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Posted
by
michael
from the take-a-deep-breath dept.
geek42 writes "Looks like Russia has picked up where the U.S. failed: they've ratified Kyoto, and now it's going to be law (on Feb 16). The BBC has coverage. 'Industrialised countries will have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2% below the 1990 level.'"
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Actually you forgot that first they will warn the offending country about the UN's desire to look into the possibility of writing a letter. Next, they will send a notice of intent to send a letter. Finally, if, and only if, diplomacy completely and catestrophically breaks down, will the letter be sent. In extreme cases it will be followed up by a "Hrumpf" from Kofi Anan.
At the end of the day French politicians and UN beuraucrats will get some sweet sweet graft out of the deal, and really, isn't that what diplomacy is all about?
The US historically has not 'paid for the lion's share of its operation'. They are supposed to, but they rarely did and never on time [globalpolicy.org].
In fact, the UN Accounting department in 1998 held that the UN was suffering in terms of what it is able to do, in large part because a large number of members, most notably the US, do not pay their dues on time and in full. Since 1983, the US only paid in October, even though dues are due January 1st, and since 1986, it withheld part of those dues until certain conditions were met.
The report issued by Accounting 'also notes that of the countries in considerable arrears to the U.N., "according to a State Department official, only the United States has not paid its arrears because of policy reasons."'
What it comes down to is that the UN has been incapable of doing 'the lion's share of its operation' because of the US's inability or unwillingness to pay its dues when it is supposed to. In 1998, it was in danger of losing its vote in the General Assembly because of its arrears. As of 1998, the US owed $1.8 billion [iaed.org] in back dues.
Now, bear in mind the US has actually started to pay its dues, perhaps because of the possibility of losing its influence (though it is obvious now that they don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks anyway), but I don't see that lasting. Abandon the world and the way the world works and see how pleasant it is to live without any friends. Unless things change with the way the US does buisiness, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen.
As Robin Williams said, "In England, if you commit a crime, the police don't have a gun and you don't have a gun. If you commit a crime, the police will say 'Stop, or I'll say stop again.'"
In the UK, you don't have a gun, the police call out an armed response unit and shoot you in the back of the head for carrying a table leg in a plastic bag.
Why don't they have a 2005 target? Why did they set the implementation date so far into the future? If reducing CO2 emissions is important, shouldn't those concerned start reducing today?
The answer, of course, is that many of the politicians who have signed on to Kyoto have done so for short term political gain. It makes everyone feel good that something is being done, while they don't actually have to do anything painful.
If push comes to shove and people are actually forced to curtail their lifestyle in 2012 in order to comply with the protocol, then you will see those people dropping out of it. After all, there are no penalties for dropping out. So, if you have to choose between spending billions of dollars to reduce C02 production, or buy CO2 credits from Russia for billions of dollars, or drop out and keep your money, which one will the voters choose?
The only way that Kyoto will be complied with is if technology improves (e.g. more fuel efficient vehicles and energy production) to the point where painful choices are not required. And that improvement will happen regardless of Kyoto.
Why don't they have a 2005 target? Why did they set the implementation date so far into the future? If reducing CO2 emissions is important, shouldn't those concerned start reducing today?
Because the amount of effort involved is amazing. While I believe it's vitally important that we do what we can and now, you simply can't tell industries to discard the technology they use today that are still economically viable for minor gain.
The problem is two fold:
No industry will willingly replace anything without
"The law in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under the bridges, to beg in the streets, and steal bread." - Anatole France
The US is complaining about it? I think not, we just aren't participating. As has been mentioned elsewhere, the vote against it was 98-0 in our Senate, so it wasn't even a partisan political matter.
Yeah right. It's much better to ignore problems completely - instead of getting started somewhere.
The Kyoto treaty was negotiated. The US was represented. Guess what? If you had a problem with the treaty you should have said so in Kyoto.
But you decided it hurts your precious industry, so you backstabbed it instead - so that you won't have to do anything at all. Nice job.
Now, in all fairness. The treaty does tax industrial countries higher (not just the US - but all industrial countries). This was not a question of fairness, but a question of what is possible. In developing countries, there is a larger need to put food on the table, get health care working, build infrastructures etc. The industrial countries have resources to spare, then why the fuck should we not take that responsibility?
If you want to speak in terms of fairness, these countries are way behind our industrialized countries in pollution. They have a lot to catch up on. (Moral: There will always be a kid who's shouting "unfair". The only reason to listen to you is the amount of guns you have.)
First, it's not dead, that's the whole point of this story. Second, what is unfair about the treaty? It's only "not in our interest" because we are the world's biggest polluter. When another country out-pollutes us, then it will not be in *their* interest to ratify it. It's also not in a theif's interest to have laws against stealing -- that doesn't make the laws "unfair."
It's amazing you can get +5 insightful for empty posturing about the treaty without even giving a reason to back it up.
We failed to recognized that this treaty is in our best interest. No matter how many jobs we lose in the short term, the cost (in dollars) of coping with a damaged ecosystem will be higher.
Furthermore, this will put us technologically behind in energy generation and resource management. We're going to miss out on a big part of the next industrial revolution. Similar to what happened when US automakers fail to keep up with Japanese automakers.
Sometimes conservatism hurts business, and this is one of those times.
So, the US is producing and consuming more than every other country (World export 11%), and that entitles it to produce more CO2?
If you are crashing your car every year you are raising the GDP. If you produce weaponry and dispose it one way or another, you are raising the GDP. It is no measure of benefit to humankind.
> Even calculating it on a per capita basis is unfair
Is it? After an initial industrialisation phase with a corresponding growth of both, no statistical correspondance [oxfordenergy.org] can be found.
To quote:
all the evidence suggests that emissions are to an important degree a function of policy and choice that determines the energy efficiency of economies
How does making fun of the UN count as "Score:5, Informative"? The person didn't actually discuss the Kyoto Protocol. So, let me.
Consequences are under Article 18. Due to general agreement during the founding of the protocol, Article 18 merely a framework, for which specific consequences are to be established at the first COP/MOP meeting, held after the Kyoto Protocol is ratified (which it just was).
The protocol will not enter into force until 3/4 of the parties submit their notices of acceptance and ratification, and will only bind parties which ratify the amendment. I.e., not the US. However, US companies with overseas branches will be affected.
Japan, Australia, and Russia were insistant that consequences not be legally binding; the US used to be the party insisting the strongest that they be binding (how ironic...). However, COP/MOP was given the "perogative to decide on the legal form of the procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance."
Another interesting thing about the Kyoto Protocol is that it tracks your emissions like a national debt. I.e., if you miss your targets for one year, it cuts into your allotance for the next year. So, if a member blows off the protocol, their emissions rack up; if an environmentally friendly leader ever takes over, it offers all the more incentive to try and catch up to the rest of the world, even ignoring any Article 18 consequences that may be added in at a later date.
Heh. "Looks like Russia has picked up where the U.S. failed".
Yeah. Because the US just loves pollution.
Anyone find it extremely ironic that groups of people who really hate Bush chastise Bush about the US losing manufacturing and blue collar jobs - and in fact whole companies - overseas, and that other groups of people who really hate Bush (sometimes the same groups, in fact) chastise Bush for not signing onto Kyoto, when those two positions in this context are essentially diametrically opposed?
We're not signing onto Kyoto because it exempts nations termed as "developing". Nations like China [wikipedia.org]. That doesn't exactly level the playing field when we're losing manufacturing jobs to places like China like it's going out of style as it is. Further, the EPA, and the whole of the US government, is committed to the principles of Kyoto, but we will not ratify such an unbalanced agreement.
This isn't a bid to line pockets of corporate officers. This doesn't mean Republicans hate clean air and throw caution about potential global warming concerns to the wind. This means the US is trying to stay competitive in a global economy, where we're losing jobs where someone who got paid US$22/hour for turning a bolt on an assembly line for 17 years is losing his job to someone who gets paid US$22/month to do the same job. This is a hope to at least keep *some* of these jobs during a long period of economic transition.
