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Kyoto Protocol Comes Into Force
Cally writes "The controversial Kyoto Treaty regulating CO2 emissions finally comes into force today. The BBC has several stories and backgrounders, and notes that international pressure is now mounting on the USA to take action as well, as the scientific consensus is well established. A key question is whether the US economy will benefit relative the rest of the world, with some arguing that new technologies such as clean power generation and energy efficient appliances will provide an economic boost."
Looking at the question of 'will USA gain a relative economical advantage' is missing the point - it IS clear that there are certain economic disadvantages - ensuring that our children have a decent world left will have some costs.
If the war on terrorism is to continue then decreasing our reliance on oil (which comes from the Middle East) should be a priority.
There is no denying that oil revenue undoubtably finds its way into the hands of those that wish evil against the US. Clean technologies reduce our need to funnel more money into that part of the world.
US Good / US Bad ./ will decide
A key question is whether the US economy will benefit relative the rest of the world,
It doesn't matter whether a country's economy benifits from this. The safety of our Evironment is more important than the economy of a country.
So we better start getting really creative, really fast. Otherwise we'll have nothing to sell anyone.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
This is going to be a very very replied-to story, and at the end of the "discussion", no one's mind will be changed.
If I'm not mistaken, the primary US objection to the treaty is that it does not apply to India or China, who are expected to be responsible for most of the world's CO2 emissions in the next couple decades. The reasoning is something like, "Why should we limit our emissions (and suffer the economic consequences), when the biggest polluters get to keep on polluting?"
cp /dev/zero ~/signature.txt
Err, Providing a wikipedia entry to support something like this isn't good considering how biased/wrong wikipedia can be. Especially since this topic has so much to do with USA and this is so controversial in USA (although everyone outside knows the truth) and Wikipedia is virtually controlled by US people (editors).
Every time we get a story like this, a bunch of people write in about how global warming isn't happening, or if they accept that, then they write about how it's not certain* that it's caused by us.
;-)
Please PLEASE can people like this read the links, and read about the consensus. If they have specific points to rebutt with the evidence then this is interesting (especially if they have training in the area).
I'm not a climate scientist myself and so I feel a bit hestitant about posting anything on these topics. It would be nice if the self-appointed 'experts' who take over these threads would behave in the same way, and let those of us who are interested in learning more read comments from people who actually know what they're talking about. This does not mean you have to agree with Kyoto (it's clearly flawed in some areas), nor that you have to believe that global warming is our fault, but you should have some damn good facts and links!
*of course nothing can ever be proven to be certain in science, only disproven, but you all know what I mean.
We're talking about the country which doesn't admit smoking causes cancer until ~ twenty years after it's proved. Then we don't admit second-hand smoking causes cancer until... wait have we admitted it yet? Wait, we're still using land-mines?
Calling the Kyoto treaty unfair is irrelevant. Pointing out other countries engaging in the same ignorance as our own is irrelevant. The US drags its feet when it comes to international and social issues. I don't know which is more depressing.
I hate to have to keep doing this: This not a troll. This post contains only facts (except the ~ twenty is a guess). If you feel a violent reaction to this post I suggest you start thinking before you post.
Bush will never force the industry of his country (including power generation) to conform to the Kyoto accord. It's bad business.
In fact, he passes laws that relax the current regulations on pollution. His not-so-aptly-named "Clean Skies" initiative allows coal-fired generating stations to increase the amount of pollution they produce in favour of dumping more wattage on the grid.
This sort of behaviour disgusts me. I live in Toronto, and although we have a busy airport and traffic corridor, we don't produce nearly as much pollution as our neighbours to the south. Nanticoke generating station generates enough power for the city of Toronto without running at full capacity. It produces less emmissions than a plant half its size in Detroit. It does this with not-so-new-but-expensive technology that is invested in in favour of oh, say, being able to breathe.
I went down to D.C. recently, and when I left on the plane, looking east, I couldn't tell where the ground ended and the sky began. It was a disgusting layer of brown that looked like it spanned five hundered meters in the air... probably more.
I hope someone manages to bring sanctions against the Bush administration. His lack of regard for anything not minted or drilled or slipped into his pocket is disgusting.
