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Scientists Fear Impact of Asian Pollutants On US
During the Olympics we discussed the international monitoring effort as China shut down factories and curtailed automobile travel in an attempt to reduce pollution. Now reader Anti-Globalism sends in a story that reveals that monitoring effort to be ongoing, with a bigger mandate: assessing the impact of China's pollution on the US. In fact the problem is bigger still because, as one researcher put it, "It's one atmosphere." Scientists are finding that pollution from, for example, Europe can travel right around the globe in three weeks. "By some estimates more than 10 billion pounds of airborne pollutants from Asia — ranging from soot to mercury to carbon dioxide to ozone — reach the US annually. The problem is only expected to worsen: Some Chinese officials have warned that pollution in their country could quadruple in the next 15 years. While some scientists are less certain, others say the Asian pollution could destabilize weather patterns across the North Pacific, mask the effects of global warming, reduce rainfall in the American West and compromise efforts to meet air-pollution standards."
Asian pollutants come to the US without a penny in their pocket. Within a year, they usually have a thriving business.
Their exports are pretty skunky, too. Would you care for some lead paint with your toy, junior?
Oh, but there I go being all liberal and gay and shit. Really, we should let the free markets decide what an acceptable level of poisoning should be for our children. "But they're using asbestos as a padding for the cushion in this crib!" The free market decided it was cheaper than foam. I'm sorry, but the market's decision is final, you'll just have to accept that.
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
... the solution is simple. Just forbid imports from polluting Chinese factories.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
America only pumps pure clean oxygen into the atmosphere.
Deleted
kettle.
Gotta love the unwitting parochialism in this story- Those polluty old Asians are making all out cheap stuff!
This is our pollution. If you outsource industry, you outsource the concomitant waste. So do we wash our hands (in increasingly filthy water), or step up to the plate and deal? (A rhetorical question, I know....)
"Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
It's not just China's pollution. It's the world's pollution. We consume the product, and we should be responsible for the process waste.
Some portion of the purchase price should be allocated to r&d for minimising process waste. Whether taxed by manufacturers directly, or by participating governments.
Isn't the US still number one polluter or did China overtake recently? Either way the per capita pollution is still worse in the states by a hefty margin. Talk about being hypocritical.
co2 causes warming. Smog and other heavy pollutants still present in china (black smoke from coal,wood) but rare in the US causes cooling. But since the black stuff is bad looking we clear that up so we only get the warming effect of the co2.
Or there's no pollution in the US, never has been. The rest of the world has nothing to worry about from US manufacturing or transport. The greenhouse gases in the atmosphere now are someone else's fault; probably the French till the Chinese came along.
You've mentioned the effects of China and Europe on poor innocent America. Now, who's monitoring the effects of the USA's pollution? You know, that one developed country that still hasn't ratified the Kyoto Protocol.
Acknowledging and investigating the global effects of local pollution is a worthy endeavour, just as long as it's done in a balanced and open manner. We don't need yet another of the US's "Do as we say not as we do" hypocritical standpoints.
Spelling mistakes, grammatical errors, and stupid comments are intentional.
If the US wants another country to cut their pollution, then it has to deal with its own.
It has refused to sign up to a commitment to reduce its own pollution, yet would like others to do so.
Ok, the US may not be the worst offender, but still 'do as I say not as I do' is hardly a philosophy fit for the world stage.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
Well, I don't know if you noticed, but you may not have seen the sun during the olympics. Reason: particulate pollution is so bad in most of China you cannot see the sun most of the time. While CO2 certainly is a greenhouse gas - particulate pollution acts as a cooling agent in the atmosphere. Here in the US we have at least some regulation on what industries can pump into the atmosphere, and have really made some great strides in reducing particulate pollution since the 70's.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
partisans on the left, partisans on the right, nationalists of every nationality...
