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Kyoto Protocol Renewal Efforts Struggling
Hugh Pickens writes "Economics trumps the environment. The emission targets set by the Kyoto Protocol will expire next year, and negotiators are fighting to keep UN climate talks on track while efforts to save the Euro push the struggle to save the planet down the priority list. In the United States, seen as the biggest single obstacle to a new global climate deal, academic opinion says an 'iron law' means economics trumps the environment in times of crisis. Meanwhile, some leading voices on climate science have suggested the Kyoto Protocol be put to pasture, since clinging to hopes of a renewal of that agreement does more harm than good in achieving meaningful dialogue on how to fight climate change. When the agreement was negotiated in the 1990s, the world was more clearly divided into 'rich and poor' countries. However, China and India have seen unexpectedly strong economic growth since then, and currently make up 58 per cent of global emissions. 'Against this backdrop, it is no surprise that countries such as Japan, Canada and Russia adamantly refuse to assume new binding targets unless the other major economies at present outside Kyoto's reach — most notably, the United States and China — do so as well,' writes Elliot Diringer, executive vice-president of the U.S.-based Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. 'And for now, the odds of that happening are nil.'"
In all honesty, the European Union (as the first true step towards one world government) needs saving more than the environment.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
My fellow prayer-warriors,
While God granted us stewardship over the Earth and all of its creatures, we must prioritize what gets our attention. The economic mess in Europe and our most blessed USA is taking our attention away from what is most important in life--devotion to God! We must devote ourselves to saving the everlasting souls of those who do not know Him; after all, Hellfire and damnation is eternal!
Your Shepherd,
Jake
And here I would have thought that the biggest obstacle would be one or the other of the two nations that have already stated that they will NOT accept restrictions on CO2 emissions - China and India.
The USA isn't really likely to do so, but at least it's admitted of the possibility, unlike China and India.
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
Without the original exceptions for India and especially China, the US might have signed on. It could also have chosen its targets more wisely to prevent the problem where the US and some other countries had already instituted big reductions, but developing nations hadn't, giving them a much easier time to improve.
If it had been "fair" from the start and gotten the US on board, it wouldn't have the problems it has now.
Anyway, almost no countries have met their obligations under the FIRST Kyoto protocol, so agreeing to something you don't intend to do accomplishes... what exactly?
This isn't just about the econmy trumping the environment, it's about the economy now trumping the economy in the near future. Global warming will have enormous associated costs... but not yet, so it somehow doesn't count?
Here's the problem in a nutshell: You have a global common resource, in this case the ability to put CO2 into the atmosphere before it heats things up so much that we all die (regardless of whether you think the current warming trend is anthropogenic, there's very little argument that there is some point at which too much CO2 is a problem). But the short-term incentives for each actor using that common resource are to use up as much of the common resource as quickly as possible, because if they don't then somebody else will, and we'll all be dead anyways.
Now, in most cases, commons problems are solved by government action. For instance, when the population of lobsters off the North Carolina coast dropped precipitously due to over-harvesting, the government put severe restrictions on how many lobsters everyone could get, and it sucked for the lobstermen, but saved the commons and allowed the industry to survive. But in the case of a global commons like the atmosphere, there's nobody who has the ability to enforce that kind of rule, so each country has no choice but to use up the common resource as quickly as possible, collectively racing to disaster.
And it doesn't help that both of the worst offenders in this department, the US and China, are firmly committed to the path of destruction.
I am officially gone from
1. Climate change is caused by industry.
2. Industry translates fairly well to political power.
3. Industry promotes the economy.
4. The Kyoto Protocol punishes those who cause climate change.
The logical result:
Under the Kyoto protocol, the politically powerful countries have to sacrifice either some of their industry (in order to cut emissions) or some of their money (carbon credit trading), both of which harm their economy. What's their incentive again?
So the USA is the biggest problem in not getting a new Kyoto passed but China and India will not sign and produce more pollution also other countries have said they will not sign without limits placed on China and India?
Looks like some is upset that the USA realized the current Kyoto was a farce when refusing that sign that one.
maybe it's time to invest in tin-foil.