Note to the US Kyoto activists: you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto. Yes, there's a lot of nuance, but I'm afraid that it's that simple.
(Hopefully, as economies equalize, a new industrialized West will manage to emerge from it, instead of being decimated by it in the meantime.)
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday November 19, 2004 @05:20PM (#10868897)
"China emits 2,893 million metric tons of CO2 per year (2.3 tons per capita). This compares to 5,410 million from the USA (20.1 tons per capita), and 3,171 million from the EU (8.5 tons per capita). China has since ratified the Kyoto Protocol, and is expected to become an Annex I country within the next decade."
From that article you linked to.
China, a developing nation (and don't say it isn't, the average wage three years ago was $300 a year) HAS signed onto the treaty, even though it's likely to hurt China much more than the States. Especially considering China's economic growth is at 8% a year... Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
50% of all species on the planet will be extinct in the next 50 years - all because of human impact. How the hell can we let that happen? The "mass extinction" of the dinosaurs was ONLY 19% of all species on the planet at that time.
When will people wake up and smell the carbon dioxide?
Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
Climate change *is* real. And it was going on waaaay before we got here, and it'll be going on waaaay after we're gone.
Even one of the latest issues of Scientific American had an article talking about how they've discovered periods in geologic history when the climate changed by 5-7 deg C in a decade (remembering roughly).
It's like any other data problem. Our dataset is just too small to provide an accurate picture. Hell, we're just now discovering that the solar cycle might have something to do with climate (duh).
This is what gets me the most, though. Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system when your dataset only covers 0.0000001% (number not actually calculated) of the lifetime of the system? (300 years of weather data vs 4.5 billion years that the earth has existed)
Given those raw numbers, no scientist would say they could give you any rational data about the "system". Now replace system with weather and they think they know exactly how it works.
Paleoclimatology is a well-developed field. We have essentially direct measurements of atmospheric composition and total ice volume going back 800,000 years and proxy evidence of various kinds for about the last half billion.
Also we have some pretty solid physics that indicates that rapid greenhouse gas accumulation is a problem.
Climate is not weather. Weather is the part of atmospheric conditions that is not predictable beyond a few weeks. Climate is the rest of it.
Will it snow on Christmas? Nobody can say. It's a weather question. WIll Christmas be colder than the Fourth of July? Well, yeah, at least here in Chicago. That's a climate question.
Even one of the latest issues of Scientific American had an article talking about how they've discovered periods in geologic history when the climate changed by 5-7 deg C in a decade (remembering roughly).
Wow, talk about selective reading. In that same article, they mention that it is known that human activities have been shown to make a difference in the climate.
Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system...
Considering that the bulk of China's population has no real income let alone any ability to paticipate in air pollution.
One thing this treaty is not doing is preventing the widespread pollution of the ground and water by other means, of which China and many of the former Soviet states excelled at.
The "50%" item is just an estimate, worst case scenario, in no way is it provable. Hell one of the hurricanes hitting Florida this year was thought to have pushed an endangered species of Turtle to near extinct
I love how no one has read any of the plans from the Bush Administration to curtail emissions in the USA. Just read a little bit on http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/environment/ [whitehouse.gov].
As well as this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/cl earskies.html [whitehouse.gov] "The Clear Skies Initiative will cut air pollution 70 percent...save American consumers millions of dollars.
* Cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 73 percent, from current emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million tons in 2010, and 3 million tons in 2018.
* Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 67 percent, from current emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million tons in 2008, and to 1.7 million tons in 2018.
* Cutting mercury emissions by 69 percent, - the first-ever national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions will be cut from current emissions of 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010, and 15 tons in 2018.
The US does have policies in effect to perform the same function as the Kyoto Accord, but they are more in line with our Economic needs and actualities. So there are 3 different emissions that we are curtailing...instead of 7, but it is a start without putting undue strain on our economy, and whether or not you like it the fact that corporations make money also means that most people in the country are making money, if the corporation doesn't make money people lose jobs and or make less.
The Clear Skies Initiative? HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW! Mod this up +5 funny! Next, tell us about the Safe Forests intitative and the clean water thing. Or if you don't mod it up as funny, at least mod it +5, Orwellian for it's doubleplus ungoodness.
It's politics. It's what's left unsaid that's the real killer. The so-called "clear skies" bill does little for real pollution control, and does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about global warming. They're making do-nothingism sound good. Looks like they fooled at least one person.
This doesn't mean Republicans hate clean air and throw caution about potential global warming concerns to the wind.
Out of curousity, what exactly has the Republican executive branch done in regards to global warming (or as they refer to it "climate change") in the past 4 years and what are they proposing to do in the next 4 years?
Out of curousity, what exactly has the Republican executive branch done in regards to global warming (or as they refer to it "climate change") in the past 4 years and what are they proposing to do in the next 4 years?
Clinton waited until the last month of his 8 year administration for the EPA to draft changes to the grandfathering of coal fired plants and the Clean Air Act. Bush cancelled that directive and has since instituted a new directive. And the utilities with these plants have moved forward with plans to add scrubbers.
You just don't submit legislation or directives without a plan by the utilities to implement. And I think that is where the greenhouse gas issue has to be treated with "credits". Utilities can buy
Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto.
Why is it that simple? Probably because China has MFN trade status. The WTO and similar organizations put us between a rock and a hard place.
So long as there are people willing to do the work we do for 1/100 the price, there are going to be problems. Whenever any business can make an extra buck, you can bet they'll do whatever it takes to make it happen. The key is to make it more expensive to outsource jobs. Of course
Please show me where in the Kyoto protocol the words "China" or "developing countries" appear. Oh, I see, they don't appear in the treaty at all. Because the categories of countries are based on how much pollution those countries emit, not based on whether they are "developing" or whether their human rights record is bad enough to exempt them. When China pollutes as much as the US does, they will move to the same category as the US.
We're not signing onto Kyoto because it exempts nations termed as "developing".
Great, so who's giving the developing nations the means to clean their pollution? It's DEVELOPED nations' technology that they're using after all.
Who invented the steam machine powered by coal? Who invented the internal combustion engine? Who invented the CFC's which destroy the ozone layer? Who invented the non-biodegradable plastic wrap which created gigantic garbage dumps? Who began to anihilate species on masse just to get ec
Russia didn't accept because of good foreign policy. Maybe only partially. They accepted because they pollute less now than their target and they can sell the rest of their pollution quota and make money.
I'm Canadian. We ratified Kyoto, we have a healthy economy. We have a social safety net, and a large federal surplus. We have universal health care. Our unemployment rate is a little higher than the US but we are doing extremely well, thank you for asking.
"you also do not spend on national defense because the US protects you."
Canada has never requested the United States to "protect" it. Canada simply has no designs on world domination or interfering with global markets with threats of violence. The USA has military might which far exceeds the needs of defense alone. The US military is offensive. In fact the US military expenditure exceeds the next 3 biggest spenders combined.
The US would not need to spend so much money on military if it wasn't so determined to artificially depress the cost of OIL and interfere with world economies.
The United States is not "defending" Canada out of altruism. The USA is defending Canada in the same way it defends Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To defend the oil. Which Americans buys from canadian based (corporations) in order to fuel the huge SUV's you have been tricked into believing you must all drive.
Fortunately the "people" of Canada had enough sense to put some taxation on oil rather than simply allow corporations to steal it for free. This is probably more to the Crown's credit rather than the people of Canada, as traditionally the "Crown" reserves all mineral rights.
If military expenditure is a great way to transfer public weath into private corporate hands.... well that serves american corporate interests as well.
"America" is doing very well. It is only the american people who are feeling the pinch.
"you dont have any borders to patrol."
Were you expecting to be attacked by Mexico? You already mentioned that Canada has no military.
"you have a relatively small population and most of your country in uninhabited or frozen over..."