Karma: Raspberry Kiwi
Hm, I thought once the large countries would adopt it, they could 'force' (as in, political force) the rest of the world to comply? I'm not really into politics, though.
Even when your comment is correct, I still think the US could at least set an example, like Europe and Russia will do. It's not about solving the problem of others, but working at our own problems. Even when India and China will not comply to the agreements, having the rest of the world comply will still make a difference, if only by creating a frame of mind.
At least, that's my opinion.
"Want some rye? 'Course you do!" - Return to Zork
Problem is:
The economy crowd's horizon is the next quarterly report
The ecology crowd's horizon is the next quarter millennium.
I think it's better to stick to these agreements in the long run: it is both an intuitive an scientific fact that (oil) supplies will run out sooner or later. If we reach near that point without well-developed alternative technology and infrastructure, that would be a bigger disaster.
It comes at a price perhaps on the short term, but it gives a number of benefits: not only can alternative energy resources potentially come cheaper than conventional ones, it is a given that a worldwide demand for these will grow at some point in the future. Having technology, research and patents ready gives a major economic edge... it is exportable technology after all.
So.. I don't think it will damage the U.S. economy that much within the next 10 years or so, but it will be relatively damaging in the sense that reliance on foreign technology and resources remains.
see a Text Widget
Yeah, screw those developing nations without stable economies, just let them rot.
Some nations can't afford the changes requried, they would be *devastating* to their already fragile situations. They need time for their economies to grow and stabilize before they can make such changes.
The US, and the rest of the 1st world nations, on the other hand, CAN afford to make some changes without collapsing their entire economic system.
Like it or not, China is still a developing nation, even if has 5x the population of the US.
For those who work in academic fields, funding means a lot. It shouldn't be that way but it is.
And when a scientist does a study that your funding source didn't like, no more funding for that scientist. Anyone who thinks that science is immune from politics isn't paying attention.
Kyoto if it were fully enforced would only decrease global warming by 1/500th of a degree over the next 50 years. Its a $90 billion bandade on a bursting dam.
China is on track to build 562 new coal fired plants in the next 8 years. India is looking at building 213 plants. The US 72...The US does not matter in this equation, talk about China and India. Any gains in CO2 emmissions are buried by 3rd world increases.
The controversial Kyoto Treaty
This is the same way as Christian Fundamentalists in Kentucky et al describe Darwin's Theory of Evolution.
Quick Summary: Everyone in the world thinks that someone has to be done about pollution. Except the biggest polluter.
Basically this is the same as elements like the Chemical and Biological non-proliferation treaty (objected to by the US), the International Criminal Court (objected to by the US) and a host of other good ideas that the US President objects to because he didn't think them up.
The US Approach of "Build Bigger SUVs and let our kids sort out the mess" is a disgrace to the 21st Century on a par with any other act of wilful destruction that can be conceived. The US is deliberately increasing its pollution rates and refusing to do anything about it. This already causes increases in deaths in the US an abroad due to breathing disorders and toxic poisoning.
And if its about the economy, how about trimming that massive debt George ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
let the farmer become the "oil" barrens of the 21st century and let them grow hemp for biodiesel production.
I believe estimates state that if 25% of all crop land was hemp, the USA would be self sufficiant. Not to mention, give farmers a "true" cash crop.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
When the vikings first discovered Greenland, they called it that because it was a green and relatively pleasent land. That's not a description that one would use today, despite the effects of a supposed global warming. The point is that climate change has always been a feature of the Earth, especially in the last few thousand years. Its seems to me that the USA are, for once, in the right.
Modern nuclear power is cleaner, safer, cheaper and more efficient than it ever was, yet we continue to build toxic, filthy fossil fuel plants. Why?
Because of the relentless, unscientific green PR campaign that's portrayed every nuclear plant as a Chernobyl in waiting. Wind, sun and waves are not always an option, and anti-nuclear campaigning has left no choice but fossil fuels.
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well obviously the nasty terrorist polluter countries would require regime change.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
It is only true if your definition of "just" includes the right of Americans to pollute ten times as much as Chinese and Indians so that they may maintain their already significantly higher standard of living.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Kyoto will fail sooner than you may think due to Peak Oil. Nations will want to get as much energy as they can get and nobody will care if that energy is harmful to environment or not.
