO2 to stimulate plant growth
- Would any working expand or shrink deserts by making them moist?\
- etc
There are hundreds of unresolved issues and we give an unsubstantiated media-induced worldwide public panic a heading of SCIENCE?
Ever remember the Ozone hole craze? This was supposed to be uneviatable end of the word and no measure should have been able to fix it in hundred s of years. So where is the hole? In so called "Science", I guess.
Stop feeding the frenzy,it will die out in less than 5 years on its own.
Petrus
I'd rather have dozens of windmills in my backyard than a fusion pile. They're called piles for a good reason.
Codeposition fluidized bed electrodes, though, I wouldn't mind.
Earth Calling! Be real!
--Delilah
It's pretty weird to me that we have 700+ comments and no one has mentioned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This group of experts is about as close as you're going to get to a definitive source for answers on the likely sources, dimensions and costs of climate change. And what do they say? (Well read the reports for yourselves if you really want to know.) But in summary, a large collection of people who've dedicated their lives to understanding the climate via the physical sciences agree:
:-)
We're likely changing the climate, and such change may occur in a non-linear irreversible manner
The likely benefits to be gained from reducing the human causes of climate change are likely bigger than costs of those reductions.
Parroting the words of oil-company PR firms may make you feel better about being irresponsible. But most of the physical world doesn't really care what you believe.
Fluid dynamics and statistical mechanics and organic chemistry study systems that have a surprising resistance to TV commercials as well as those who do not
SUV's safer???? Maybe, possibly you are less likely to be injured in the event of an accident. But their more difficult handling compared to a passenger car, and their greatly increased chances of rollover type accidents, I'd say you are more likely to get hurt simply due to the greater chance of an acccident.
One vehicle, that gets into 10 accidents at an 80 percent injury rate, is safer than one with a 50% injury rate but has 20 accidents.
Note, those numbers were plugged in for clarity of explanation only. They are not accurate except in the most general less/more sense.
The fact is, SUVs get in more accidents and tend to be more severe accidents, and regardless of how much safer they are in a fender bender, people die quite easily in them. The one auto accident I've ever been involved in(as a passenger) was in an SUV. My father survived ONLY because of his seat belt. WE rolled over THREE TIMES. All that happened was our tire blew out, and that flipped us. Out of the tens of thousands of times I've been in vehicles of all sorts, thats the only time I've ever been inside a vehicle during an accident.
When I buy an SUV for safety, I am not foolish enough not to use my seatbelt.
And, I tend to believe the NAS when they say that smaller cars are causing 2000-3000 deaths per year in the US. They have no axe to grind.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Think about it. All of those cud chewing, methane expulsing moo-moos. Its all their fault!!
As the submitter of this story, I'd like to say a couple of things:
;-)
1. Sorry. It wasn't meant to be submitted anonymously, I realised I'd done it only after I hit the final submit button. I assume I'd highlighted my name on the submission form or something and hit space, or otherwise cleared it. Either that or there's a bug in Slashcode...
2. The original was a little longer, and people complaining that I didn't read the article I linked to would have seen that the comment about the US agreeing to a 7% cut in emissions was coupled with a comment implying they'd gone back on their word. I assume the Slashdot editors thought I was trolling or something - no, I'm just pissed off about the issue. The US did agree to such a thing, that is, that's what they negotiated and agreed to at the Kyoto summit. They then went back on that agreement, with the legislature and Bush both rejecting what they'd signed up for.
Depressing.
KMSMA (WWBD?)
What about this, fuckwit?
Ever remember the Ozone hole craze? This was supposed to be uneviatable end of
the word and no measure should have been able to fix it in hundred s of years. So
where is the hole?
It's doing quite well, fuckwit. Just because it's not anymore fashionable to write about and you in your amazing ignorance would prefer to pretend it's not there doesn't mean it's any less of a threat.
The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a little longer.
--Henry Kissinger
Screw anyone that says I can not
--
E_NOSIG
KarmaWarrior, I just gotta hand it to you. You admitted your fault after getting me totally confused AND you admitted your true identity. Just gotta say it...ehm... WELLDONE!
--Delilah
I believe you're missing the problem many of us see with Kyoto: it's not proven to do anything at all except cost money. We simply don't have the models yet to irrefutably determine this.
Will we? Certainly. I give us 10-20 years.
Would you spend $10K extra on a hyper-efficient car, if you didn't know if it would do anything at all? I make a modest income, and I wouldn't.
What about forcing 250 million other people to do so?
It's always easier when it's someone else's money.
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
You'll have to prove that the CO2 "poison" is the problem first. Which is the whole problem with Kyoto....
Beware: I believe all are created equal, and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
>Ever remember the Ozone hole craze?
Yes i remember it every summer when i have to put truck loads of sun screen on because the is a big hole in the ozone down here by new zealand.
I am not a big believer in global warming, as caused by humans. However, I am a big believer in responsible consumption and taking care of our planet. Reducing polution (including CO2 emmisions) is part of being good stewards of our planet.
It is very sad to see posters trotting out the "economit hit" FUD argument against ratifying Kyoto. This same FUD was trundled out when companies were forced to stop using CFCs. Various companies whined, complained, and behaved like 3 year olds asked to pick up their toys---spouting all kinds of horse pucky about how they were going to lose their shirts, financially speaking.
In fact, the opposite turned out to be true. Those companies that embraced the change early turned out to be economic winners. The change from use of CFC-based solvents to other (often it was to using distilled water) almost always saved money and reduced employee health risks.
The fear mongering endorsed by meany of the posters to this thread is no different that the FUD Microsoft trotts out w.r.t. its corporate agenda.