They start erecting sandbags and levees around New York City and Washington DC. They the US won't just participate, but will be pushing the agenda with the threat of economic sanctions and possibly war to those who continue to pump out the greenhouse gasses.
And of course the response to anyone who says, 'Back in 2011 we told you so!' will be a not so diplomatic 'Shut up!'
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The Kyoto Protocol has been criticized for years, so much so that it has its own Wikipedia page. It's not so much that "economics trumps the environment" as it is that economics and climate legislation are actually intricately tied, as well as the fact that there is still new data coming out on climate change that proves we don't know as much as we think we do (global temperature hasn't risen since 1998, a fact that has led to a lot of sideways explanations and justifications). Emissions trading is an obviously ineffective system. Government regulatory agencies tend to have a poor track record in solving anything like this, and the apparent lack of visible evidence of a problem in the first place means societies don't consider it an urgent problem to solve.
The Kyoto Protocol's emissions targets were woefully inadequate to avert the worst of greenhouse gas (GHG) related climate change. However, the Kyoto Protocol was the ONLY international framework for negotiating multilaterally on curbing emissions of greenhouse gasses. The Bush/Obama administration in the US and China sure did a good job destroying that framework putting multilateral efforts to ameliorate climate change on an even more glacially slow path. To quote Stephen Colbert "Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is."
Kyoto is a "no you may not", and that doesn't play in the sticks. Enclaves of the super rich (hello) telling the struggling impoverished that they can't aspire to the same standard of living is a risible strategy. We're trying to tell the rural population of India and China that refrigerators and showers are a luxury that they should live without.
What we need is a "yes we can" of Apollonian proportions. Throw a trillion dollars at fusion, see if it sticks. Heck, throw five, or ten trillion at it. Bet the farm. We can either make it cheaper to manufacture with clean energy than coal power, or we can start filling sandbags.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
It always seemed like it was designed to punish wealthy polluters more than it was meant to end increasing CO2 concentrations and mitigate the consequences of of that CO2. What needs to be done is obvious:
1) Replace energy infrastructure with wind and solar (Nuclear isn't an option because people won't let the plants be built).
2) Replace the majority of automotive transit with electrically powered light rail.
3) Build appropriate flood control and irrigation infrastructure in countries where these are lacking.
Kyoto was all about targets and incentives. That makes no sense when the whole thing could only ever be solved with large scale engineering projects which Kyoto made no effort to directly address.
They grand mighty lofty-goaled Kyoto Protocol(tm). The be-all, end-all, great and mighty. Long term targets, insurmountable goals. A few small players (perhaps 100 million people in all) expected to carry the load of billions of others. Yep. And what? Goal not reached? The hell you say! If you want climate change, you set up a 1 year target. You make a change. Best of all, you introduce another solution (a less polluting one). You don't just people "just stop", and expect them to. They are going to keep going to work. They are going to keep eating food, and reading books and buying stuff. The goal must be to change one thing, for the better, get that thing adopted everywhere, and then move on to another thing. No one is going to make gigantic leaps like Kyoto. Whatever you do, has to either be beneficial (easily adopted), or at least economically neutral (which will be harder to get adopted everywhere). Expecting only a few to take the environmental hit for everyone is like only asking environmentalists to take the economic hit for everyone else. Not-fair on a small scale is just as bad as not-fair on a large scale. Oh, and while we are on it, Canadas oil sands get a bad rap. Its always front-and-center, but US car pollution is more than 10,000 times as polluting, but it doesn't ever get 10,000 times as much bad press (it doesn't hardly get bad press at all).
In all honesty, the European Union (as the first true step towards one world government)
Why on earth would you want a one-world government? The more you remove power from the people, the less popular sovereignty they have, the less representative the government becomes. Bureaucrats in Washington are bad enough at ignoring the people. You want international Bureaucrats running the world? Why?
This is the real world, not Star Trek. Newsflash: People in the world disagree with each other, and frankly, I'd be scared of a Star Trek-like world where everyone on earth agreed on things. I'm almost certain I'd disagree with them.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
you already have a hereditary monarchy in the USA. Look at what happened when someone who isn't from an old family got into the top spot.
Did you mean Richard Nixon or Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton?
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
We're supposed to be smarter, but really, not much difference when it comes down to it. Consume all the resources, over breed, destroy the habitat in which we live, die en masse.