You make being frozen over and uninhabited sound like an advantage.
I'm Canadian, we ratified the Kyoto Accord and guess what? We're very happy with who we are and do our best to serve as a good example for the rest of the world as much as the US tries to do.
How many 'other countries' are giving aid to countries abroad?
As a percentage of GDP, the USA gives less in aid than almost all other developed nations.
How many other countries rush in to defend their allies to the death?
Rush in? Tell that to the victims of the Blitz. Where was the USA when Poland was invaded? When the tanks swept into Paris? The USA only got involved in WWII when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
How many other countries liberate people from dictators?
The USA helped install General Pinochet, a dictator with a fondness for torture, in the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile. Ironically, the date of the coup was September 11.
How many other countries lead by innovating?
The USA has used the Echelon global surveillance system for the purposes of industrial espionage, to give its failing corporations an unfair advantage over more-competitive foreign operations.
How many other countries allow their people to own property?
The USA helped install General Pinochet, a dictator with a fondness for torture, in the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile. Ironically, the date of the coup was September 11.
Not to mention that US did back up both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
And not to forget that Prescott Bush was tried and convicted after WW2 for massively funding Adolf Hitler. I found it's not popular or even widely known among Americans, but interesing nevertheless. It's quite probable that Hitler wouldn't have been as successful at getting absolute power without Bush. I like to tell to Americans when they accuse me of being a Nazi just because I'm German. (And yes, I realize those people are dumb and not representative.)
That happens if you spend your tax money on warfare around the globe (like the U.S.) instead of social security. In most other countries you have at least enough money for food and a place to live even if you are unemployed.
The argument goes (and I'm not saying I agree with it, in fact I don't) like this: If you upgrade a plant to new technology, it will become more efficient than it was. So along with the pollution controls, which are a waste from an economy point of view, you also get better efficiency to offset this. So the new plant would NOT cost $120B per 100,000 consumers served (100 as before, plus 20 in wasted overhead) to serve 100,000 consumers. It would cost about $100 still (80 or so for improved efficiency,
On the contrary, a lot of people think the US will suffer because they won't be in the newly formed 'carbon market.'
And, besides, this will force European nations to develop methods and technologies that produce clean power and/or use less fossil fuels. Then, when the oil really starts to run dry they'll have the upper hand, and China, India, and the US will be buying technology from them.
It's already happening in the emerging wind generation technology, where Denmark [scandinavica.com] is the leader.
Think of it this way: Imagine all the coffee in the world was going to run out eventually, maybe soon. Wouldn't you be better off inventing a better way to make tea instead of a better way to make coffee?
On the contrary, a lot of people think the US will suffer because they won't be in the newly formed 'carbon market.'
Those people are math-challenged, or those who are trying to spin. The US would have, for the forseeable future, been a buyer on the carbon market. So yes, we'll be out of the carbon market, in the sense that we won't be paying other countries for the privelege of doing what we're doing now.
As for Russia, they did not sign out of altruistic purposes. They did because their current carbon emissions are over 30% below that of 1990, the benchmark for establishing the carbon market. This is the case not because they have developed clean fuel, or learned to reduce consumption, but because their economy completely imploded. So basically, Europe won't change much, nor will Russia, but the rest of Europe will end up paying Russia money.
That's why Russia ratified. It's free money. Why wouldn't they do it?
Bush and Kerry refused to support this, I believe on the grounds there would be absolutely no feasible way to move the US towards the requirements listed. The cost would also be untenable.
"Bush and Kerry refused to support this, I believe on the grounds there would be absolutely no feasible way to move the US towards the requirements listed. The cost would also be untenable."
Yet we'll spend 5.8 billion a month on a war in Iraq so we can get oil to pollute with. Go figure.
That's because the US is by far the worst polluter of any country in the world, so would have to cut more to be at a sustainable level.
Wow, I didn't think this would be true -- I supposed that China at least would pollute more than we do. So I did some research, and based on a 2001 EIA study, here are the world's energy-related carbon emissions:
24%: United States 16%: Western Europe 13%: China 12%: Eastern Europe and FSU
5%: Japan 29%: Rest of world
by Anonymous Coward writes:
on Friday November 19, 2004 @05:14PM (#10868792)
Well they don't have to lower greenhouse emission. In the case of Russia, for example, hey can actually riase their current levels of emission since they had more meissions in 1990.
Also, most of the meat of this deal are based on carbdon ton credits. If the UK can't make their target they can "buy" a carbon ton of rainforest (defined as the amount of trees it would take to scrub 1 carbon ton from the air) and keep them from being destroyted to "even out" the carbon levels. Costa Rica is "selling" their national parks (which were not going to be cut down anyways) for this purpose.
This treaty is functionaly a joke if you are concerned about lowering greenhouse emissions.
ah, but the key is, the total ammount of carbon tons available on the market will gradually be reduced. this treaty isn't about immediate change, it's about slowing down damage, and then gradually undoing the damage.
And I think the attitude, "Nobody else matters," is suicidal and self defeating.
That statement fundamentally reduces to "Nobody matters," when you aggregate it over an entire population unless you take the stance, "Everybody matters,". Everyone can't just exclude themselves from the population, so either nobody matters or everybody matters or some matter more than others; then who do you choose who matters?
I believe everybody matters, and because of that, *I* matter. And because *I* matter, then we have t
Lots of ranting about how the US is just going to scoff at this "international law." But perhaps one point of clarification should be presented.
Treaties do constitute international law, but they are only binding on those nations which sign (and in the case of the US ratify) it. As such non-signatory nations who do not adhere to the terms of the Kyoto treaty are not in violation of any law.
'Industrialised countries will have until 2012 to cut their collective emissions of six key greenhouse gases to 5.2% below the 1990 level.'
Fantastic! Just a couple questions: 1. What constitutes an "Industrialized" country? 2. What constitutes an "Emission" ? 3. Why those six particular greenhouse gasses? 4. Why 5.2%? Why not 10.2? Or 2.7? 5. Why 1990 levels? Why not 1980? 1994?
I tried to glean the answers from the protocol itself: http://unfccc.int/essential_background/ky oto_proto col/items/1678.php
And, well, it's unreadable legaleese. It's like an obfuscated code contest, half the articles point to other articles and those point to other paragraphs. It looks like there's about two paragraphs of substance in it's 20 pages.
1) Check here [cnn.com] to see if your country is "industrialized" or "transitioning".
2) "Emissions" means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time. [source [unfccc.int]]
3) The six gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) were presumably chosen because they make up the bulk of human-produced greenhouse gases.
4,5) Because having a quantifiable goal is nice. The choice of the year 1990 makes sense because the further back you go, the less the numbers bear any resemblance to the situation of the country today. If you go back too far, there aren't even useful numbers to work with. 1990 says, in effect, "You were performing at this level fairly recently. Try to shoot for that."
Why that particular percentage was chosen is a mystery, except that every country that signed Kyoto believed it was attainable. Will it be enough? Doubtful. But we have to start somewhere.
Russia wants in not because Mother Earth will weep if they don't sign, but because the treaty allows countries to sell their carbon credits for cash, and they stand to make a bundle.
Russia being Russia, my bet is that they will both sell their carbon credits and use them.
First, the USA (and I say this as a semi-estranged USA-ian), are a bunch of asshats for not ratifying this. Sure, there are excuses and apologetics, but, at the end of the day, they (we) could have done it.
However, those of you who think that the whole Kyoto debate is about the USA should not lose sight of the more important fact:
Global Temperatures Will Continue To Rise as a result of CO2 emissions even if 100% of the world wholeheartedly adopted Kyoto TODAY.
All Kyoto does (and it is a big step, but nevertheless) is slow the RATE of growth. Politicians and other know-nothings will be patting themselves on the back saying "well, that fixed it!" It did no such thing--at most, it bought us a little time.. and a little is the operative word. Kyoto's significance is not so much that it has somehow lessened the problem - for all practical purposes, it has not. It's significance is that it works to effectively keep the problem from getting much, much worse.
