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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.'"
One world government is a horrible, horrible idea. Where can you escape to when the one world government becomes intolerable?
Truly representative government on such a scale is impossible--we might as well have a global hereditary monarchy.
pray tell me, where can you escape to now ? Our multinational overlords are everywhere.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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
Canada can barely manage with two languages.
This concept of yours is based on...?
A nation... and that was the eventual goal of the whole EU dream...
Quite simply wrong. The EU, as a concept, was formed in the crucibles of WW1 and WW2.
You were never going to erase the French from a Frenchman
More hyperbole. Where exactly do you get all these kooky ideas from?
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
At the current rate of sea-level increase, in about 100 years, you'll need one row of sandbags around Washington DC or New York. And that's if you assume that both cities get water in the streets at high tide now (hint: they don't).
In other words, that particular problem is so far out in the future as to be safely ignorable right now.
If you are really concerned about AGW, I trust you're pushing for nuclear power plants to replace coal plants worldwide? Unlike entirely too many "environmentalists" who seem to think that electricity just happens, and that banning use of coal will magically cause paradise on earth....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
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."
In other words, that particular problem is so far out in the future as to be safely ignorable right now.
That's exactly the type of short-sighted thinking that got us hip deep in shit in the first place. No regard for posterity because we'll be dead by then, right? What about the people who will have to live with the consequences of all our apathy, laziness and greed today? Fuck 'em? That's what you're saying. God-forbid that we as a species come together and do something for the good of the species, something without immediate payoff, something that might be hard.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - Evelyn Beatrice Hall, re Voltaire
You think slashdot karma means anything? Mod up = I agree, Mod down = I disagree.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
"This concept of yours is based on..."
Quebec nationalism see the Meech lake accord:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meech_Lake_Accord
And...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_nationalism
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
The USA won't accept significant change either, but there's enough of an ecomental vote that some token pretence of greenwashing is politically astute.
What you consider mental illness is the mainstream view in Europe and the EU does a lot to pursue it, even to the point of forcing China and the US to clean up. ROHS is a good example, the EU banned hazardous substances in consumer products and China and the US were forced to comply because Europe is such a large and important market.
Frankly I find the attitude of many Americans completely detached from reality. When Germany, Japan and a few others decided to abandon nuclear power in favour of clean energy most comments were along the lines of "looks like the decided to go back to the stone age". Hyperbole perhaps but it appears many Americans really think that the mainstream green views of the rest of the developed world at actually insane and a road to certain ruin, fuelled by mass hysteria and extremism. Actually we see it as improving out environment (no-one who lives in a city likes pollution from combustion) and getting an early lead in new and lucrative technologies.
At least China just doesn't care beyond the point where it makes economic sense for them. The US actually appears at best to have accepted economic and social ruin through addiction of fossil fuels and labels anyone who dares question this policy as an extremist and mentally unbalanced.
It's a technological problem, it needs a technological solution. Just setting goals and targets doesn't achieve that.
Well the US is one of the most technically advanced countries in the world and hasn't made much headway. The EU and Japan have due to a combination of legally mandated targets and consumer demand.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
We absolutely shit where we eat.
We poison the land, the air, the sea.
We pour sewage, garbage and industrial waste just over the horizons and beyond the nearest hills, and don't expect it to come back at us.
We change the environment to the point that we're in danger of making a good chunk of the planet uninhabitable, but refuse to acknowledge it.
We deforest the planet, without thought to the fact that not only are we using up a renewable resource faster than it grows back, we're also chewing through the planet's primary carbon sink.
Don't shit in our nest? Absolutely untrue. As a race, we've taken the steroidal version of Ex-Lax, and are wallowing in our own filth.
Check your premises.
EU started out with the goals of guaranteeing food security for Europe with agricultural programs to stabilize prices, and also to boost international trade by harmonizing safety and export legislation.
No. I hope you're American, because at least you have a reason to be clueless about the reason behind the existence of the EU. If you're british..... well, I hope the US won't save your ass next time the continent decides to blow up again.
Here's how the EU got started: http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/1945-1959/index_en.htm The start of the EU was a steel and coal industry treaty. It's purpose? To keep countries from trying to monopolize steel and coal to build the best armies. In short, the EU has its roots in a very simple idea: the only way to prevent Europe from being engulfed in another massive war is to economically integrate everybody. France won't start a war with Germany for the same reason you don't shoot your foot (on purpose, at least).
That is why everyone is up in a fucking tizzy over the possible breakup of the Euro, and consequently the EU. There WILL be another war in Europe in our lifetime if that happens. There might be one if the EU sticks around, but it's far less likely.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Ah, some of us Americans are actually engineers and whatnot. People need energy. You need to produce energy semi-locally. If you move power from Maine to California, you're going to lose a lot of juice along the way. This is very important, because reliability can be more important than just the base cost of electricity production.
A power grid needs large, cheap, reliable electricity generation. Solar/wind are not (yet?) reliable, even if they could scale cheaply. Reliable as in "It WILL make X, on demand, with a guaranteed uptime of 99.99%." Tidal/geothermal may pan out in the scaling, availability and cost. We'll see, and we should explore it. Hydro, coal and nuclear are RELIABLE. That is why we are dependent on them for electricity. Base cost is not everything.
Nuclear power currently is the cleanest and safest power source that can scale, is highly available and cheap enough. Safest, if you factor number of deaths per TWh. We can build reactors that are even safer, cheaper and more efficient, and very much should. Being environmentally clean is a form of efficiency, of course. Problem is, America and the world is filled with too many folks with superstitious beliefs regarding nuclear power. But we cannot do without nuclear power. As a result, we are stuck with aging, marginally safe reactors. Largely because of anti-nuclear activists who are attempting to create a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Don't get me wrong. Anything involving nuclear power should be monitored very closely. It does have danger, and only a fool would think otherwise.
Big surprise, any specific industry has considerations that are complicated. Simple "clean energy is our only consideration" positions are nice and all. Some of us have to actually keep the lights on while the ideology debate rages on. All I ask is you do your homework, and counterbalance your ideology with education. I don't necessarily want you to agree with me, just be informed enough to actually have a knowledgeable opinion.