Do not forget that 20% of the world population uses up the 86% of the energy of the world. As people in China and India, the two most populous country in the world, want to live like us the price of energy will rise and Kyoto will be ignored.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
If the war on terrorism is to continue then decreasing our reliance on oil (which comes from the Middle East) should be a priority.
... said programs of course to be cancelled and replaced again a couple of years before delivery with something else, rinse, wash, and repeat until the oil reserves have gone completely dry). That is something the oil plutocrats simply cannot abide, and, having seized control of the United States government, will not allow.
There is no denying that oil revenue undoubtably finds its way into the hands of those that wish evil against the US. Clean technologies reduce our need to funnel more money into that part of the world.
Yes, but the oil companies are not run by fools or idiots, unfortunately. Why do you think they staged a coup d'etat in the United States in 2000, and possibly again in 2004?
Sane public policy would have us moving away from oil (and not cancelling vialbe programs that would have given us tangible results in three to five years, and replacing them with grandios programs that probably won't deliver in ten to fifteen years
So no, we won't be joining Kyoto anytime soon. Sorry, folks.
It may mortify me personally as an American to see what my government is doing, but as the odds of my vote even counting continue to decline I don't see much I can do about it, except gripe here on slashdot and send letters for my representatives to ignore.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The US doesn't suffer easily
Err: The US doesn't suffer rivals easily
with some arguing that new technologies such as clean power generation and energy efficient appliances will provide an economic boost
Well, it's pretty clear that it provides an economic boost to the people who are in the business of developing technology. The open question is whether adopting Kyoto (or rather participating in the development of a modified Kyoto). would boost the productivity economy as a whole. A lot depends on the time frame you look at, and assumptions you make.
There's no doubt in my mind that failing to endorse Kyoto means that Europe and Japan will become the technology leaders in emissions reduction, energy efficiency, and possibly even alternative energy technologies. US companies (meaning companies that do most of their business in the US) on the other hand will invest their money in other things, which will presumably pay off in other ways. I think it's fair to say that US companies will lag in these particular areas.
The key question, which nobody can answer for sure, is whether energy efficiency, emissions reduction and alternative energy technologies are going to be more signficant in the long run than the other things that Amercian business are going to be investing in.
I personally think there is a good chance that they will be the most important technogies of the twenty-first century, dwarfing computer technology or even biotechnology. Oil stocks are finite, and our first world life style, upon which all else depends, is very energy intensive. Furthermore companies by their nature look at quarterly or annual results, not the tweny year timeframe this becomes important in. As a person in my mid 40s, I fully expect to live another 40 years, in twenty of which I expect to live on my investments. Therefore I'm very interested in the performance of companies twenty plus years out.
Of course, if you take an even longer viewpoint, it may be that after Europe and Japan invest heavily in first generation technology, the US companies may be able to leapfrog them the way other countries have leapfrogged the US in wireless technology, by investing in a second generation technology without having concern for the existing infrastructure investments. However, (a) I don't expect to be alive long enough to benefit from this and (b) I think it might be doubtful whether this will happen at all.
I don't think the US is poised to maintain its leadership in technology as a whole throughout the twenty-first century. There were circumstances in the twentieth century that made US technolgoical dominance possible, but they are gone now, and there is no serious interest in doing what would be necessary to maintain US leadership.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
The problem with the Kyoto treaty is not just the economic devastation it would entail in the USA, it is the blatant unfairness in it (although diplomacy requires the Bush admin never to mention that.) The 1990 date was chosen by Europeans not as a fair reference but because it was an easy target for them. Since 1990 the Soviet Union has dissolved and with it an enormous, archaic (heavily polluting) industrial base. Germany almost makes it's quota by removing all the Trabants alone.
So, as a US citizen and speaking for our government let me propose a deal. Agricultural subsidies are also world problem and both Europe and the USA must take action. So I propose this deal, you slash your subsidies to zero and we'll do nothing and then the USA will sign the Kyoto Treaty (they are both equally fair.)
So long and thanks for all the fish . . . !!!
Republicans: Sure, Iraq's elections aren't perfect, but they're the first step on the road towards true democracy....
Republicans: Since the Kyoto treaty isn't perfect, but is a first step on the road towards a solution to global warming, we'll stay out...