Britain
Canada
China
France
Germany
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
South Korea
Spain
And now Russia.
Wow. So seven of the eight G8 nations have signed up to something that the US maintains would cripple them? Either the rest of the world is hopelessly naive, or the current US administration is obsessed only with making themselves and their corporate backers grotesquely large short-term profits, and fuck everybody else.
...or the current US administration is obsessed only with making themselves and their corporate backers grotesquely large short-term profits, and fuck everybody else.
The Kyoto Protocol was initially presented to the U.S. Senate for ratification by the Clinton Administration. The Senate, which must ratify all treaties, voted it down 98-0. That's Democrats and Republicans.
The devil, as they say, is in the details. A lot of the debate about Kyoto--echoed by a lot of the posts you see here on SlashDot--is t
Are these the same senators that passed PATRIOT and the DMCA?
Quite. The vote on the USA PATRIOT Act was 98-1 [senate.gov] (the lone dissenter was Feinstein, D-CA), and the DMCA passed unanimously [senate.gov] (99 senators voted for it).
Since the Senate has shown such excellent judgement on these other issues, we can no doubt trust that their rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was equally well-reasoned and based entirely on rational scientific investigation.
Does anyone seriously believe that Senators read (or even look at) most o
Either the rest of the world is hopelessly naive, or the current US administration is obsessed only with making themselves and their corporate backers grotesquely large short-term profits, and fuck everybody else.
Which could it be?
C. None of the above. Let's rush into this Kyoto treaty, which will do NOTHING to stop global warming, though it will guarantee even more American companies start putting factories overseas.
I love people like you who see the world in black and white. Corporations - evil. (Forg
Sadly, that's not the only treaty the US is conspicuously absent from:
- Convention on the Rights of the Child. Here the US is in the respectable company of Somalia and nobody else. - The Landmine Ban Treaty (would hurt the weapons industry). - Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty - Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty - Basel Convention on hazardous waste - Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention - International Criminal Court
You can try to justify not signing Kyoto through bunk science claiming that greenhouse gasses are good for you and make your children more clever, but the fact of the matter is that whenever the world at large signs some treaty that would make the world a better place (even if it is only symbolic), the US, more often than not, chooses not to give a fuck. Not the first or the last time.
Wrong on the land mine treaty. Here are a few reasons we didn't sign it:
The right to use mines in the Korean DMZ, which is a very special case. The mines pose no dangers of the types the treaty is trying to prevent, as all are in a closed, guarded area and mapped.
Better verification and compliance provisions. Yes, we actually wanted to be able to make sure everybody complies -- not just us (this was rejected of course).
The right to make self-destructing anti-tank and anti-personnel mines (again, not part of the long-term danger the treaty is about).
I have opposed the Kyoto protocol for several reasons.
The Kyoto protocol was based on some dubious science. While it's pretty clear that human activity has boosted CO2 levels to record levels, and there's strong evidence that global warming is occuring, the two aren't properly linked. For example, it hasn't been shown that reducing CO2 levels will reverse global warming. Another possibility is that increasing solar output is responsible for global warming not human activity. There's some evidence that the IPCC [www.ipcc.ch] study (I am unable to find the "first assessment" report on the web) that the Kyoto treaty is based on was presented in a misleading light (eg, the summary of the report doesn't agree [junkscience.com] with the body of the report).
Second, only reduction in CO2 production is considered for the Kyoto treaty. Some work has been done on carbon sequestration. While these methods may prove infeasible, it seems absurd to ignore them in the treaty.
Further, developed countries have to cut back, but underdeveloped ones do not. I wonder how long this disparity can continue before we see countries withdraw from the treaty. In particular, I suspect that Russia will withdraw once it has entered the WTO (apparently the carrot used to lure them into the treaty by the EU).
No cost/benefit analysis has been performed. Is it really better to restrain economic activity rather than to deal with the costs of global warming due to greenhouse gases? The apparent reduction in economic activity that would be experienced by the EU (the most likely ones to comply with the treaty) might mean a significant drop in global standards of living.
While it's pretty clear that human activity has boosted CO2 levels to record levels, and there's strong evidence that global warming is occuring, the two aren't properly linked.
They show a strong correlation, and while it's difficult to show conclusively that the latter is a result of the former, there's a clear scientific understanding of how increasing CO2 levels can lead to warming (the greenhouse effect). There's also no other good candidate, so Occam's Razor comes into play.
Another possibility is that increasing solar output is responsible for global warming not human activity.
It's a possibility but no real evidence has been found for it, so it is really speculation.
Second, only reduction in CO2 production is considered for the Kyoto treaty. Some work has been done on carbon sequestration. While these methods may prove infeasible, it seems absurd to ignore them in the treaty.
Since none of them are practical at the moment this isn't really surprising.
Further, developed countries have to cut back, but underdeveloped ones do not.
Developing countries do have restrictions on how much they can increase their emissions by. This "disparity" is because industrialised countries are already far greater polluters.
that Russia ratified Kyoto pretty just solely to get support from several EU nations in their attempt to join the EU? They didn't do it out of some desire to help the environment. It was politics. (Even NPR's story about Russia's ratification said that this was the reason.)
Huh? Russia will never join the EU. Why would they? Economic protection? No. The EU is competition. Military cooperation? No. See previous. They only joined the Council of Europe (a de facto prereq for EU membership) in 1996. Most likely they ratified Kyoto to line up with treaty memberships as part of the COE. Serbia will join the EU before Russia and that isn't even projected as a possiblility until 2030 according to Serbia itself.
You mean to tell me that Russia adopted the treaty for essentially the same reason the US didn't; Because the treaty has no enforcable impact on a nation violating the treaty, and because the endorsement is a non-binding political ploy?
As much as I hate to credit Bush with good judgement, especially in respect to the enviornment I think he may be correct about the Kyoto treaty. I realize that most enviornmentalist and liberals strongly support the Kyoto treaty but often they seem not to look past the fact that it is a pro-enviornment international agreement. Good policy deciscions, enviornmental or not, need to be based on a detailed estimation of the effects not simply warm feelings about the intended goal. It is not uncommon for economic and societal regulation to have paradoxical effects and actually encourage the opposite of their intended consequence and I fear Kyoto may be such an example.
In particular the danger with Kyoto is that it places legal caps on emissions from developed countries while enforcing no such requirements on third world countries. There are non-binding targets but realistically few third world countries are going to sacrifice economic development for a non-binding CO2 emissions target. I can't really say I blame them, certainly if I was living in poor squalid conditions I would not take kindly to my government sacrificing my chance to earn a better wage because the industrialized countries dumped too much CO2 into the air when they were trying to modernize.
The economic consequences now seem fairly obvious. A plant built in a first world country, party to the Kyoto treaty, is likely to require a more expensive emission control system or the purchase of emissions credits in addition to the already high price of labor. Therefore Kyoto is likely to simply encourage the building of CO2 emitting plants in third world countries on whom the treaty is not binding. Even if some provision of the treaty or national law prevents the company in question from building such a plant themselves it will only be a short time before investors in china or elsewhere realize they can produce widgets much cheaper and construct a factory to supply them.
Now if the effect of the treaty was simply to move jobs and plants overseas I would have no problem with it. I think the idea that americans (or your favorite first world nation) should keep jobs rather than giving them to desperatly poor third world nations is downright selfish. The claptrap that these jobs, who the people in the third world seem to overwhelmingly prefer to their former employment, are somehow actually bad for the residents of the third world is just a flimsy cover story so liberals don't feel squeamish about supporting organized labour. Admitedly there are cases where companies have moved in and abused the local population, and we need to be carefull about totalitarian regimes like china joining forces with multinational corporations to exploit their citizens. However, it is arrogant and insulting to suggest that the citizens of a democracy like india are not perfectly capable of deciding if a corporate factory or plant is to their national detriment or benefit.
