Posted by
michael
on from the take-a-deep-breath dept.
geek42 writes "Looks like Russia has picked up where the U.S. failed: they've ratified Kyoto, and now it's going to be law (on Feb 16). The BBC has coverage. 'Industrialised countries will have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2% below the 1990 level.'"
Bush and Kerry refused to support this, I believe on the grounds there would be absolutely no feasible way to move the US towards the requirements listed. The cost would also be untenable.
That's because the US is by far the worst polluter of any country in the world, so would have to cut more to be at a sustainable level.
Wow, I didn't think this would be true -- I supposed that China at least would pollute more than we do. So I did some research, and based on a 2001 EIA study, here are the world's energy-related carbon emissions:
24%: United States 16%: Western Europe 13%: China 12%: Eastern Europe and FSU
5%: Japan 29%: Rest of world
Lots of ranting...
by
Thunderstruck
·
· Score: 5, Informative
Lots of ranting about how the US is just going to scoff at this "international law." But perhaps one point of clarification should be presented.
Treaties do constitute international law, but they are only binding on those nations which sign (and in the case of the US ratify) it. As such non-signatory nations who do not adhere to the terms of the Kyoto treaty are not in violation of any law.
-- Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Re:who says we failed?
by
Wyatt+Earp
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Even some of the Russians are against it
"The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyotoist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. The majority of humankind does not accept this system, despite claims of worldwide support. Even with Russia's ratification, 75 per cent of the world's CO2 is emitted by, 68 per cent of the world's GDP is produced in, and 89 per cent of the world's population live in countries that are not handcuffed by Kyoto's restrictions. Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda. Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated."
http://www.envirotruth.org/news/20041115.cfm
Re:Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 5, Informative
"China emits 2,893 million metric tons of CO2 per year (2.3 tons per capita). This compares to 5,410 million from the USA (20.1 tons per capita), and 3,171 million from the EU (8.5 tons per capita). China has since ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and is expected to become an Annex I country within the next decade."
From that article you linked to.
China, a developing nation (and don't say it isn't, the average wage three years ago was $300 a year) HAS signed onto the treaty, even though it's likely to hurt China much more than the States. Especially considering China's economic growth is at 8% a year... Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
50% of all species on the planet will be extinct in the next 50 years - all because of human impact. How the hell can we let that happen? The "mass extinction" of the dinosaurs was ONLY 19% of all species on the planet at that time.
When will people wake up and smell the carbon dioxide?
Re:Who's the rogue state now?
by
foniksonik
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Do you know how the Kyoto treaty works? Each nation gets a certain number of vouchers for pollution that they can trade amongst each other or sell off at a market value... the number of vouchers is based on old data regarding pollution wherein some of the nations will instantly have more vouchers than they need currently and stand to make a huge windfall selling them off to nations who have continued to progress or haven't been able to slow down pollution levels for any number of reasons... basically Russia specifically will stand to make several billion dollars selling their vouchers to nations like India, US, and other nations that have continued to grow their industries while Russia's has languished for the last decade.
This 'system' of vouchers is what the US will not buy into... as it leaves us at an automatic pollution deficit with nery little hope of ever catching up.
-- A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Re:Who's the rogue state now?
by
g_adams27
·
· Score: 5, Informative
> I just don't get the US's non-participation in this treaty. Cutting pollution is good for the economy.
Then I'll be happy to help explain it. The short version: Kyoto would have required the US to cut its carbon-dioxide emissions by 30-40% over the next 10 years. Cutting CO2 emissions = cutting back on the use of carbon-based fuels like oil, gas, and coal. Those fuels produce over 2/3 of the energy used in the United States. Witness the downturn that the economy took just over the last few months as oil got a bit more expensive and energy production dropped. Now picture another 30-40% drop on top of that. Do you see begin to see how "cutting pollution is good for the economy" is a bit simplistic?
And what would be the end result of the US crippling its economy in this way? Estimates indicate that Kyoto would reduce global temperatures by 0.25 degrees F by the year 2100, and a rise in ocean temperatures of 0.11 degrees C over 40 years (see the journal Science, 4/13/01)
The Kyoto treaty is not the warm-and-fuzzy "save the environment!" treaty you think it is. It's rigid and onerous and gives the UN significant regulatory power over the industries (and economies) of nations that sign it. There's a reason that the Senate decided in a completely bipartisan fashion (95-0) to reject the treaty. It's bad for the US, and it still doesn't solve any global environmental problems.