Meine Schwester ist sehr, sehr reizvoll - Nietzsche
The rest of your post was typical, mindless USA bashing, and complete ignorance of the myriad details in the scattershot issues you tossed out. Typical "debate" approach of the ideologue. Toss out a zillion sound bites so anyone opposing you simply can't be bothered to deal with the blathering.
The notion of effectively throwing out a lot of existing hardware and replacing it with new, more energy efficient hardware produced by a diverse group of companies should have economists and politicians licking their fingers.
Instead, they are listening to a tiny number of very powerful lobbies: the car companies, the oil companies, and the power producing companies. For them, of course, the move to energy efficient technology means that they have to make investments, investments that they would rather take as profits (or at least not have to borrow in order to make).
But that's just it: if those investments were made, it would provide a huge economic boon that would help the economy greatly, creating just the kinds of jobs we like: manufacturing, high-tech, design, software. It would also be an opportunity to modernize our aging infrastructure in many industries, as well as provide the necessary pressure to de-subsidize automobiles and support a modern and convenient system of public transit (which yields yet more jobs and other benefits).
There was another scientific theory that attained "scientific consensus," and everyone who was anyone believed that life as they knew it would end if something was not done. As a result, massive programs were undertaken to ensure that this would not happen. Connecticut was the first of the United States to enact laws, in 1896. The Carnegie Institution funded research into solutions starting in 1904. In 1910, a centralized research facility was set up, and in 1924 federal law was passed to further curtail the effects of this theoretical phenomenon.
Although we can look back and clearly see that the consensus was wrong, at the time the methods and results were almost universally believed to be entirely legitimate science. Detractors, no matter how credible or scientifically convincing, were either ignored or ridiculed for deviating from the broad scientific consensus.
Of course, the United States was, at the time, only the second most active nation in its attempts to curtail the effects of the disaster impending for all of humanity. Germany was more ambitious and probably more successful in its advances of eugenics, the theory essentially that the gene pool is decaying and needs to be carefully maintained by selective breeding, specifically excluding those "unfit" to carry on the race.
Consensus has exactly as much weight in science as it does on the playground: the only effect is that those who dare disagree (no matter how correct they are) are beaten up and called names. If that's the kind of support you use to justify your beliefs, then you have no place in science. Unfortunately, global warming believers have taken their place regardless of its nonexistence. And they win you over by fear ("Humanity will not survive!") and by false dichotomy ("If you're not with us, you're against the environment!"). (See Wikipedia's list of logical fallacies, quite a few of which apply to arguing that global warming is reality and not just a theory.)
The US didn't join Kyoto because Kyoto is meaningless, not because the US is anti-environment. (And whether the latter is the case or not depends on a lot of factors, but is irrelevant to this discussion nonetheless.)
The IPCC report summaries are written by bureaucrats, not by the researchers who did the work. If a 'scientific consensus' can be established only by ignoring those who disagree and condemming them if they dare to speak out, then we need a new term.
The difference between government-supported science in the U.S. today and in the USSR in the 1930s and 1940s is that Lysenko could send a dissenter to the Gulag, while today's grant committees can only destroy his career.
Those who will not learn from history are doomed to step in it - again and again.
The American Enterprise has an article on why the Kyoto deserved to die.
Reasons:
1. Kyoto "Would have exempted China and other developing nations entirely (despite the fact that their growing emissions would have swamped the reductions from the developed nations)."
2. "Long before President Bush acted, this approach had been rejected by the U.S. Senate in a vote of 95-0, which is why President Clinton never submitted the treaty for ratification."
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So, Bjorn Lomborg made some money.
That doesn't make him wrong. He doesn't pretend to be a scientist (he isn't a scientist). What he does is show that many of the statistics presented by the environmental movement are flawed. And, yes, he is a statistician.
For which he has been criticised beyond belief. The green community has behaved like Bill Gates does towards the open source community, and that's not right.
Just my rant: I'm more green than Mr Lomberg (as a lifelong supporter and donater to Friends of the Earth), but I feel he has been unduly ridiculed for making some very good points.
Enough said.