Loss of jobs, though probably the concern of the Bush administration, is not the real danger. More disturbing is the prospect that by further encouraging factory relocation to the third world we actually increase CO2 emissions. Already most first world countries have some emission control requirements but by increasing the cost of emissions significantly we will push many plants and operations over the line where relocation guarantees a significant increase in profit. However, once in a third world country they will have even less incentive to curtail CO2 emissions thus potentially increasing global CO2 production.
Admitedly this is probably much more of an issue for the US, because of it's more liquid markets and production, than it is for europe. Also europe may already be affected by this problem with factories moving the the USA. So while european nations signing the Kyoto treaty may result in a reduction of CO2 emissions it is quite possible that the long term effect of a US signature would be to *increase* emissions by encouraging factories to locate in areas wi
"Looks like Russia has picked up where the U.S. failed..."
It's amazing what ones choice of words can tell you about the person who wrote this story. Failure? Failure assumes one wanted to be involved in the first place. No, don't be so self-centered, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about national policy in general. The US didn't want to be involved in Kyoto period. There was no failure. There was no effort, policy or want to join Kyoto. And as long as we're being unbiased, maybe it was because of studies such as this:
The Sun is Getting Hotter Global warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research. A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.
Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."
Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtm l?xml=/ne ws/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/i xnewstop.html
Or this:
Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high
The Sun, Stanford University Sunspots are plentiful nowadays A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past.
They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer.
This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.
Sunspots have been monitored on the Sun since 1610, shortly after the invention of the telescope. They provide the longest-running direct measurement of our star's activity. The variation in sunspot numbers has revealed the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity as well as other, longer-term changes. In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface.
This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. Ice core disc, Epica Ice cores record climate trends back beyond human measurements It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/386975 3. stm
Or possibly even (and slightly more combative):
Global Warming Activists Studiously Ignore History's Cycles of Warming and Cooling The latest pseudo-scientific parlor game is pretending that the Little Ice Age didn't happen. We're supposed to ignore the historic reality that the world's mean temperatures dropped sharply by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit from about 1300 AD until at least 1850 AD and fell perhaps a freaky 9 degrees below today's average temperatures in the 13th century.
Let's pretend this well-documented spasm of freezing cold, advancing glaciers, and terrible storms did not freeze the Viking settlers on Greenland to death or create Europe's "year without a summer" in 1315, when crops failed and created massive famine. The silly game of "hide the Little Ice Age" is being played to support the g
The reason I like kyoto is that it spells out for the layman to see: Nuclear power is a good thing. Get those goddamn coal/oil plants shut *down* and replaced by clean and efficient nuke plants already.
We should just build big domes around the countries that don't sign up for global enviremental isuess, why should the rest of the world have to put up with your poluction and give you the oxygen that the plants in the rest of the world makes.
Create your own oxygen and suck on your own polution if you don't want to play ball
-Jay
Yes, I'm being facetious, but I'm also being a bit serious.
Here's another idea - find industrial sources of wasted CO2 and plant trees around them - or harvest the CO2. The Miller brewing company in Irwindale, CA comes to mind immediately - there's nothing surrounding the brewery but a quarry, interstates 605 and 210, and old US 66. And they brew shitloads of beer per month - that's a shitload of CO2.
"The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyotoist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. The majority of humankind does not accept this system, despite claims of worldwide support. Even with Russia's ratification, 75 per cent of the world's CO2 is emitted by, 68 per cent of the world's GDP is produced in, and 89 per cent of the world's population live in countries that are not handcuffed by Kyoto's restrictions. Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda. Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated."
I don't doubt that many of the people in Russia are against it. Russia hasn't exactly been the world's beacon for representative democracy lately. But just for the record, although it isn't really known who the people who are financially backing Envirotruth.org are, we do know that ExxonMobil was one of the contributors [disinfopedia.org]. Keep a few large grains of salt on hand while reading the site.
How is this going to hurt the economy? There will be a ton of new jobs, because it's going to create an entire new industry based on finding ways to use energy more efficiently. Do you seriously believe that there aren't BILLIONS of dollars in something as big as this? Why do you think car manufacturers are all over this hybrid shit? It's because more effecient energy sources IS the industry of the future. Forget technology, forget whatever else, energy is where it's at.
So the guy who has been working at a steel plant for the last 15 years who is now losing his job because the plant puts out too much in emissions... he just suddenly becomes an expert at energy sources? He's able to just stop work at the factory on Friday and pick up in a consulting gig on Monday?
and what happened to all the auto workers 10-20 years ago when robots began doing a significant portion of the work? what happened to all the people who's jobs were supplanted or eliminated because of computers? What about the pony express riders when the telegraph was invented?
change happens, we adapt. stifling change for job security is stupid.
The LIBERAL media has been slowly forcing us to accept GAYS in the BIG GOVERNMENT and the UN because they want US to ALL become GAY, and then we'll all have to BECOME ATHEISTS and KILL UNBORN CHILDREN for the good of some THIRD WORLD TERRORIST!
How was that? I tried to get all the crazy conspiracy elements into teh smallest space possible... what did I leave out?
Do you know how the Kyoto treaty works? Each nation gets a certain number of vouchers for pollution that they can trade amongst each other or sell off at a market value... the number of vouchers is based on old data regarding pollution wherein some of the nations will instantly have more vouchers than they need currently and stand to make a huge windfall selling them off to nations who have continued to progress or haven't been able to slow down pollution levels for any number of reasons... basically Russia specifically will stand to make several billion dollars selling their vouchers to nations like India, US, and other nations that have continued to grow their industries while Russia's has languished for the last decade.
This 'system' of vouchers is what the US will not buy into... as it leaves us at an automatic pollution deficit with nery little hope of ever catching up.
> I just don't get the US's non-participation in this treaty. Cutting pollution is good for the economy.
Then I'll be happy to help explain it. The short version: Kyoto would have required the US to cut its carbon-dioxide emissions by 30-40% over the next 10 years. Cutting CO2 emissions = cutting back on the use of carbon-based fuels like oil, gas, and coal. Those fuels produce over 2/3 of the energy used in the United States. Witness the downturn that the economy took just over the last few months as oil got a bit more expensive and energy production dropped. Now picture another 30-40% drop on top of that. Do you see begin to see how "cutting pollution is good for the economy" is a bit simplistic?
And what would be the end result of the US crippling its economy in this way? Estimates indicate that Kyoto would reduce global temperatures by 0.25 degrees F by the year 2100, and a rise in ocean temperatures of 0.11 degrees C over 40 years (see the journal Science, 4/13/01)
The Kyoto treaty is not the warm-and-fuzzy "save the environment!" treaty you think it is. It's rigid and onerous and gives the UN significant regulatory power over the industries (and economies) of nations that sign it. There's a reason that the Senate decided in a completely bipartisan fashion (95-0) to reject the treaty. It's bad for the US, and it still doesn't solve any global environmental problems.
We arent' required to stop using those fuels, only to cut back on emission of carbon into the atmosphere. Scrubbers, filters, whatever you want can be used to meet those goals.
In fact, if the treaty's ratification were expected instead of resisted, there would be a capital spending boom as companies geared up for the treaty. Those that didn't want to convert would end up subsidizing the industries that did.
A recent clean burning coal generation plant in Clark County Kentucky produced the following benefits, according to the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives:
Up to 700 construction jobs at an average of $60,000 a year.
$11 million in state property taxes in its first 20 years of operation.
$1 million in revenue for Clark County from payroll taxes during construction.
New market for up to 1.2 million tons of coal each year.
Sharply reduced emissions through the latest, proven clean-coal technology called "circulating fluidized bed."
98 percent less sulfur dioxide and 5 times less nitrogen oxide than a conventional pulverized coal power plant.
Enough electricity to supply 19 cities the size of Winchester - 278 megawatts - that's dedicated to serve the cooperative member-owners in Kentucky.