Check your premises.
China and India have seen unexpectedly strong economic growth since then, and currently make up 58 per cent of global emissions
I get China, big economy = big emissions. ...would be mentioned before India.
India is way down the list in terms of gross economic activity (strong growth != high gross output).
You would think countries such as (America already noted), Japan, Germany,
How is India a comparable producer of emissions as China? (let's dispense with the curry B.O. jokes).
p.s., your mom's a socialist
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
http://www.nu.nl/buitenland/2683905/china-bereid-bindende-co2-afspraak.html
There are no stupid questions, Just a lot of inquisitive idiots. (from a good friend)
When the "scientists" say that there is no evidence for warming, but we should believe in it anyway, I'd say it's a religion.
The environment and the planet will do just fine thank you very much.
As soon as people finish themselves off, the forces of nature will clean up the shit left behind by the upright roaches. Enjoy life while you can afford it. Soon enough even the wealthy will not have the resources needed to breathe.
No incumbents, not no where, not no how.
Vote them out every term.
When the "scientists" say that there is no evidence for warming, but we should believe in it anyway, I'd say it's a religion.
Actually I'm a bit between the tables as I believe that higher CO2 levels might make for a slightly warmer climate, but I don't subscribe to the "Florida will be gone" doomsday scenarios.
Indeed, it looks like we have already reached the plateau - We have warmer weather than we had 40 years ago, but it doesn't seem to get any warmer.
Too bad, I guess I will be modded down by both sides now...
Seriously, It is a joke. It is actually encouraging manufacturing jobs to leave CLEAN AREAS, and move to places where there is LITTLE TO NO POLLUTION CONTROL.Notice the fact that China and India have 58% of emissions. That is not because of their large economies, but lack of controls.
It is time for nations to put taxes on ALL GOODS based on the CO2 emissions (and ideally, later add in other pollution) from the nations where items come from. This means that they put the tax on their OWN goods as well. By doing this, it will force all nations to participate, esp. those with large economies or quickly growing by cheating. Measurements should be by the soon to be, OCO2 sat, rather than ppl playing games with GUESSING how much emissions is happening. In addition, it should NOT be tied to population, as that is not just error prone, but designed to encourage more growth (last thing we need). Instead, it should be tied to land (a fixed value), economic output (responsible for bulk of the emissions; this is esp. true when good times come, nations cheat even more), or some combination of these two.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
And which economic system do you propose to put in it's place?
We've finally reached the feared global warming feedback loop tipping point scientists have been dreading. There's nothing we can do to stop gobal warming, at this point all we can do is adapt. Bummer.
If Kyoto was about saving the environment, it would not have included required payments from the rich countries.
The French are insufferable no matter what nationality they are.
Oh, wow. Someone said it.
You are so dead-on right. The only way (in some sort of capitalism, at least) to motivate economy to save energy is to make it more expensive: otherwise, measures to save energy don't make any economic sense.
That's the ugly truth. When I hear some politician saying "shut down the nuclear plants" and "keep energy costs low" I know they are lying through their teeth.
Tax energy and invest that money into research on how to use energy more efficiently. At least then the increase in price is more controlled.
I've seen reasonable estimates of the max long-term sustainable human population at something like 300 million people, certainly under a billion.
If we keep going like we are, we're going to hit catastrophic population die-off.
NOBDOY, that's who.
It's the "Hoddie wearing ASBO" of the rightwingnuts.
PS you already have a hereditary monarchy in the USA. Look at what happened when someone who isn't from an old family got into the top spot.
So you're saying Lincoln only indirectly caused the War of Northern Aggression?
Fucking apologists.
Yes, America is NOT part of the Kyoto, and THANK GOD FOR THAT. However, America's output keeps dropping while other nation's continue to climb.
We hit 20 tonnes and have dropped to 17.5 by 2008. Considering that Electricity Generation accounts for more than 41% of all of US emissions and our coal % is dropping, then it is a CERTAINTY that we will continue to drop. I know that just in Colorado, we are killing a number of our coal plants and replacing them with Natural Gas, wind and solar PV.
Hell, it terms of amount that has dropped, we are one of the best out there and better than many other western nations.