--- My dad's political betting
As an American, I think that reducing our dependence on foreign oil, reducing smog in our cities, reducing acid rain, and the likely benefits of spinoff technologies are all far more compelling reasons to pursue a new energy strategy than the unproven theory that the alleged increase in global temperature since the beginning of the indusrial age is due to human activities. Environmentalists have become overly dependent on the global warming argument to advance their cause in the same way that Bush was overly dependent on WMDs to justify going into Iraq. In both cases, there are a lot of other good arguments in favor of the position. Environmentalists ought to be highlighting other benefits of a new energy economy in case global warming turns out to be their equivalent of Iraqi WMDs.
Whether global warming is real should not be an issue. The warming already exhibited trends below the low-end of the IPCC's predictions. It is also far less than the climate change we have experienced in the past: Near East devastation in 1200BC, shifts of the Sahara, end of last Ice Age, etc. The real threat, IMHO, is in cataclysmic disasters. Preventing/mitigating them is part of how we can weather out global warming.
Regional disasters devastating populations are inevitable in most places - tsunamis, asteroids and continental supervolcanoes among others. Cities and whole coastlines should be protected with seawalls, especially coastal industrial zones. The economics of building the walls (they are considerable) are beside the point: How much does it cost to replace Manhattan? Or the whole east coast, if that volcano in the Canary Islands breaks apart? Beckerman in "through green colored glasses" makes the calculation for seawalling Bangladesh to prevent and control their seasonal flooding, it would cost about $16 Billion which is comparable to a good monsoon's damage.
Kyoto is mainly for taxing the industrial countries/companies through carbon trading. Obviously, interests here in the US are against that. (This is bipartisan - the Senate refused to vote on it, 99-0) Kyoto speaks nothing of disaster mitigation, a far, far bigger issue than a 1-degree increase in global temps. If this temperature rise is ongoing/accelerating, those in power would have to reach a consensus on some kind of radical action - it is not going to happen with the entrenched interests worldwide. That leaves it to citizens and corporations, so go ride your bicycle.
And please think about seawalls.
Josh
Josh
gigantino.tv - Heavy but weighs nothing.
Right now, the world would be worse off if we switched to electric cars. We don't have a clean source of electricity that people support, so they'd have to run on coal electricity. This woould make your assumed global warming thing worse. right?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
How about replying to the message, not the messenger.
The point is, the US is increasingly acting in ways contrary to the rest of the world. For a country that touts democracy, that's hardly democratic. I didn't vote for Bush, but I recognize that the majority did. So he's the president. The US takes the attitude that "The majority of the population of the World says X, but we know better".
Maybe all those people who voted for Bush know something I don't. And maybe all those countries who think the US is a rouge nation know something we don't. It's not comfortable being a minority, but the US is becoming one.
The comments about Kyoto being no more than a band-aid are simply wrong. Kyoto is a first step, and its targets were seriously watered-down in order to get the US (in particular) on board, as well as getting as many countries as possible to sign up. Will China and India somehow unfairly use the Treaty? Possibly, but since global warming will have a massive effect on their economies, they have certain incentives to play by the rules. As far as the US economy is concerned, any country that refuses to do anything about vehicles that burn oil at 12 miles to the gallon, while spending billions on protecting supplies from one of the most volatile (and anti-American)regions on earth can do a lot worse than simply increase the efficency of its energy use. There are major pay-offs to the US, not least because it has a huge amount of scientific resources and technology that it can sell to the rest of the planet. There seems to be a certain divide on these postings, between those who are extremely cynical of the science/politically conservative/and or very protective of the US's stance; and those who wish to see change (no matter how tentative at first)/ and who may not be from the US. Is it just me who is picking up on this?
I grew up with the worries of global cooling. In the graduate engineering air pollution classes, carbon dioxide's spectral absorption band was reported already near saturation - very low sensitivity to more. Only CO2's higher mass molecule remained a factor. Crichton and others have long pointed out how the 1995 IPCC draft report was altered to convert "uncertainty" into a "consensus" for GW. Another example of intellectual dishonesty is the [http://muller.lbl.gov/TRessays/23-MedievalGlobalW arming.html treatment Mann has given his critics].
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I think that GW'ers still do not properly address astrophysical and geological processes. Also anyone who has worked with simulators realizes that emprical fudge factors are used liberally, that whole processes may not be treated adequately if at all (unkown or not well understood), and that their predictive value, without repeated validation cycles (xxx yrs?) or starting from a *complete* set of fundamental equations, is bunk.