Kyoto isn't the business busting treaty you think it is. We'll see the effects over the next ten years as signatories lap American industries.
Err, no, there would be a capitol boom in scrubber spending and the like. Paid for by raising electric rates (and other energy?). In turn there will be a corresponding loss in spending in other areas, areas that I'd prefer to see spending.
Now I realize the economy is not a zero sum game, so the correlation will not be one to one. It will be there.
To the best of my knowledge, neither one of these things has happened in the US. Therefore, I submit that it will not, in fact, become law.
Well, the signatory countries have laws too, you know.
Actually, I think the poster merely misused the word "law" slightly; he just meant that, as the article says, the treaty is to become legally binding. Of course, it only applies to the countries that have ratified it.
Well, in a way, we have. We are watching exports drop as countries find alternatives to dealing with us. APEC is now working quite abit closer with Asia rather than with USA due to not trusting our politicians.
Now as to your arguments about production costs, well, you need to look at America vs. the far east/Central-South America/India/etc. We are losing
Russia has tons of oil, and the only thing preventing the US from going there in search of "WMD" is that Russia has WMD. If US designs a system to protect itself from these WMD, Russia will design a system to protect itself from the USA.
Who knows? Perhaps the Viking probes, the Mars Rovers, and all of the other dozen or so spacecraft that have crashed on Mars have released all of that pollution and nuclear waste to start damaging the environment on Mars as well.
There are a number of things that could be causing substantial changes in the Earth's global climate picture, and man-made pollution is only one of them.
I conceed that there are local environments that have changed substantially from 10,000 years ago, or even 200 years ago, and t
Consequences? (Score:3, Insightful)
Or what?
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Funny)
Or the skiing season will never be the same.
PS: The weather here sucks. It's been 15 degrees on average lately, which really sucks for playing outdoor hockey.
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Funny)
Actually you forgot that first they will warn the offending country about the UN's desire to look into the possibility of writing a letter. Next, they will send a notice of intent to send a letter. Finally, if, and only if, diplomacy completely and catestrophically breaks down, will the letter be sent. In extreme cases it will be followed up by a "Hrumpf" from Kofi Anan.
At the end of the day French politicians and UN beuraucrats will get some sweet sweet graft out of the deal, and really, isn't that what diplomacy is all about?
Re:Consequences? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, the UN Accounting department in 1998 held that the UN was suffering in terms of what it is able to do, in large part because a large number of members, most notably the US, do not pay their dues on time and in full. Since 1983, the US only paid in October, even though dues are due January 1st, and since 1986, it withheld part of those dues until certain conditions were met.
The report issued by Accounting 'also notes that of the countries in considerable arrears to the U.N., "according to a State Department official, only the United States has not paid its arrears because of policy reasons."'
What it comes down to is that the UN has been incapable of doing 'the lion's share of its operation' because of the US's inability or unwillingness to pay its dues when it is supposed to. In 1998, it was in danger of losing its vote in the General Assembly because of its arrears. As of 1998, the US owed $1.8 billion [iaed.org] in back dues.
Now, bear in mind the US has actually started to pay its dues, perhaps because of the possibility of losing its influence (though it is obvious now that they don't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks anyway), but I don't see that lasting. Abandon the world and the way the world works and see how pleasant it is to live without any friends. Unless things change with the way the US does buisiness, it's going to find itself alone when bad things start to happen.
Re:Consequences? (Score:3, Funny)
UN: Or we'll sanction you for the next 20 years and then you can kick your own @ss when we don't enforce it.
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
Or they'll have until only 2022... (etc.) (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Or they'll have until only 2022... (etc.) (Score:4, Interesting)
In the UK, you don't have a gun, the police call out an armed response unit and shoot you in the back of the head for carrying a table leg in a plastic bag.
Re:Or they'll have until only 2022... (etc.) (Score:5, Insightful)
Why the 2012 implementation date for Kyoto? (Score:5, Insightful)
The answer, of course, is that many of the politicians who have signed on to Kyoto have done so for short term political gain. It makes everyone feel good that something is being done, while they don't actually have to do anything painful.
If push comes to shove and people are actually forced to curtail their lifestyle in 2012 in order to comply with the protocol, then you will see those people dropping out of it. After all, there are no penalties for dropping out. So, if you have to choose between spending billions of dollars to reduce C02 production, or buy CO2 credits from Russia for billions of dollars, or drop out and keep your money, which one will the voters choose?
The only way that Kyoto will be complied with is if technology improves (e.g. more fuel efficient vehicles and energy production) to the point where painful choices are not required. And that improvement will happen regardless of Kyoto.
Re:Why the 2012 implementation date for Kyoto? (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the amount of effort involved is amazing. While I believe it's vitally important that we do what we can and now, you simply can't tell industries to discard the technology they use today that are still economically viable for minor gain.
The problem is two fold:
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Insightful)
It was unfair because it was not in your interest? You need to look up the definition of fair.
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Consequences? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
The Kyoto treaty was negotiated. The US was represented. Guess what? If you had a problem with the treaty you should have said so in Kyoto.
But you decided it hurts your precious industry, so you backstabbed it instead - so that you won't have to do anything at all. Nice job.
Now, in all fairness. The treaty does tax industrial countries higher (not just the US - but all industrial countries). This was not a question of fairness, but a question of what is possible. In developing countries, there is a larger need to put food on the table, get health care working, build infrastructures etc. The industrial countries have resources to spare, then why the fuck should we not take that responsibility?
If you want to speak in terms of fairness, these countries are way behind our industrialized countries in pollution. They have a lot to catch up on. (Moral: There will always be a kid who's shouting "unfair". The only reason to listen to you is the amount of guns you have.)
Re:Consequences? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's amazing you can get +5 insightful for empty posturing about the treaty without even giving a reason to back it up.
Yes, failed is the correct word. (Score:5, Insightful)
Furthermore, this will put us technologically behind in energy generation and resource management. We're going to miss out on a big part of the next industrial revolution. Similar to what happened when US automakers fail to keep up with Japanese automakers.
Sometimes conservatism hurts business, and this is one of those times.
Re:FAIR? (Score:4, Informative)
If you are crashing your car every year you are raising the GDP. If you produce weaponry and dispose it one way or another, you are raising the GDP. It is no measure of benefit to humankind.
> Even calculating it on a per capita basis is unfair
Is it? After an initial industrialisation phase with a corresponding growth of both, no statistical correspondance [oxfordenergy.org] can be found.
To quote:
Re:Consequences? (Score:5, Informative)
Consequences are under Article 18. Due to general agreement during the founding of the protocol, Article 18 merely a framework, for which specific consequences are to be established at the first COP/MOP meeting, held after the Kyoto Protocol is ratified (which it just was).
The protocol will not enter into force until 3/4 of the parties submit their notices of acceptance and ratification, and will only bind parties which ratify the amendment. I.e., not the US. However, US companies with overseas branches will be affected.
Japan, Australia, and Russia were insistant that consequences not be legally binding; the US used to be the party insisting the strongest that they be binding (how ironic...). However, COP/MOP was given the "perogative to decide on the legal form of the procedures and mechanisms relating to compliance."
Another interesting thing about the Kyoto Protocol is that it tracks your emissions like a national debt. I.e., if you miss your targets for one year, it cuts into your allotance for the next year. So, if a member blows off the protocol, their emissions rack up; if an environmentally friendly leader ever takes over, it offers all the more incentive to try and catch up to the rest of the world, even ignoring any Article 18 consequences that may be added in at a later date.
Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. Because the US just loves pollution.
Anyone find it extremely ironic that groups of people who really hate Bush chastise Bush about the US losing manufacturing and blue collar jobs - and in fact whole companies - overseas, and that other groups of people who really hate Bush (sometimes the same groups, in fact) chastise Bush for not signing onto Kyoto, when those two positions in this context are essentially diametrically opposed?