How does making fun of the UN count as "Score:5, Informative"? The person didn't actually discuss the Kyoto Protocol. So, let me.
Consequences are under Article 18. Due to general agreement during the founding of the protocol, Article 18 merely a framework, for which specific consequences are to be established at the first COP/MOP meeting, held after the Kyoto Protocol is ratified (which it just was).
The protocol will not enter into force until 3/4 of the parties submit their notices of acceptance and ratification, and will only bind parties which ratify the amendment. I.e., not the US. However, US companies with overseas branches will be affected.
Japan, Australia, and Russia were insistant that consequences not be legally binding; the US used to be the party insisting the strongest that they be binding (how ironic...). However, COP/MOP was given the "perogative to decide on the legal form of the procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance."
Another interesting thing about the Kyoto Protocol is that it tracks your emissions like a national debt. I.e., if you miss your targets for one year, it cuts into your allotance for the next year. So, if a member blows off the protocol, their emissions rack up; if an environmentally friendly leader ever takes over, it offers all the more incentive to try and catch up to the rest of the world, even ignoring any Article 18 consequences that may be added in at a later date.
I love how no one has read any of the plans from the Bush Administration to curtail emissions in the USA. Just read a little bit on http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/environment/.
As well as this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/cl earskies.html "The Clear Skies Initiative will cut air pollution 70 percent...save American consumers millions of dollars.
* Cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 73 percent, from current emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million tons in 2010, and 3 million tons in 2018.
* Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 67 percent, from current emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million tons in 2008, and to 1.7 million tons in 2018.
* Cutting mercury emissions by 69 percent, - the first-ever national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions will be cut from current emissions of 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010, and 15 tons in 2018.
The US does have policies in effect to perform the same function as the Kyoto Accord, but they are more in line with our Economic needs and actualities. So there are 3 different emissions that we are curtailing...instead of 7, but it is a start without putting undue strain on our economy, and whether or not you like it the fact that corporations make money also means that most people in the country are making money, if the corporation doesn't make money people lose jobs and or make less.
Well that's my two cents.
Re:Horray for Science!
by
An+Onerous+Coward
·
· Score: 3, Informative
1) Check here to see if your country is "industrialized" or "transitioning".
2) "Emissions" means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time. [source]
3) The six gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) were presumably chosen because they make up the bulk of human-produced greenhouse gases.
4,5) Because having a quantifiable goal is nice. The choice of the year 1990 makes sense because the further back you go, the less the numbers bear any resemblance to the situation of the country today. If you go back too far, there aren't even useful numbers to work with. 1990 says, in effect, "You were performing at this level fairly recently. Try to shoot for that."
Why that particular percentage was chosen is a mystery, except that every country that signed Kyoto believed it was attainable. Will it be enough? Doubtful. But we have to start somewhere.
--
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Paleoclimatology is a well-developed field. We have essentially direct measurements of atmospheric composition and total ice volume going back 800,000 years and proxy evidence of various kinds for about the last half billion.
Also we have some pretty solid physics that indicates that rapid greenhouse gas accumulation is a problem.
Climate is not weather. Weather is the part of atmospheric conditions that is not predictable beyond a few weeks. Climate is the rest of it.
Will it snow on Christmas? Nobody can say. It's a weather question. WIll Christmas be colder than the Fourth of July? Well, yeah, at least here in Chicago. That's a climate question.
-- mt
Re:Consequences?
by
Sentry21
·
· Score: 4, Informative
The US historically has not 'paid for the lion's share of its operation'. They are supposed to, but they rarely did and never on time.
In fact, the UN Accounting department in 1998 held that the UN was suffering in terms of what it is able to do, in large part because a large number of members, most notably the US, do not pay their dues on time and in full. Since 1983, the US only paid in October, even though dues are due January 1st, and since 1986, it withheld part of those dues until certain conditions were met.
The report issued by Accounting 'also notes that of the countries in considerable arrears to the U.N., "according to a State Department official, only the United States has not paid its arrears because of policy reasons."'
What it comes down to is that the UN has been incapable of doing 'the lion's share of its operation' because of the US's inability or unwillingness to pay its dues when it is supposed to. In 1998, it was in danger of losing its vote in the General Assembly because of its arrears. As of 1998, the US owed $1.8 billion in back dues.