Germany went from 12 to 9.6 which makes them LESS than us.
Canada has gone from 17.5 to 16.4 (1.1)
UK went from 10.3 to 8.5, which is less than 2 tonnes per person savings.
Ireland went from 11.3 to 9.8 (yeah, like that is major cut).
France went from a high of 7.1 to 6.5(yeah, with all the nukes there, they are REALLY making major changes).
Japan has stayed right around 9.5-10 (no growth, but no cuts either)
And yes, there is still plenty of growth out there.
South Korea is at 10.6 and continuing to grow (why? To make it possible to dump on the market economically).
Australia has gone from 16.9 to 18.9 (i.e. they beat America)
Norway is at their second highest at 10.5, AND GROWING.
South Africa from a low of 6.6 to 8.8 and growing.
China? They have gone from 2.2 to 5.3 and have said that they have ZERO intentions of slowing. Worse, they are mostly on coal and will continue that. Yes, there is more hydro to come on-line, but not that much. But the REAL issue is that once OCO2 goes up there, we will see that emissions are 3x what we thought they were. The groups that have done 'measuring' announced it when they went over and emissions controls were turned on for it. When one group was allowed to QUIETLY monitor but not allowed to publish, they found out RADICALLY different results. And when it comes out, ppl are going to scream that OCO2 must be wrong, or that the AGW scientists were fool (and neither was true).
Note that nearly every single nation is on a growth curve and only a few are bring it down. And at the top of that is America. That differs from China, India, Brazil, South Africa, South Korea, Norway, etc. Hell, nearly all of EU except for France, is going to have loads of issues going down because they are tearing down their nuke plants.
The problem with kyoto and the fools that back it, is that it actually sends more manufacturing on over to 3rd world nations as well as China (china is NOT 3rd world). That means that production per tonne of CO2 CONTINUES TO INCREASE MASSIVELY, rather than drop.
The blame will NOT be USA. The blame are the idiots that scream that we must all adopt a protocol that has done LITTLE TO NOTHING TO DROP EMISSIONS. In fact, all I have seen is an outsourcing of jobs to 3rd world nations whose emissions then jump faster then the meager savings that were in the developed nations.
So, quit being a fool and look at the facts. Even when you use something as irrational as emission per capitia, America comes up selling of roses in terms of turning things around, while others, esp. those under kyoto and fast growth nations, stink to high heaven.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If everyone lived with those principles, we'd basically be robbing resources from our kids. By those standards there's no incentive to think long-term.
Apparently we could for tens of billions constantly pump sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. This would reflect sunlight and lower the earth's temperature.
It's so much cheaper than throwing trillions of dollars at fusion that I am nearly certain it's what we'll end up doing.
It is easier to expect world peace than agreement on climate change. Growing economies see no benefit and developing nations would be further put at a disadvantage. Therefore no agreement will ever be possible.
The climate is changing and we will either adapt to it and thrive or die.
What has to happen is that those nations who are better prepared by making investments for their standards of living and energy future will survive. Because even thou we all share this little planet we still haven't learned to share so grab yours now while the getting is good.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Someone calculated that for Great Britain to use wind power they'd need to convert half the lakes in the country to energy storage--pumping water uphill with wind power then turning turbines when the wind died down. They also get so little sun that it would be more effective for them to lease land in the African desert and transmit the power back home.
The real cause of this is the outsourcing of jobs from Kyoto nations and those like America that ARE working on it, to None Kyoto nations that believe that they can take shortcuts to build up their economies. That does not show 2008 where America continued downwards, while China, India, etc accelerated upwards even more. You will note that kyoto nations are pretty flat-lined, but the REAL issue is that 3rd world nations and china are building large numbers of new coal plants in an effort to take manufacturing from nations that have MUCH cleaner output. Basically, the outsourcing is partially caused BY KYOTO, and those that push kyoto ignore it, or the possibility of other ideas. Note, that if a tax is put on all goods, then fast growth nations will avoid building coal plants and chose other means of growing their electricity.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
environmentalism has a monetary and resource cost.