We're not signing onto Kyoto because it exempts nations termed as "developing". Nations like China [wikipedia.org]. That doesn't exactly level the playing field when we're losing manufacturing jobs to places like China like it's going out of style as it is. Further, the EPA, and the whole of the US government, is committed to the principles of Kyoto, but we will not ratify such an unbalanced agreement.
This isn't a bid to line pockets of corporate officers. This doesn't mean Republicans hate clean air and throw caution about potential global warming concerns to the wind. This means the US is trying to stay competitive in a global economy, where we're losing jobs where someone who got paid US$22/hour for turning a bolt on an assembly line for 17 years is losing his job to someone who gets paid US$22/month to do the same job. This is a hope to at least keep *some* of these jobs during a long period of economic transition.
Note to the US Kyoto activists: you can't have your cake and eat it, too. Either we lose jobs and US companies to places like China, or we sign on to Kyoto. Yes, there's a lot of nuance, but I'm afraid that it's that simple.
(Hopefully, as economies equalize, a new industrialized West will manage to emerge from it, instead of being decimated by it in the meantime.)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Informative)
From that article you linked to.
China, a developing nation (and don't say it isn't, the average wage three years ago was $300 a year) HAS signed onto the treaty, even though it's likely to hurt China much more than the States. Especially considering China's economic growth is at 8% a year... Climate change is real, and if we don't do something about it, we're all going to be screwed.
50% of all species on the planet will be extinct in the next 50 years - all because of human impact. How the hell can we let that happen? The "mass extinction" of the dinosaurs was ONLY 19% of all species on the planet at that time.
When will people wake up and smell the carbon dioxide?
Re:Irony (Score:3, Interesting)
That just sounds like extreme hyperbole to me, but if it's true, it's a real eye-opener.
K thx bye
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
Climate change *is* real. And it was going on waaaay before we got here, and it'll be going on waaaay after we're gone.
Even one of the latest issues of Scientific American had an article talking about how they've discovered periods in geologic history when the climate changed by 5-7 deg C in a decade (remembering roughly).
It's like any other data problem. Our dataset is just too small to provide an accurate picture. Hell, we're just now discovering that the solar cycle might have something to do with climate (duh).
This is what gets me the most, though. Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system when your dataset only covers 0.0000001% (number not actually calculated) of the lifetime of the system? (300 years of weather data vs 4.5 billion years that the earth has existed)
Given those raw numbers, no scientist would say they could give you any rational data about the "system". Now replace system with weather and they think they know exactly how it works.
Re:Irony (Score:5, Informative)
Also we have some pretty solid physics that indicates that rapid greenhouse gas accumulation is a problem.
Climate is not weather. Weather is the part of atmospheric conditions that is not predictable beyond a few weeks. Climate is the rest of it.
Will it snow on Christmas? Nobody can say. It's a weather question. WIll Christmas be colder than the Fourth of July? Well, yeah, at least here in Chicago. That's a climate question.
I read that article too (Score:3)
Wow, talk about selective reading. In that same article, they mention that it is known that human activities have been shown to make a difference in the climate.
Who actually believes that you can make statements about small (0.5%) variations in a system...
If I understand you, you're trivializing
Re:Irony (Score:5, Funny)
Never. CO2 is an odorless gas.
LK
China's per capita rating is misleading.. (Score:3, Informative)
One thing this treaty is not doing is preventing the widespread pollution of the ground and water by other means, of which China and many of the former Soviet states excelled at.
The "50%" item is just an estimate, worst case scenario, in no way is it provable. Hell one of the hurricanes hitting Florida this year was thought to have pushed an endangered species of Turtle to near extinct
Re:Irony (Score:5, Informative)
As well as this page http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/02/c
* Cut sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions by 73 percent, from current emissions of 11 million tons to a cap of 4.5 million tons in 2010, and 3 million tons in 2018.
* Cut emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by 67 percent, from current emissions of 5 million tons to a cap of 2.1 million tons in 2008, and to 1.7 million tons in 2018.
* Cutting mercury emissions by 69 percent, - the first-ever national cap on mercury emissions. Emissions will be cut from current emissions of 48 tons to a cap of 26 tons in 2010, and 15 tons in 2018.
The US does have policies in effect to perform the same function as the Kyoto Accord, but they are more in line with our Economic needs and actualities. So there are 3 different emissions that we are curtailing...instead of 7, but it is a start without putting undue strain on our economy, and whether or not you like it the fact that corporations make money also means that most people in the country are making money, if the corporation doesn't make money people lose jobs and or make less.
Well that's my two cents.
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
What'd they leave out? CO2! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:3, Interesting)
Out of curousity, what exactly has the Republican executive branch done in regards to global warming (or as they refer to it "climate change") in the past 4 years and what are they proposing to do in the next 4 years?
Re:Irony (Score:4, Insightful)
about as much as the Democrats have done.
Force Grandfathered Coal Fired Plants to Modernize (Score:3, Interesting)
You just don't submit legislation or directives without a plan by the utilities to implement. And I think that is where the greenhouse gas issue has to be treated with "credits". Utilities can buy
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it that simple? Probably because China has MFN trade status. The WTO and similar organizations put us between a rock and a hard place.
So long as there are people willing to do the work we do for 1/100 the price, there are going to be problems. Whenever any business can make an extra buck, you can bet they'll do whatever it takes to make it happen. The key is to make it more expensive to outsource jobs. Of course
"developing countries" my ass (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Great, so who's giving the developing nations the means to clean their pollution? It's DEVELOPED nations' technology that they're using after all.
Who invented the steam machine powered by coal?
Who invented the internal combustion engine?
Who invented the CFC's which destroy the ozone layer?
Who invented the non-biodegradable plastic wrap which created gigantic garbage dumps?
Who began to anihilate species on masse just to get ec
Why Russia Accepted (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Informative)
Canada has never requested the United States to "protect" it. Canada simply has no designs on world domination or interfering with global markets with threats of violence. The USA has military might which far exceeds the needs of defense alone. The US military is offensive. In fact the US military expenditure exceeds the next 3 biggest spenders combined.
The US would not need to spend so much money on military if it wasn't so determined to artificially depress the cost of OIL and interfere with world economies.
The United States is not "defending" Canada out of altruism. The USA is defending Canada in the same way it defends Saudi Arabia and Iraq. To defend the oil. Which Americans buys from canadian based (corporations) in order to fuel the huge SUV's you have been tricked into believing you must all drive.
Fortunately the "people" of Canada had enough sense to put some taxation on oil rather than simply allow corporations to steal it for free. This is probably more to the Crown's credit rather than the people of Canada, as traditionally the "Crown" reserves all mineral rights.
If military expenditure is a great way to transfer public weath into private corporate hands.... well that serves american corporate interests as well.
"America" is doing very well. It is only the american people who are feeling the pinch.
"you dont have any borders to patrol."
Were you expecting to be attacked by Mexico?
You already mentioned that Canada has no military.
"you have a relatively small population and most of your country in uninhabited or frozen over..."
You make being frozen over and uninhabited sound like an advantage.
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
How many 'other countries' are giving aid to countries abroad?
As a percentage of GDP, the USA gives less in aid than almost all other developed nations.
How many other countries rush in to defend their allies to the death?
Rush in? Tell that to the victims of the Blitz. Where was the USA when Poland was invaded? When the tanks swept into Paris? The USA only got involved in WWII when Pearl Harbor was bombed.
How many other countries liberate people from dictators?
The USA helped install General Pinochet, a dictator with a fondness for torture, in the 1973 CIA-backed coup in Chile. Ironically, the date of the coup was September 11.
How many other countries lead by innovating?
The USA has used the Echelon global surveillance system for the purposes of industrial espionage, to give its failing corporations an unfair advantage over more-competitive foreign operations.
How many other countries allow their people to own property?
Most of them, in fact, Russia included.
Re:Irony (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Irony (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Irony (Score:3, Informative)
Common misconstruction of a sentence:
Either we loose jobs to places like China, OR we sign on to Kyoto.