Now, bear in mind the US has actually started to pay its dues, perhaps because of the possibility of losing its influence (though it is obvious now that they don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks anyway), but I don't see that lasting. Abandon the world and the way the world works and see how pleasant it is to live without any friends. Unless things change with the way the US does buisiness, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen.
Re:Consequences?
by
sparlitup
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Its so ironic to hear people, usualy Americans, ranting about how crap the UN is. The whole purpose of the UN is to act as a forum to represent the collective concerns of its member nations. Its is not an enforcer, unless mandated to do so by its members, nor is it a law-maker, unless again in the case of a consensus of members to implement in their local laws the collective will of the member states
The power of the UN derives from the degree to which nations (and the most powerful ones at that) participate in its institutions. If the UN is weak it is precisely because the more powerful members, such as the US have chosen to make it so. In this case, the US is in no position to criticise the power, or lack there of, of the UN.
"you also do not spend on national defense because the US protects you."
Canada has never requested the United States to "protect" it. Canada simply has no designs on world domination or interfering with global markets with threats of violence. The USA has military might which far exceeds the needs of defense alone. The US military is offensive. In fact the US military expenditure exceeds the next 3 biggest spenders combined.
The US would not need to spend so much money on military if it wasn't so determined to artificially depress the cost of OIL and interfere with world economies.
The United States is not "defending" Canada out of altruism. The USA is defending Canada in the same way it defends Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To defend the oil. Which Americans buys from canadian based (corporations) in order to fuel the huge SUV's you have been tricked into believing you must all drive.
Fortunately the "people" of Canada had enough sense to put some taxation on oil rather than simply allow corporations to steal it for free. This is probably more to the Crown's credit rather than the people of Canada, as traditionally the "Crown" reserves all mineral rights.
If military expenditure is a great way to transfer public weath into private corporate hands.... well that serves american corporate interests as well.
"America" is doing very well. It is only the american people who are feeling the pinch.
"you dont have any borders to patrol."
Were you expecting to be attacked by Mexico? You already mentioned that Canada has no military.
"you have a relatively small population and most of your country in uninhabited or frozen over..."
You make being frozen over and uninhabited sound like an advantage.
-- No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
So, the US is producing and consuming more than every other country (World export 11%), and that entitles it to produce more CO2?
If you are crashing your car every year you are raising the GDP. If you produce weaponry and dispose it one way or another, you are raising the GDP. It is no measure of benefit to humankind.
> Even calculating it on a per capita basis is unfair
Is it? After an initial industrialisation phase with a corresponding growth of both, no statistical correspondance can be found.
To quote:
all the evidence suggests that emissions are to an important degree a function of policy and choice that determines the energy efficiency of economies
-- "Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Re:So who's signed it?
by
Quila
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Wrong on the land mine treaty. Here are a few reasons we didn't sign it:
The right to use mines in the Korean DMZ, which is a very special case. The mines pose no dangers of the types the treaty is trying to prevent, as all are in a closed, guarded area and mapped.
Better verification and compliance provisions. Yes, we actually wanted to be able to make sure everybody complies -- not just us (this was rejected of course).
The right to make self-destructing anti-tank and anti-personnel mines (again, not part of the long-term danger the treaty is about).
Bush is the WORST President at enviro. policies
by
katharsis83
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Check out the website of the NRDC, the Natural Resource Defense Center; it has a chronological ordering of Bush's actions against the environment:
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/
This series of events is from just ONE MONTH in December of 2002; on the website, there's hundreds of documented cases of environmental abuse by Bush:
"December 2002
EPA exempts oil and gas industry from stormwater pollution rules (12/30/02)
Bush administration backtracking on policy of 'no net loss" of wetlands (12/26/02)
Judge deals setback to Bush oil drilling plans in Utah (12/23/02)
Bush administration weakens federal program for cleaning up dirty waters (12/21/02)
Judge slaps restraining order on plan to dredge Snake River (12/20/02)
BLM denies drilling access in Colorado wildlife range (12/20/02)
Judge gives Department of Interior extension on manatee plan (12/19/02)
White House begins process of relaxing government regulations for industry (12/19/02)"
Once again, just a list of cases from one MONTH of his presidency; similar events occur every month.