please shut the fuck up
the earth is our planet, and we must steward it
this applies to you on the left: a hands off attitude to mother gaia is complete bullshit in a world of 6 billion technologically inclined homo sapiens
this applies to you on the right: yes, human activity actually has an impact on our planet's climate, and yes, we must do something about it. we are sorry you are in denial on this subject. please learn to adapt to reality
furthermore, it does not matter who fucked up our environment, it simply matters that we must manage it, all of us. talking about blame is simply a desire to avoid responsibility. we all have the responsibility for our planet
we must must find ways to turn up the thermostat, we must find ways to turn down the thermostat, and then, we must actively do this. we have plenty of time to adjust and anticipate and counteradjust our manipulations. the scaremongers wish to talk about run away processes, but we are very much in the middle of a fluid and forgiving climate model. no atmosphere would have survived this long on earth were it so fragile and susceptile to runaway change. millenia of abuse from volcanoes and sun cycles and life processes has proven our atmosphere to be quite rugged
but not invulnerable, and certainly totally indifferent to our well-being and our need to grow crops. the earth has no problem turning into tundra or desert. but we have a problem with that. so let us actively manage the atmosphere to stay within comfortable parameters. this is of course completely artificial. the natural evolution OR human-made greenhouse gases migth dictate that the atmosphere go to a hellish extreme at some point. who cares WHY it might drift to an uncomfortable fringe state, natural or man-made, are we to simply sit back and suffer and wait for things to get comfortable again in a couple of thousand years?
no. we are mankind. unlike other animals, we do not adapt to our environment. we wear clothes, build huts: we adapt our environment to us. in this way, we conquer the taiga, and conquer the sahara. therefore, we must begin to actively engineer and manage our atmosphere to our liking, to homo sapiens comfort level. which is, pretty much as the climate is right now globally. freeze the status quo for all eternity
who CARES who is to blame, if anyone. active management is simply what we must begin to do. obviously, this should be a world body, something attached to the un. meanwhile, if we simply sit around passing the buck, blaming something else, nothing gets done, and we all go to hell. literally, in the case of climate change
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Ethnocentric? The fact that pollution from europe can reach the US in 3 weeks is just illustrating that pollution travels. Presumably, thats just based on a study that found that. No one is saying pollution from the US never goes to china, it's just likely that hasn't been specifically tested and would therefore be illogical to use to support the argument.
Why is it you're so anxious to see ethnocentrism? You really had to distort things to come away with that conclusion. Are you a lawyer who has found a way to sue scientists for ethnocentrism?
Or, alternatively, you could understand that different pollutants do different things. Just throwing that out there, you know. Sorta like CO2 absorbing EM waves in the IR band, and particles reflecting light back into space. Not that anyone would know anything about this.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Stuff like this has always been happening... Pollution from one country going into another. Just think of a large river, like the Danube, which goes through 5 or 6 countries, each of which used to dump a lot of trash in it. There's nothing that the downstream countries could do about it.
The US is guilty of stuff like this as well. The Colorado river had a huge delta in northern Mexico. After the dam was built, the area where the Delta was is now a desert. What could the Mexicans do about it? Nothing.
So, I frankly think that pollution wafting its way from the PRC to the USA only serves the Americans right, and they I think the chinese should can all their pollution and send it to the states (or whoever else hired them to make te crap in te first place) and be done with it. This is not Chinese pollution. It is american pollution coming home where it belongs.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Well said, it all pretty much started with Nixon when he opened trade and continued through Clinton and Bush. Everyone couldn't resist the money that China had to offer so they'd do anything and accept anything despite the human rights abuses as well as pollution. China never had to compromise their position even in the slightest. At least as far as I'm aware.
A tax or tariff based on pollution involved would encourage people to buy goods from places which are more neighbor friendly and would be fair since it's based on something tangible. The money could be used to help fund energy research or perhaps even more importantly cleanup efforts. This wouldn't be a bad idea per company instead of per country as some items produce less pollution than others during manufacturing.
The problem with taxing like this is that it wouldn't really have to stop at pollution as other causes could easily be picked up as well which could start a downward spiral so I'm not exactly sure what the correct course of action is beyond my own purchasing habits.
We can't even produce good old American pollution anymore.
Have gnu, will travel.
Well, as I recall, in Athens, things were pretty bright. I don't recall seeing a good shadow this last olympics. Additionally, the last time I was in china, I did not see the sun for 4 weeks. And no, its not "fog" its pollution so bad that when it rains, the streets and buildings get covered with a film of black stuff.
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
If you consider pollutants as a consumption issue, rather than as a production issue, then USA, being the largest consumers, should take some of the environmental responsibility too: That electronic gizzmo cost you $100 + your share of environmental "guilt".
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Let's build a giant fan to blow it back.
Every time you call tech support, a little kitten dies.