A "good envirohnment" is a luxury good. It exists somewhere on the taxonomy of needs.
http://mises.org/daily/5586/Environmental-Protection-Is-a-Consumption-Good
Humans must consume resources to progress. The typical malthusan approach to statist environmentalism is that we must STOP consuming resources now to maintain our current (or usually, a greatly reduced) standard of existance.
A different argument is that we must consume the right resources as fast as possible in the right way, so that we, for instance, move past fossil fuels, or that we can increase agricultural yeilds consistently, or so that we can mass produce medicines.
The fact of the matter is that different socities -- differentiated primarily by wealth and industrial sophistication -- will be impacted differently by whatever climactic changes and calamities may occur over the future.
We cannot be sure what will happen to whom and when.
We _can_ be sure of one thing: a society that has greatly increased its wealth and standard of living, via the correct social attitudes and practices, will be in a much better position to deal with (and hopefully avoid!) whatever comes than one which is stuck in a counter-productive regressive past.
I contend that rather than freeze or reverse the growth in the worlds standard of living, we accelerate it and distribute it far and wide, so that we have more capable minds (because IMO, intelligence is distributed vastly across the world, but access to making a difference is NOT) in a position to tackle problems.
I want a nice environment. And I'm willing to pay for it. But I want to be choosy about how I spend my dollars and what I'll be getting. I suspect if you polled the majority of Americans, they'd accept a 1ft sea level rise in 100 years if it meant not having a calamitous impact on their way of life, way of government, etc.
This is not morally problematic unless you consider the impact on impoverished coastal societies. And my contention is that as a planet, we are more likely to raise the standard of living of ALL humans in 100 years than we are to turn back the clock of world progress. We may acheive the latter, but it will probably coincide with vastly more human suffering than if we just let some nations flood - even assuming we did nothing to help those nations progress in the interim.
Progress takes resources. But progress leads to more efficient usage of resources. We are not suffering under the hardship of "Peak Whale", even though at one time in our history the number of remaining whales left put a dire forecast on our abilities to create heat and light. Mankind adapted and moved forward.
We can adapt and move forward, so long as we live in socities that allow for the creation of wealth and the execution of great ideas.
I am not suggesting the USA of 2011 is the right place to foster the innovation (primarily in attitudes, btw) we need to lift the entire planet out of destitution, but it certainly could be.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
china is required per BINDING AGREEMENTS with USA, IMF, WTO, Japan, etc, etc, etc. to free their money, drop their trade barriers, stop subsidies, stop dumping but yet, they do not. Likewise, they have BINDING AGREEMENTS with Japan to put on pollution controls with on all of their new plants, stop dumping, etc. Yet, what China did was put on the pollution control, but then had each and every plant BYPASS IT. In addition, they continue to dump all sorts of toxins. These days, they are going much further out and dumping their pollution (iow, by Japan). They have finally realized that they do not want to pollute their coastal areas as much so are sending it to Japan, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Having just worked my way through many of the Climategate 2 emails (and yes, read a rather lot of the literature) it isn't all that surprising that Kyoto is about to be a major fail. The science is far from settled, the primary researchers are perfectly aware that it is far from settled and openly admit it in their internal discussions, but they are far more concerned with things like having a person's Ph.D. revoked (for the sin of disagreeing with their conclusions), having journal editors fired (for the sin of publishing a paper that weakened their "cause"), winning the "PR war" (what about figuring out the science?), verifying on their own that the infamous MBH hockey stick graph is crap (yes, in the internal climategate letters you discover that the primary hockey team members know perfectly well that trend-fit white noise put into Mann's algorithm produces nothing but hockey sticks at this point, but do they openly admit the mistake and remove the graph from all of the public policy presentations on the subject? Hell no! Both MBH and MJ are still there on the wikipedia pages for global warming, because admitting error and removing crap results that are known to be completely wrong weakens the message and undermines the PR war).