I am more concerned about coal vs oil & gas, because the US has a lot, coal is relatively cheap and it is loaded with heavy metals, particulates and nucleotides. Coal use is the real policy issue to the US. Timing (a last resort?), adequate clean up and competitive economics are crucial to the US if another competitve energy cycle doesn't emerge. Don't worry about the oil & gas useage, you'll be competing with several billion prosperous Asians for it; it will all get used anyway.
I think Crichton has it [http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speech
right also in this speech] where he points out that the current version of "environmentalism" is a religion. I think many engineers are bigger and better environmentalists - working something other than their mouths and vacuum tubes. I liked the reviews on Crichton's book "State of Fear" and plan to read it.
Thought: If the 10% (100,000 ppm) decline in magnetic field (atmosphere retention, modulation of the ionospheric reflection) is more important than 100 ppm increase in CO2, if we are going through pole reversal (through/near magnetic zero, -90% more) what then? Before you go blow a few trillion, please make sure you have some hard facts addressing or prioritizing real problems. You might really miss the economic resources later. Lonnnggg term, I vote for aneutronic power sources (e.g. p-B) or space (D-T, D-D fusion or solar).
I know this may sound like flamebait, but I'll say it:
The only way we'll be able to even come close to Kyoto standards, and the reason that those eco-friendly French are able to do so, is by going nuclear. The coal plants we currently utilize create more pollution and more radiation (yes, radiation) than equivalent nuclear plants would.
So what's it going to be, you technology savvy hippies? Kyoto and nuclear? Or no Kyoto and no nuclear?
A couple of facts:
1) Automobiles account for 5% of the pollution in this country. SUVs make a very small percentage of this number - remember that the next time someone starts harping on SUVs.
2) Airplanes pollute an automobile equivalent of a 30,000 mile trip with each flight. Think about that the next time you book a flight.
3) The cost, energy and materials that currently go into solar panels actually create more pollution than that solar panel will save in it's lifetime. Hopefully further advances in solar technology will help.
4) The truth is - we're running out of oil. For the rest of our lives, oil is going to go down in supply and up in demand. Nuclear is our only choice.
Whenever I hear that it will be "expensive" to meet the targets set forth in the Kyoto accord I wonder if people made the same argument against factories in the late 1800's. Sure, it was a lot of work to shift to an industrial economy, but in the end what we have is (usually) more efficient than the previous model. Likewise, it was expensive to set up lines of communication that basically cover the globe, but this has created whole new economic sectors and enabled dramatic increases in productivity. Who knows what innovations we will see as a result of research and development associated with a "cleaner" economy.
In some ways becoming "cleaner" is much like space exploration...is it expensive? Yes. Is it beneficial? Yes. Can we enumerate all the benefits at the outset? Probably not. Should we do it? Yes.
Someday a Slashdot ID of 177180 will mean something.
Three points:
1) The treaty, even if it somehow got 100% implemented against the wishes of many, would theoretically reduce world temperatures 0.1C over the next century. This is completely unmeasureable, especially when viewed against decade to decade fluctuations in world climate. Only 200 years ago we emerged from a mini-ice-age. Remember frozen Holland in the Bruegel paintings? 0.1C is statistical noise. Kyoto basically has no measureable goals or objective criteria with which to judge success or failure.
2) Most of the countries which will do the heaviest polluting over the coming years are not counted under Kyoto. Kyoto amounts to a tax on carbon emissions levied against wealthy industrial countries but not poorer ones like india or china that burn shitloads of coal. It would have hurt the US both in terms of the cost of manufacturing competitiveness and in terms of jobs lost. This amounts to a transfer of wealth from wealthy countries to poor ones.
3)Environmentalism in general is an attempt to subvert the sanctity of property rights in western society in the intersts of "protecting mother earth." How many times have you heard about ranchers losing their homes because someone found a rare species of lizard or flower or moss on their acreage? How many people in FL lost their homes for the crime of living too close to the everglades? How many national forests are built from formerly private land snatched through eminent domain? Do you think that using greenhouse gasses as an excuse to levy exorbitant taxes on wealthy countries is somehow more justifiable than just stealing it outright? Do you think this is an accident or perhaps a real attempt to subvert our ownership based society?