The US didn't like pollution from making stuff at home so it had it made in China, from where it could import the stuff and leave the pollution. Now the Chinese make so much stuff for America that the pollution is coming home by itself anyway. The irony is almost tangible...
I find it prety ironic that we embargo trade with Cuba for far smaller offenses yet we do massive trade with China which is far worse. It must all depend on how many votes you can buy in Florida.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Don't single out China/Asia. Countries have a massive effect upon each other. I live in far north Texas, and have seen haze/smoke from fires in central Mexico. I've always felt a large part of Texas's pollution problem is pollutants coming North. I've heard engineers talk about offering sulfer scrubbers to Eastern european coal-power plants to reduce smog here in the US.
Part of the problem is different countries worry about different types of pollution. In the US, we are more concerned about visible/long-term pollutants than invisible/short-term ones. Some other countries are completely unconcerned about things like leaded gasoline, which is still used in many countries but has been out of the US for decades. America has a bad record, but has gotten some things right in the end. Europeans make a big deal about CO2, but many European
beaches have incredibly toxic water, or land which is unfarmable. Thanks to American pollution reforms, life is even returning to New York's harbor.
Everything is a give/take. People are worrying about energy inefficient bulbs, replacing them with their more efficient fluorescent cousins, but are ignoring the problems those bulbs have with mercury. Or with LED bulbs, gallium aresenide. For example, the life returning to New York's harbor happens to be devouring all of the wooden structures built since they last died off.
Here's to losing my Karma Bonus again....
The US delegation at all those Global Warming summits was constantly saying over and over that the rest of thew world can cap emissions and lower pollution but if China and the like don't join in then it will be pointless. In response for this common sense information the US delegation was boo'd and jeered until they finally gave in an allowed a consensus to come forth that didn't demand anything of China and third world countries.
...I'm less interested in pointing fingers. Besides, the US has a habit of shooting at fingers with hellfire missiles. Instead of "naming names", it would seem better to have a close to global tracking and monitoring of pollution in general, to show WHERE different types of pollution are a problem (regardless of source). You could then add in solar-powered UAVs to collect air samples at random points, where the isotope ratios are calculated and the pollutant sources (not necessarily the factories, just the sources) are derived. The factories can be inferred from plotting the pollution clouds, if anyone is genuinely concerned, but frankly I'd have thought that cleaning fuels and raw materials would have a bigger impact, as there are likely far fewer sources than factories, factories see cleaning as expensive, but higher grade fuels and materials are worth more to their producers. Ergo, cleaning at source will be seen as making money, cleaning at point of use will be seen as spending money, even though the end result (in terms of pollution, money-flow, profits, etc) should be absolutely identical.
Industrialists are, by and large, not very bright and highly prejudiced towards green-stuff feel-good factors. Which means that something that is good won't be accepted no matter how good it actually is, unless it is presented as something that'll feel good to their accountants. Being honest isn't worth a damn thing, but it isn't necessary to be honest to be accurate. This is why politics is a scam. Politicians don't sell you what you want, they sell you what they want dressed up to look like it's something you want. But you're quite capable of giving as good as you get.
Honest environmentalists go nowhere, although they usually get some recognition AFTER the disaster they predicted has swept through. Why? Because their phrasing makes it sound like people have to put in hard work and money for something that isn't 100% predictable anyway. Completely the wrong move. Think like Dogbert, not Dilbert, on this one. Dilbert always gets ignored, Dogbert always gets things done. The difference is not in what they're doing, but in the psychology. Dilbert assumes people are basically bright, compassionate and thoughtful. Dogbert assumes people are manipulative, deceitful, corrupt and 100% gullible. Environmentalists need to listen to Dogbert. Dilbert is correct, but will never go anywhere. In mythological terms, he represents the Wise Fool - he knows a lot but his attempts to explain make him sound like a complete fool.
Saving money has never worked, any better than saving the planet, but if the first part of the "food chain" decides cleanliness is next to richness, it gets imposed on everyone else regardless. They have no choice but to go green. They won't even be aware they've done so. Things'll cost more, but as gas prices have demonstrated, customers ignore that until the last possible moment, and then blame it on anyone they happen to dislike at the time. Use that self-inflicted blindness to make consumers green, and the world will be cleaner within a year without the consumers ever noticing what you're doing. If they say anything, it'll be to flame the environmentalists for doom-saying about pollution and greenhouse gasses, same as they did with Y2K after several trillion dollars were spent in fixing flaws across the world.