Don't try to refute this by just saying the NRDC is full of hippies; if you have objections to their claims, please give counter-evidence.
Here's another interesting article I found from Rolling Stone online: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/stor y/_/rnd/1 100911430857/has-player/true/id/5939345/version/6. 0.12.1040 Perhaps the most damning accusation against the Bush administration from above article:
"Under the White House's guidance, the very agencies entrusted to protect Americans from polluters are laboring to destroy environmental laws. Or they've simply stopped enforcing them. Penalties imposed for environmental violations have plummeted under Bush. The EPA has proposed eliminating 270 enforcement staffers, which would drop staff levels to the lowest level ever. Inspections of polluting businesses have dipped fifteen percent. Criminal cases referred for federal prosecution have dropped forty percent. The EPA measures its success by the amount of pollution reduced or prevented as a result of its own actions. Last year, the EPA's two most senior career enforcement officials resigned after decades of service. They cited the administration's refusal to carry out environmental laws."
This still not enough evidence? Just do a quick google search on "bush environmental policy." You'll literally see hundreds of websites crticizing his policies. This is one of the most hostile administrations to a clean America.
Slashdot Mirror
Bush and Kerry refused to support this, I believe on the grounds there would be absolutely no feasible way to move the US towards the requirements listed. The cost would also be untenable.
Lots of ranting about how the US is just going to scoff at this "international law." But perhaps one point of clarification should be presented.
Treaties do constitute international law, but they are only binding on those nations which sign (and in the case of the US ratify) it. As such non-signatory nations who do not adhere to the terms of the Kyoto treaty are not in violation of any law.
Trying to use sarcasm in text-based forums does not work.
Even some of the Russians are against it
"The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyotoist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. The majority of humankind does not accept this system, despite claims of worldwide support. Even with Russia's ratification, 75 per cent of the world's CO2 is emitted by, 68 per cent of the world's GDP is produced in, and 89 per cent of the world's population live in countries that are not handcuffed by Kyoto's restrictions. Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda. Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated."
http://www.envirotruth.org/news/20041115.cfm
"China emits 2,893 million metric tons of CO2 per year (2.3 tons per capita). This compares to 5,410 million from the USA (20.1 tons per capita), and 3,171 million from the EU (8.5 tons per capita). China has since ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and is expected to become an Annex I country within the next decade."
From that article you linked to.
China, a developing nation (and don't say it isn't, the average wage three years ago was $300 a year) HAS signed onto the treaty, even though it's likely to hurt China much more than the States. Especially considering China's economic growth is at 8% a year... Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
50% of all species on the planet will be extinct in the next 50 years - all because of human impact. How the hell can we let that happen? The "mass extinction" of the dinosaurs was ONLY 19% of all species on the planet at that time.
When will people wake up and smell the carbon dioxide?
Do you know how the Kyoto treaty works? Each nation gets a certain number of vouchers for pollution that they can trade amongst each other or sell off at a market value... the number of vouchers is based on old data regarding pollution wherein some of the nations will instantly have more vouchers than they need currently and stand to make a huge windfall selling them off to nations who have continued to progress or haven't been able to slow down pollution levels for any number of reasons... basically Russia specifically will stand to make several billion dollars selling their vouchers to nations like India, US, and other nations that have continued to grow their industries while Russia's has languished for the last decade.
This 'system' of vouchers is what the US will not buy into... as it leaves us at an automatic pollution deficit with nery little hope of ever catching up.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Then I'll be happy to help explain it. The short version: Kyoto would have required the US to cut its carbon-dioxide emissions by 30-40% over the next 10 years. Cutting CO2 emissions = cutting back on the use of carbon-based fuels like oil, gas, and coal. Those fuels produce over 2/3 of the energy used in the United States. Witness the downturn that the economy took just over the last few months as oil got a bit more expensive and energy production dropped. Now picture another 30-40% drop on top of that. Do you see begin to see how "cutting pollution is good for the economy" is a bit simplistic?
And what would be the end result of the US crippling its economy in this way? Estimates indicate that Kyoto would reduce global temperatures by 0.25 degrees F by the year 2100, and a rise in ocean temperatures of 0.11 degrees C over 40 years (see the journal Science, 4/13/01)
The Kyoto treaty is not the warm-and-fuzzy "save the environment!" treaty you think it is. It's rigid and onerous and gives the UN significant regulatory power over the industries (and economies) of nations that sign it. There's a reason that the Senate decided in a completely bipartisan fashion (95-0) to reject the treaty. It's bad for the US, and it still doesn't solve any global environmental problems.
