Slashdot Mirror
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.
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!
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.
Hmmm... China and India's combined CO2 emissions total about 70% of the United States levels as of 1995. Looky here.
Interestingly enough, their combined population is about 8 times that of the US. Don't blame the third world; while their industries are less equipped to deal with pollution control/reduction of any kind, the sheer volume of industries in more developed nations makes them much bigger polluters.
Oh, and sorry about the Geoshitties link.
Cato has the credibility of the Flat Earth Society, at this point. And the paper you linked to has no references to back it up, either.
Why do moderators mod up blatantly false posts? For the benefit of those in the audience, like the poster, who did not pass third grade civics, IT'S NOT THE PRESIDENT'S JOB TO RATIFY TREATIES. Presidents sign them (which Clinton did), and they go to the Senate, which must pass them by a 2/3 margin. The Senate voted 95-0 to not ratify the treaty.
So, one more time for our slower readers: Unless George W. Bush cloned himself 67 times and got those clones elected to the Senate, there is no possible way for him to ratify the treaty even if he wants to.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Actually, the biggest polluters are third world nations. The biggest polluters are nations like China and India who cannot afford to put in the more advanced technology of various industries to cut down on waste.
Basicly wrong, but the question is how you measure.
Do you measure in totals? Than probably China causes more CO2 "pollution" than e.g. Canada. If you measure per person than a US citizen produces about 100 times the CO2 polution a Indian citizen does.
Bottom line: 280M US citizens * 100 is not even close to 850M Indian citizens * 1.
If you switch from CO2 emissions to the word "polution" this indicates you are reffering to waste. In this case its true that countries like India and Taiwan produce far more waste than a country like germany per citizen. However if you compare now Italy or Switzerland with US
Another factor is that there will be some corporations, with already minimal profit margins, who will simply be unable to make such changes to their systems and would be forced out of business therefore possibly putting thousands of people out of work at a time.
You are free to make your laws for reducing CO2 emssion in any way. Only the bottom line counts. If you like to protect a certain industry from such a law you make the law accordingly.
This will immediately effect the U.S.'s economy, and inevitably the economy of both Europe and East Asian producing nations.
The number of people put out of work by lost jobs in existing industries will be compensated by the jobs created in new industries. Reduction of CO2 emissions means in the first place paying a reasonable price for energy. Currently a hughe amount of energy consumed in the western world is bought for ridiculous prices from antidemocratic regiemes in third world countries. (Anti americanism, anti globalsm, you have heared about that?)
If you start to pay a reasonable price for energy the energy costs get visible in the final products(and help the countries providing the raw resources to develop). Suddenly consumer prices get comparable or compeete wich each other. BTW: jobs will be crafted in industries where devices or processes for energy reduction are produced. Like insulation materials for houses, windmills solar cells, fuel cells, electric engines, H2 storing devices
An example for energy costs in endproducts: in germany we have a big discussion if all kinds of bottles and cans for drinks should have a deposite and get recycled.
A prime example is milk. We have basicly 3 compeeting containers for milk:
a) glass bottles which have deposite attached and get cleaned and reused
b) paper boxes with plastics at the inner side to make them water proof
c) a plastic sack, like a baloon, filled with milk
We had endless discussions which way is better for the environemnt. b) and c) get mainly deposited as waste. a) gets cleaned and reused as long as the bottles "look good" and then they get melted and new bottles are produced from the glass. c) is in rare cases burned (in waste burning power plants) or recycled to other plastic products.
Think about beer you should know that on (nearly) all bottles we have deposite in germany. But not on metal cans. Over the previous 5 years the sale of cans increades by about 100%. Customers enjoyed to buy a can and to throw it away when empty. Now we have the discussion if cans should get deposite also. For deposite collection facilities and transportation to recycle plants need to be set up.
For the cases above, a) to c) the discussion which kind of way is best for the environment never got into an aprooved or "scientific accepted" conclusion.
Problems are: energy consumed in transportation. Glass is more heavy than plastic sacks. So a truck carries more milk in plastic sacks for the same weight. Empty bottles need to be carryed back for cleaning and refilling, emty, consuming space on a truck for nothing. OTOH whine bottles have no deposite and are collected and transported as broken glass, not as empty bottles, and recycled by melting them and producing new bottles.
So the transport is better cost wise but the melting now takes energy.
Paper boxes with plastic inside are hard to recycle because you can't easy seperate the paper and the plastics later. If you can seperate them from the other waste at all. Plastic sacks are not easy to seperate from the other waste like paper boxes.
So, what to do? Well germany run mad in issuing laws how to treat waste.
It would have been far easyer to increase the energy costs
Instead of paying 50 cents for a gallon of milk, regardless in what containment we would then pay 90cents in containment A, 110 cents in containment B and 85 cents in containment C.
The customer would descide that containment B is to expensive. Simple.
The same was true for every product where a high energy consuming process for production is compeeting with a low energy process.
As energy is put into every stage of production, minig raw resources, refining raw resources to pure resources, mixing pure resources to first level products, creating parts, mounting parts to final products, and all the transportations in between the stages, we suddenly had much better competition of economies.
As the waste and energy interlock would be losened, far better living and working conditions for all workers involved would get established.
Anyway
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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?
You forgot to mention 25% of the world's total GDP. It's not exactly surprising that the country that makes a quarter of the world's stuff also makes a quarter of its emissions, is it?
Makes and consumes a quarter of the world's stuff. It's not like the US is doing the rest of the world a favour.
What would Lemmy do?
Solar power? Hmm, good choice, but do you know how they make solar cells? Current technology uses (IIRC) gallium arsenide crystals and fluorinated solvents. So there is a disposal problem there during manufacturing and at the end of working life. 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! And what do you do at night or on a cloudy day?
I do not check the numebrs and I do not show some flaws you made here in the most common materials for solar power
I like to show your flaw in THINKING.
you'd need a lot of cells to supply the average household
So: reduce the need for energy of the average household.
Got it? Kyoto is about ENERGY REDUCTION. Not only about REPLACEMENT OF ENERGY SOURCES.
Of course it is a problem if EVERY Chineese household suddenly is rich enough to afford a fridge. Because every one will buy a fridge.
And suddenly everyone will consume more energy and produce more CO2. So a part of the solution is to build fridges wich use less energy. Europe does so, US not.
China will do it automaticaly by buying the best and cheapest fridges available with the lowest energy consumption.
Basicly China and India CANT reduce their CO2 exhaust. They definitly WILL INCREASE IT over the next 50 years.
USA *CAN* reduce it, for nothing in the long run and with great economic benefits. But the USA prefere to let Europe do it and buy the needed technologies in 10 to 30 years from Europe.
angel'o'sphere
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
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.
Having used European mass transit extensively, I think I am in a position to argue that it would not work well for Americans. The biggest reasons are our very low population density, and our highly concentrated (and efficient) retail distribution, which means that people need to be able to bring back a significant amount of goods per trip when they shop, because they have to go a significant distance to do so. In Europe, one is much more likely to have a short distance to go to a store, because they are not efficiently concentrated.
As far as reducing reliance on oil, the best way to do that is nuclear power, which is consistently blocked by environmentalists. We have not had a new nuclear plant started since 1979!
Many americans drive mid-sized cars. Hybrids are microscopic, they are kludges (extra parts). Many American drive small cars. However, unlike Europe, we seem to have more of a belief that freedom is a virtue, not a sin.
The only good weather is bad weather.