(And, yes, for those who care, Y2K did strike older electronic credit-card readers, older banking systems, and many home and office products - including many of Microsoft's. If they'd done nothing, the world might well have ended. Instead, the fixes were imposed on an unwilling and ignorant population in such a way that they remained unwilling and ignorant. And that is the SOLE reason you are still breathing today.)
What Y2K demonstrated was that the masses are dumb, but that really doesn't matter. You can fix what does matter without ever concerning yourself with the widespread ignorance in the world. In this case, you can fix mines, quarries, power stations, oil, coal, and all kinds of other resources, with the help of a handful of executives who can make a mint off the deal. Do that, and national follies will be of no importance whatsoever.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
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Slashdot seems to be very U.S.-centric. Do you have any plans to be more international in your scope?
Slashdot is U.S.-centric. We readily admit this, and really don't see it as a problem. Slashdot is run by Americans, after all, and the vast majority of our readership is in the U.S. We're certainly not opposed to doing more international stories, but we don't have any formal plans for making that happen. All we can really tell you is that if you're outside the U.S. and you have news, submit it, and if it looks interesting, we'll post it.
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Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
The masking effect comes from a sort of tug-of-war in what goes into the air.
CO2 increases the greenhouse effect and is generally considered to be a prime driver of global warming. But we all knew that already.
There's also a lot of particulates released into the air, however. These particulates block sunlight from reaching the surface, reducing the total incoming energy from the Sun, and thus acting to reduce global temperatures.
The trick is that particulates fall out of the atmosphere in months to years, and only persist if continually replaced. Whereas CO2 sticks around forever until it's absorbed somehow.
So when there's a big jump it pollution, you can get what appears to be a much smaller effect on global warming than what it will actually have in the long term. The "masking" effect is only temporary.
If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis.
How come? Because the sun beams bounce off higher up in the atmosphere and get an easier way out?
One would expect black things to catch up more heat and warm the planet up more.
IIRC, much of the temporary cooling effect of coal pollution is due to sulfur dioxide emmisions, which turns into lots of reflective microscopic sulfuric acid droplets in the stratosphere.
The fact that some Americans are now worried about the effects of OTHER countries' pollution on the local American environment seems hypocritical, at best. I wonder: did the Chinese press publish articles in the past century decrying the effects of American and European pollution on their local environment? The globe was first awash in American and European pollution for nearly a century (or more, depending on whether one assumes pollution only began with the industrial revolution). How can we expect them to not repeat our actions when we've never shown sufficient remorse or reparations for those actions? This article sounds a bit like the ex-Hippie parent trying to convince their child not to try LSD.
Environmental over-regulation in the US drives up prices for manufacturers and other businesses. This leads them to move to China and other developing countries with very lax environmental standards. Pollution is increased a lot.
Just setting environmental standards at a rational level in the US might allow these companies to stay here. They could run a clean operation. It might not be perfect or "sustainable", but it would be clean and suitable by any rational standard.
Environmental over-regulation and utopianism actually results in greater pollution in these cases. Carbon cap-and-trade schemes will just increase this phenomenon. And it shifts pollution to poorer, less-empowered populations.
I agree with your statement entirely. However: who better to convince a kid to not try LSD than someone who has already tried it? The old dude who taught woodshop in high school and was missing a couple fingers was *way* more convincing when he talked about safety, than the safety movies.
I'm not defending being a hypocrite. I'm just saying that if people learn from their mistakes, they're good teachers with respect to those mistakes. To be a hypocrit is to *keep* doing something (like burning 1/4 the world's fossil fuels) while complaining about other people doing the same thing. Ex-hippie parents probably aren't being hypocrites about the LSD, while the USA being pissed about Chinese pollution, is indeed being a hypocrite.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I just watched a Nova about cooling the sun that talked about this. Essentially, particulate pollution makes clouds (as in rain clouds) that take longer to produce rain, as the particulates are larger than dust particles, with greater surface area. Also, these clouds that condense around these larger particles are more reflective on top, which has a cooling effect.
The folks acknowledged that this may have helped off-set the heating caused by CO2 emissions, and feared that reduction of particulate pollution without reducing CO2 emissions could lead to a big increase in global temperature.
The US has been the largest polluter for awhile. China has only just over taken the US. Where was the outcry about what US pollution is doing to Asia?