Throw in that the UAH temperature anomaly since 1981 -- evaluated with openly accessible methods from openly available datasets and not susceptible to e.g. UHI "corrections" liberally applied, unlike e.g. HadCRUT3 -- is a whopping 0.11C. That would be 30 years, call it a third of a century, and 0.11C net warming as of October. Over that time, CO_2 has gone from 335 ppm (Mauna Loa) to around 390 ppm. That is a 55/335 = 16% increase. Since the 1998 El Nino peak (and the end of the series of Grand Solar Maxima of the 20th century) global temperatures have gone down (or held nearly steady). The most pessimistic trending of post 1997 data is 0.2 C. During that interval CO_2 concentration went up around 8%. Even the IPCC is backing off from predictions of much warming "for a while" and of course everybody but Al Gore is sober enough to be able to see that there is no correlation between e.g. the frequency or energy in tropical storms and either the UAH (fairly reliable satellite derived) data or the God-knows-how derived HadCRUT data and especially not with raw CO_2 concentrations.
Now let's see. The earth's mean temperature is roughly 280 C give or take a bit. Let's assume that the thirty year anomaly is 0.28C, in rough agreement with UAH -- it won't matter for this argument. CO_2 up by 16%, T up by -- what would that be? Yes, that's right, by 0.1%! I won't even bother discussing climate sensitivity -- that's dead in the water right there! There are two things anybody can see from simple back of the envelope calculations, the sort one should do just to see if complex models (in the end) make sense. One is that 0.1% -- hell, 1% -- is surely within the bounds of natural variability for a tipped planet with warm, complex oceans, and the most cursory glance at temperatures over the entire Holocene stand is clear evidence that it is a lot larger than that, with or without human civilization. The other is that if 100% of that gain was pure response to CO_2 forcing without any confounding factors or fudge factors contributing, the noise from non-CO_2 fluctuations greatly exceeds this signal and we cannot explain the noise!. For the last decade, temperature trends haven't even had the same sign as a nearly 10% increase in atmospheric CO_2.
This leaves a CAGW enthusiast doubly damned. If solar state is irrelevant, decadal oscillations are irrelevant, oceanic heat reservoir forcing (with up to 1000 year timescales, so some fraction of the energy contributing to the current SST comes from sunlight that warmed the ocean when Columbus was sailing the ocean blue!) is irrelevant (and unpredictable besides), and volcanic aerosols over that decade irrelevant, then that leaves only CO_2 and the sign of the tempera
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I say the environment actions should be applied to companies instead of countries. As China becomes the world factory, it might not be fair to place a limited quota on China, especially as we all know that developed countries intentionally moved major highly polluting industries to China, taking advantages of cheap labor, land, and loose environmental control. For example, when Apple wants to sell an Iphone, they need to purchase the quota for the pollution it creates regardless whether the parts/chips are made in Korea, Singapore, US or assembly in China.
It would be a lot easier to believe that Climate Change was about saving the world if their policy agenda didn't match up 100% with that of the old socialist bloc.
It would be a lot easier to believe that Economics is about saving the world if their policy agenda didn't match up 100% with that of the Supply-side big boys club.
Do you see the logical fallacies in these statements yet?
Screwed. Blued. Tattooed.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Nixon lived most of his adult life feeling insecure about the rich, Hah-vahd educated Kennedy and his fellow ivy league establishment types in DC and the media. It's why Nixon despised the State Department, full of Ivy League grads. Nixon spent his college days at Whittier College studying in a janitor's closet, working his way through school, while Kennedy had it all laid out for him.
I purposely left JFK off the list. The Kennedys were the closest thing to a hereditary royal family we had in the US. We finally have a congress without one of them, for the first time since like 1954.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Mass becomes infinite as it approaches the speed of light, if I remember my physics correctly.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I've seen every episode and film of the Star Trek universe. But Roddenberry never told us how they eliminated crime and poverty, or apparently how they changed human nature which is prone to crime and greed, since they also banned genetic manipulation.
And then there's the banning money part I never understood. Really, a world without currency? How did Starfleet officers pay for things on other worlds, as they often did in the TV shows? They always seemed to have money when they needed it. Like in the last season of DS9 when Sisko buys Cassidy an engagement ring from Quark.
For the record, Roddenberry used to live in Bel Air and drive a Rolls Royce, about 10-15 miles from some really poor people, at least my US standards.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Speaking of the collapse of the EU, if that happens it will be painful for America in the short term, but extremely beneficial in the long term. The more European countries are forced to compete with each other, the less resources they are spending on trying to compete with America. I have my investments setup in such a way that I'm betting on a collapse of the Euro Zone. If the EU fails, I make an assload of money. I say if the Euro is going to fail, bring it on! :-p As far as I'm concerned, the European people brought it on themselves. Of course Socialism doesn't work, why didn't you people learn from history?
it's about the economy now trumping the economy in the near future.