How does making fun of the UN count as "Score:5, Informative"? The person didn't actually discuss the Kyoto Protocol. So, let me.
Consequences are under Article 18. Due to general agreement during the founding of the protocol, Article 18 merely a framework, for which specific consequences are to be established at the first COP/MOP meeting, held after the Kyoto Protocol is ratified (which it just was).
The protocol will not enter into force until 3/4 of the parties submit their notices of acceptance and ratification, and will only bind parties which ratify the amendment. I.e., not the US. However, US companies with overseas branches will be affected.
Japan, Australia, and Russia were insistant that consequences not be legally binding; the US used to be the party insisting the strongest that they be binding (how ironic...). However, COP/MOP was given the "perogative to decide on the legal form of the procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance."
Another interesting thing about the Kyoto Protocol is that it tracks your emissions like a national debt. I.e., if you miss your targets for one year, it cuts into your allotance for the next year. So, if a member blows off the protocol, their emissions rack up; if an environmentally friendly leader ever takes over, it offers all the more incentive to try and catch up to the rest of the world, even ignoring any Article 18 consequences that may be added in at a later date.
The *special* hell.
I love how no one has read any of the plans from the Bush Administration to curtail emissions in the USA. Just read a little bit on http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/environment/.l earskies.html "The Clear Skies Initiative will cut air pollution 70 percent...save American consumers millions of dollars.
As well as this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/c
* Cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 73 percent, from current emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million tons in 2010, and 3 million tons in 2018.
* Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 67 percent, from current emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million tons in 2008, and to 1.7 million tons in 2018.
* Cutting mercury emissions by 69 percent, - the first-ever national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions will be cut from current emissions of 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010, and 15 tons in 2018.
The US does have policies in effect to perform the same function as the Kyoto Accord, but they are more in line with our Economic needs and actualities. So there are 3 different emissions that we are curtailing...instead of 7, but it is a start without putting undue strain on our economy, and whether or not you like it the fact that corporations make money also means that most people in the country are making money, if the corporation doesn't make money people lose jobs and or make less.
Well that's my two cents.
1) Check here to see if your country is "industrialized" or "transitioning".
2) "Emissions" means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time. [source]
3) The six gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) were presumably chosen because they make up the bulk of human-produced greenhouse gases.
4,5) Because having a quantifiable goal is nice. The choice of the year 1990 makes sense because the further back you go, the less the numbers bear any resemblance to the situation of the country today. If you go back too far, there aren't even useful numbers to work with. 1990 says, in effect, "You were performing at this level fairly recently. Try to shoot for that."
Why that particular percentage was chosen is a mystery, except that every country that signed Kyoto believed it was attainable. Will it be enough? Doubtful. But we have to start somewhere.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Also we have some pretty solid physics that indicates that rapid greenhouse gas accumulation is a problem.
Climate is not weather. Weather is the part of atmospheric conditions that is not predictable beyond a few weeks. Climate is the rest of it.
Will it snow on Christmas? Nobody can say. It's a weather question. WIll Christmas be colder than the Fourth of July? Well, yeah, at least here in Chicago. That's a climate question.
mt
The US historically has not 'paid for the lion's share of its operation'. They are supposed to, but they rarely did and never on time.
In fact, the UN Accounting department in 1998 held that the UN was suffering in terms of what it is able to do, in large part because a large number of members, most notably the US, do not pay their dues on time and in full. Since 1983, the US only paid in October, even though dues are due January 1st, and since 1986, it withheld part of those dues until certain conditions were met.
The report issued by Accounting 'also notes that of the countries in considerable arrears to the U.N., "according to a State Department official, only the United States has not paid its arrears because of policy reasons."'
What it comes down to is that the UN has been incapable of doing 'the lion's share of its operation' because of the US's inability or unwillingness to pay its dues when it is supposed to. In 1998, it was in danger of losing its vote in the General Assembly because of its arrears. As of 1998, the US owed $1.8 billion in back dues.
Now, bear in mind the US has actually started to pay its dues, perhaps because of the possibility of losing its influence (though it is obvious now that they don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks anyway), but I don't see that lasting. Abandon the world and the way the world works and see how pleasant it is to live without any friends. Unless things change with the way the US does buisiness, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen.