What is worse yet, imo, is what western society's computer waste is doing to other countries. It should be illegal to dump that sort of stuff outside of your own country. Then people will think twice about it.
Of course this is nothing new. Not long ago, Japan was "the place that produced cheap crap". Now Japanese labor is relatively expensive and Japan offshore their work. Same thing is happening in Korea and many other places too.
What really has to change to ward of fear of diminished resources is for people to stop linking quality of life with material consumption. When you're starving then it makes sense, but right now obese people outnumber starving people so there is no food shortage, there is a consumption problem. It really needs people to stop using excessive consumption as a pill for their social ills. Getting a new cellphone every year != a high quality of life.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
It isn't.
It pretty much has never been.
Per person countries like Trinity & Tobago and the UAE pollute a LOT more. The US is something like #10-#30 per person.
Ever since the rise of Neo-Maoism (Stalin-communism hold the communism) the chinese have been ramping up to be the #1 polluters. I think in 2000-2004 they surpassed the US, or got very close.
I remember two decades ago (and still ongoing) that the US is pumping pollution into the Red River (among others) which travels into Canada. We complained and they said tough. But, apparently it's a horror if it's done to them.
Perhaps it is this that forces the US to realise that the world map doesn't end at its borders.
Here we go again, 10 billion POUNDS. I would say that I just farted, injecting nearly 10 gatrillion nano-ounces into the precious atmosphere.
But let's put 10 billion POUNDS into perspective. That's 20 million tons, or, roughly 2E7 / 5000 teratons or 2E7 / 5E15 or really 0.0000005% of the atmosphere.
It's NOTHING.
This is my sig.
We STILL have companies spewing chemicals into the air. Even in the marine industry, engineers cheated on pollutions regulations by simply running a bypass or disconnecting polluted discharge lines from sensors meant to measure and log the overboard discharges (which the US Coast Guard caught wind of and brought charges against such owners/operators/masters/ and engineers).
When I worked with liquid toner copiers in the late 80's it was our common practice to take the liquid toner (ink) and dispersant bottles and simply dump down the drain if we could, and if there was nowhere to pour it, then place the bottles in the customers' waste bins. Failing that (in the hip/environmental offices), we'd have to take it with us and dispose elsewhere. I am glad i got out of that job. Doing that dumping gnawed at more conscience. Working with the chemicals eroded my health. Fingers clean by Sunday night, dirty by Tuesday... a year of that shit.
We still have gasoline leaks. We still have major post-product pollution. Why do we not have ordinances compelling fast food restaurants provide drain bins to collect the unfinished drinks and ice the customers otherwise dump in the garbage? When I in Dec 2004 - Feb 05 was in Tokyo area cities such as Roppongi and Miyamaedaira and Shimbashi, I ate at McDonalds that had marked recepticals for separation of plastic, paper, non-recyclables and liquids. That's easy for "typically conformist" Japanese to do. Asking 'merkun public to do it by request, backed up by fines or risk shut-down of their favorite location eatery would spark insurrection. So much for "a kind, gentle, peace-loving people"...
Yeh, and people, don't tell me that the liquids in the garbage help speed up the composting/decomposition of the waste. It could also be argued that pre-separation of liquids in restaurant waste might make it easier to separate recyclables such as the papers and food that animals might otherwise eat if not broken down by soda and coffee and such.
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
As a whole, has more renewable energy than anyone else.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Kyoto.. LOL.. Your one of those people.
Well, tell me, what country has made it's goal in meeting the guidelines of Kyoto? Hmm? Well, you only have 37-38 countries to pick from, so tell me. Oh, I know there is something like 157 or 187 some shit like that who have signed on, but only 35-40 have caps on their Co2 so pick one and tell me which one has made progress. I'll tell you what, Germany is the closes and their progress is a combination of an accounting error that inflated their 1990 standards and almost a negative population growth. In fact, Germany's progressive and expensive solar plan hasn't even made a dent in their over all production of Co2.
So while the word is that Kyoto is the wholly grain of environmental activism, it has achieved almost nothing to date. And the achievements it has produced is by exporting industry which is the reason that 130 or more countries who had no intention of limiting emissions signed on. Kyoto is flawed from the start. It is little more then a redistribution of wealth scheme that has only worked at redistributing wealth. We were right to not get involved in it and we are still right to date to not have been involved in it. In fact, we have limited Co2 production more from a private market giving the people what they want then the Kyoto accord have in any given country.