That's absurd. In reality warming means economic improvement if anything; historically warmer periods (which we are not yet the equal of) have led to economic booms in part because more land is arable for longer.
But how can you even claim exactly how things will be going forward when all the long-term climate forecasts have failed repeatedly? What is really happening is the economy is "trumping" trumped-up alarmism about what will happen in the future now that we know the people crying wolf misled, lied and worst of all were simply WRONG about what the climate is doing in reaction to what humanity is doing.
It makes no sense to bring dire harm to economies without being sure of the effect. We are no-where close to sure, and at this point it is obvious there is no cause for immediate alarm as we were misled to believe.
The time of your cult has past my friend; the rest of the world has more important issues to deal with than your chicken little act.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
...at least you're honest that you're a selfish and self-centered piece of shit.
where can you escape to now ? Our multinational overlords are everywhere.
Not satisfied with the Ford overlord? Escape to the Toyota overlord. What's the point you're trying to argue?
The post you replied to mentioned that a single world government would be bad because there would be no alternative governments. You replied with a tired 19th century meme of Marxist ideology that some mods thought insightful.
It's not a valid analogy at all. A single world government would be like a single multinational corporation. The current system of many countries is equivalent to the current system of many corporations. Governments have alliances among themselves, like corporations have joint ventures, but they are different entities with different priorities.
Please learn to get your analogies right. And get rid of that Marxist set of dogmas. An ideology created for the industrial environment of 1849 is definitely out of date today. Victorian bric-a-brac may be charming for tea parties, but not practical for everyday use.
May these efforts die a well-deserved death.
Yup, there probably has been some global warming caused by man. So what?
In order to conclude that we need to do something about it, you need to show that:
(1) continued emissions will lead to substantially more warming,
(2) the costs of that warming outweigh the benefits of warming (yes, there are benefits) and outweigh the costs of remediation
(3) there is actually realistic steps we can take to prevent it
There is much less agreement on these points. And anybody who presents global warming policy as if it were settled with the "97% agreement" figure is either totally uninformed or is deliberately lying because he has some unrelated political agenda. Which are you?
And why the hell not? Europe consumed most of its resources and built western civilization with it. Humanity is now repeating the same pattern globally and building a technological society that way. Yes, oil and ores will run out in a few centuries. That's no surprise to anyone and we can deal with it then.
Economic development causes populations to stabilize, so the best way of achieving that is to make people wealthier.
Except, of course, that the most developed nations are protecting their habitats the most. So, again, development causes habitat protection, not habitat destruction.
There is no evidence for that at all: the human population is larger than it has ever been before, yet people live longer and healthier lives all over the world, and poverty and hunger are decreasing, not just in terms of percentages, but in absolute numbers.
You really need to get out of your dystopian fantasy world and start living in the real world. Everything technology, industrialization and development have achieved have improved the human condition. That's despite the fact that none of it was ever sustainable.
China has signed a NUMBER of treaties. Clinton did a FTA agreement that requires them to free their money (minimum of 40% below where it should be), drop their 90 trade barriers (now over 400), drop their subsidies (extensive) and quit dumping (bueller? bueller? anyone?). Even IMF requires that. Yet, they do not do any of that. China will NOT keep their word. Hell, they have a number of treaties with japan and they are breaking all of them
India is in a tight spot. Zero chance that they will do it, UNLESS everybody else does. And there is ZERO chance of that.
By applying a slowly increasing tax on all goods based on the CO2 from which goods/components come from, it will force all nations to participate ESP. if the USA does this (world's largest and most extensive importer).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
So you're saying Lincoln only indirectly caused the War of Northern Aggression?
Fucking apologists.
I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but of the US Presidents leading up to the war, I'd probably pin a large portion of the blame on James Buchanan.
Yet another bombshell hit the already beleaguered enviromental community today...
Ah, the reasoned, sensible debate we have come to expect from the socialists.
The socialist "added" about the same amount of value to the debate as the original poster.