Its so ironic to hear people, usualy Americans, ranting about how crap the UN is. The whole purpose of the UN is to act as a forum to represent the collective concerns of its member nations. Its is not an enforcer, unless mandated to do so by its members, nor is it a law-maker, unless again in the case of a consensus of members to implement in their local laws the collective will of the member states
The power of the UN derives from the degree to which nations (and the most powerful ones at that) participate in its institutions. If the UN is weak it is precisely because the more powerful members, such as the US have chosen to make it so. In this case, the US is in no position to criticise the power, or lack there of, of the UN.
"you also do not spend on national defense because the US protects you."
Canada has never requested the United States to "protect" it. Canada simply has no designs on world domination or interfering with global markets with threats of violence. The USA has military might which far exceeds the needs of defense alone. The US military is offensive. In fact the US military expenditure exceeds the next 3 biggest spenders combined.
The US would not need to spend so much money on military if it wasn't so determined to artificially depress the cost of OIL and interfere with world economies.
The United States is not "defending" Canada out of altruism. The USA is defending Canada in the same way it defends Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To defend the oil. Which Americans buys from canadian based (corporations) in order to fuel the huge SUV's you have been tricked into believing you must all drive.
Fortunately the "people" of Canada had enough sense to put some taxation on oil rather than simply allow corporations to steal it for free. This is probably more to the Crown's credit rather than the people of Canada, as traditionally the "Crown" reserves all mineral rights.
If military expenditure is a great way to transfer public weath into private corporate hands.... well that serves american corporate interests as well.
"America" is doing very well. It is only the american people who are feeling the pinch.
"you dont have any borders to patrol."
Were you expecting to be attacked by Mexico?
You already mentioned that Canada has no military.
"you have a relatively small population and most of your country in uninhabited or frozen over..."
You make being frozen over and uninhabited sound like an advantage.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
If you are crashing your car every year you are raising the GDP. If you produce weaponry and dispose it one way or another, you are raising the GDP. It is no measure of benefit to humankind.
> Even calculating it on a per capita basis is unfair
Is it? After an initial industrialisation phase with a corresponding growth of both, no statistical correspondance can be found.
To quote:
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Check out the website of the NRDC, the Natural Resource Defense Center; it has a chronological ordering of Bush's actions against the environment:
r y/_/rnd/1 100911430857/has-player/true/id/5939345/version/6. 0.12.1040
http://www.nrdc.org/bushrecord/
This series of events is from just ONE MONTH in December of 2002; on the website, there's hundreds of documented cases of environmental abuse by Bush:
"December 2002
EPA exempts oil and gas industry from stormwater pollution rules (12/30/02)
Bush administration backtracking on policy of 'no net loss" of wetlands (12/26/02)
Judge deals setback to Bush oil drilling plans in Utah (12/23/02)
Bush administration weakens federal program for cleaning up dirty waters (12/21/02)
Judge slaps restraining order on plan to dredge Snake River (12/20/02)
BLM denies drilling access in Colorado wildlife range (12/20/02)
Judge gives Department of Interior extension on manatee plan (12/19/02)
White House begins process of relaxing government regulations for industry (12/19/02)"
Once again, just a list of cases from one MONTH of his presidency; similar events occur every month.
Don't try to refute this by just saying the NRDC is full of hippies; if you have objections to their claims, please give counter-evidence.
Here's another interesting article I found from Rolling Stone online:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/sto
Perhaps the most damning accusation against the Bush administration from above article:
"Under the White House's guidance, the very agencies entrusted to protect Americans from polluters are laboring to destroy environmental laws. Or they've simply stopped enforcing them. Penalties imposed for environmental violations have plummeted under Bush. The EPA has proposed eliminating 270 enforcement staffers, which would drop staff levels to the lowest level ever. Inspections of polluting businesses have dipped fifteen percent. Criminal cases referred for federal prosecution have dropped forty percent. The EPA measures its success by the amount of pollution reduced or prevented as a result of its own actions. Last year, the EPA's two most senior career enforcement officials resigned after decades of service. They cited the administration's refusal to carry out environmental laws."
This still not enough evidence? Just do a quick google search on "bush environmental policy." You'll literally see hundreds of websites crticizing his policies. This is one of the most hostile administrations to a clean America.