And no, I don't consider shipping industry off to India and China (the current biggest polluter) as a reduction in emissions. It is only putting it somewhere else in the world. It is either a problem in the world or it isn't. Moving emissions from Europe to India or China isn't reducing anything regardless of calling it Kyoto or not. You should actually look into the shit before just assuming a fancy name and Al Gore means everything in the world.
And did you ever see a pick-up truck in europe as means of personal transport?
I drove from Denmark (Copenhagen) to Switzerland (Bern) recently. I was in Frankfurt am Main before I ran into the first American style 'big ass' SUV pickup. Europeans often drive smaller hatchbacks. The VW Fox/Polo/Golf, Opel Corsa and Peugeot 107/207 seem to be particularly popular in Germany and so are bigger saloon cars from makers like the BMW, Audi, Mazda, VW, Opel, Skoda, Citroen... the list goes on. You also get some CUVs. Subaru and Suzuki are popular in rural areas because they build even small hatchbacks and saloons with a 4x4 drive. Gigantic American style SUVs are pretty much a rarity. You probably wouldn't have an easy time navigating something like a Dodge Ram through many European cities, towns and villages (especially the model with the double rear wheels that requires two parking spaces). In many of these places the streets date back to medieval times and are very narrow. Another point is of course the fact that gas prices are high and people can generally think of better things to spend their money on than quenching an SUV's thirst for fuel. I drive a small 3 door diesel hatchback. On may way through Denmark the clerk at a Statiol station got the pumps mixed up and tried to bill me for the Diesel tanked by a small SUV. I was really shocked to see the size of the bill which was about 4 times what I had just tanked for (about 180 DKR and the tank on my car was 2/3 empty). I shudder to think what it wold cost to fill up the tank on a Dodge Ram.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
So talking about doing something is just as good as doing something? We have done more on accident then they have managed to do on purpose. And they have diven the costs of everything up enormously in the process. When I say enormously, I mean way more then the price increases the US has seen from high energy costs.
The US isn't refusing to talk about it. They are refusing to sign onto some platform that is more of a redistribution of wealth then any significant GHG reduction platform. They are hurting their economies at a time when they should be flourishing due to economic problems in the US. And they are doing it without any real reductions to make things even worse. Could you imagine how the US economy would be right now with the problem we already have and some international agreement forcing us to make it worse by either limiting the freedoms of the people in enterprise or by forcing more jobs off shore in order to meet "quotas".
Do you actually think that the government is the only thing allowing the people and companies to look for ways to reduce emissions? Do you think that Kyoto is the only way to get solar or wind power (which costs more then traditional energy) or hybrid cars or more efficient processes? I mean seriously, take a look around and tell me that we as a nation haven't been "talking" about it since it's inception. The fact that we as a nation have individual freedoms means that we don't have to wait for the government to do something in order to make things happen. We as a people of these great and free united states can implement changes outside of any government and we as a people of these untied states can usurp the federal government on many levels and make changes at state levels too.
If you think the US isn't talking about reducing emissions your smoking something. If you think the US isn't doing things to reduce emissions, your delusion yourself and worshiping some standard or step that doesn't need to be taken. Kyoto is an economic scam, it was born to serve the forgiveness of the third world debt that was a popular political drive of the extreme left that disappears (guess when) when Kyoto was born which is most likely the biggest reason it doesn't limit Carbon emissions, it redistributes wealth. If you don't believe me, I suggest you actually read the kyoto protocol and look at how many counties that signed on to it actually have a carbon cap or a reduction goal. All the others are potential money pits by either forcing industry into their lands or by purchasing carbon credits from them so your society can continue to pollute while theirs remain poor and repressed.
I'm sorry your brain washed. But before you decide to make some uninformed knee jerk reply, look into what I have said and at least argue from an informed point of view. If I am wrong, then point it out. But I'm not and no talking about doing something is in no way the same as doing something. If the world was truly interested in limiting emissions, we would put a couple of groups of scientists together from various countries that do nothing but find more efficient ways to produce and use energy as well as capture emissions and then offer that to any other country royalty free to be implemented in new industry and infrastructure and retrofitted into existing one. If we were really serious, we would do this and offer no interest and subsidized loans to poorer countries who might have issues getting them implemented. Then we would have a real effect instead of talking about something and pushing the emissions off to some other country.