Implying if we sign on to Kyoto, that will save jobs.
He was merely pointing out a grammatical misconstruction
Re:Irony (Score:3, Interesting)
'Failed' Is a Relative Term (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:'Failed' Is a Relative Term (Score:5, Interesting)
And, besides, this will force European nations to develop methods and technologies that produce clean power and/or use less fossil fuels. Then, when the oil really starts to run dry they'll have the upper hand, and China, India, and the US will be buying technology from them.
It's already happening in the emerging wind generation technology, where Denmark [scandinavica.com] is the leader.
Think of it this way: Imagine all the coffee in the world was going to run out eventually, maybe soon. Wouldn't you be better off inventing a better way to make tea instead of a better way to make coffee?
Re:'Failed' Is a Relative Term (Score:5, Funny)
Imagine all the coffee in the world was going to run out eventually, maybe soon.
That's a really *really* mean thing to say x-(
The carbon market (Score:5, Interesting)
Those people are math-challenged, or those who are trying to spin. The US would have, for the forseeable future, been a buyer on the carbon market. So yes, we'll be out of the carbon market, in the sense that we won't be paying other countries for the privelege of doing what we're doing now.
As for Russia, they did not sign out of altruistic purposes. They did because their current carbon emissions are over 30% below that of 1990, the benchmark for establishing the carbon market. This is the case not because they have developed clean fuel, or learned to reduce consumption, but because their economy completely imploded. So basically, Europe won't change much, nor will Russia, but the rest of Europe will end up paying Russia money.
That's why Russia ratified. It's free money. Why wouldn't they do it?
Both (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Both (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet we'll spend 5.8 billion a month on a war in Iraq so we can get oil to pollute with. Go figure.
Re:Both (Score:5, Informative)
Wow, I didn't think this would be true -- I supposed that China at least would pollute more than we do. So I did some research, and based on a 2001 EIA study, here are the world's energy-related carbon emissions:
24%: United States
16%: Western Europe
13%: China
12%: Eastern Europe and FSU
5%: Japan
29%: Rest of world
Details:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/chin
Re:Both (Score:5, Insightful)
You're right. It's all in how you look at things...
Treaty Doesn't Even do what It Claims to do (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, most of the meat of this deal are based on carbdon ton credits. If the UK can't make their target they can "buy" a carbon ton of rainforest (defined as the amount of trees it would take to scrub 1 carbon ton from the air) and keep them from being destroyted to "even out" the carbon levels. Costa Rica is "selling" their national parks (which were not going to be cut down anyways) for this purpose.
This treaty is functionaly a joke if you are concerned about lowering greenhouse emissions.
Re:Treaty Doesn't Even do what It Claims to do (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm an American too (Score:3, Insightful)
That statement fundamentally reduces to "Nobody matters," when you aggregate it over an entire population unless you take the stance, "Everybody matters,". Everyone can't just exclude themselves from the population, so either nobody matters or everybody matters or some matter more than others; then who do you choose who matters?
I believe everybody matters, and because of that, *I* matter. And because *I* matter, then we have t
Lots of ranting... (Score:5, Informative)
Treaties do constitute international law, but they are only binding on those nations which sign (and in the case of the US ratify) it. As such non-signatory nations who do not adhere to the terms of the Kyoto treaty are not in violation of any law.
Horray for Science! (Score:5, Interesting)
Fantastic! Just a couple questions:
1. What constitutes an "Industrialized" country?
2. What constitutes an "Emission" ?
3. Why those six particular greenhouse gasses?
4. Why 5.2%? Why not 10.2? Or 2.7?
5. Why 1990 levels? Why not 1980? 1994?
I tried to glean the answers from the protocol itself:
http://unfccc.int/essential_background/k
And, well, it's unreadable legaleese. It's like an obfuscated code contest, half the articles point to other articles and those point to other paragraphs. It looks like there's about two paragraphs of substance in it's 20 pages.
Re:Horray for Science! (Score:4, Informative)
2) "Emissions" means the release of greenhouse gases and/or their precursors into the atmosphere over a specified area and period of time. [source [unfccc.int]]
3) The six gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons, and sulphur hexafluoride) were presumably chosen because they make up the bulk of human-produced greenhouse gases.
4,5) Because having a quantifiable goal is nice. The choice of the year 1990 makes sense because the further back you go, the less the numbers bear any resemblance to the situation of the country today. If you go back too far, there aren't even useful numbers to work with. 1990 says, in effect, "You were performing at this level fairly recently. Try to shoot for that."
Why that particular percentage was chosen is a mystery, except that every country that signed Kyoto believed it was attainable. Will it be enough? Doubtful. But we have to start somewhere.
Carbon for Cash (Score:3, Informative)
Russia wants in not because Mother Earth will weep if they don't sign, but because the treaty allows countries to sell their carbon credits for cash, and they stand to make a bundle.
Russia being Russia, my bet is that they will both sell their carbon credits and use them.
Science! Think of the science, children! (Score:4, Insightful)
However, those of you who think that the whole Kyoto debate is about the USA should not lose sight of the more important fact:
Global Temperatures Will Continue To Rise as a result of CO2 emissions even if 100% of the world wholeheartedly adopted Kyoto TODAY.
All Kyoto does (and it is a big step, but nevertheless) is slow the RATE of growth. Politicians and other know-nothings will be patting themselves on the back saying "well, that fixed it!" It did no such thing--at most, it bought us a little time.. and a little is the operative word. Kyoto's significance is not so much that it has somehow lessened the problem - for all practical purposes, it has not. It's significance is that it works to effectively keep the problem from getting much, much worse.
Sweet sweet bolt turning (Score:4, Funny)
Turning a bolt for 17 years? How big is this bolt anyway? And wouldn't that tend to slow down the rest of the assembly line?
So who's signed it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Britain
Canada
China
France
Germany
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Mexico
Netherlands
South Korea
Spain
And now Russia.
Wow. So seven of the eight G8 nations have signed up to something that the US maintains would cripple them? Either the rest of the world is hopelessly naive, or the current US administration is obsessed only with making themselves and their corporate backers grotesquely large short-term profits, and fuck everybody else.
Which could it be?
Re:So who's signed it? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Kyoto Protocol was initially presented to the U.S. Senate for ratification by the Clinton Administration. The Senate, which must ratify all treaties, voted it down 98-0. That's Democrats and Republicans.
The devil, as they say, is in the details. A lot of the debate about Kyoto--echoed by a lot of the posts you see here on SlashDot--is t
Re:So who's signed it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Quite. The vote on the USA PATRIOT Act was 98-1 [senate.gov] (the lone dissenter was Feinstein, D-CA), and the DMCA passed unanimously [senate.gov] (99 senators voted for it).
Since the Senate has shown such excellent judgement on these other issues, we can no doubt trust that their rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was equally well-reasoned and based entirely on rational scientific investigation.
Does anyone seriously believe that Senators read (or even look at) most o
Re:So who's signed it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Which could it be?
C. None of the above. Let's rush into this Kyoto treaty, which will do NOTHING to stop global warming, though it will guarantee even more American companies start putting factories overseas.
I love people like you who see the world in black and white. Corporations - evil. (Forg
So who's signed it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So who's signed it? (Score:5, Interesting)
- Convention on the Rights of the Child. Here the US is in the respectable company of Somalia and nobody else.
- The Landmine Ban Treaty (would hurt the weapons industry).
- Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty
- Persistent Organic Pollutants Treaty
- Basel Convention on hazardous waste
- Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention
- International Criminal Court
You can try to justify not signing Kyoto through bunk science claiming that greenhouse gasses are good for you and make your children more clever, but the fact of the matter is that whenever the world at large signs some treaty that would make the world a better place (even if it is only symbolic), the US, more often than not, chooses not to give a fuck. Not the first or the last time.
Now mod me into oblivion.
Re:So who's signed it? (Score:4, Informative)
some thoughts on this (Score:3, Interesting)
The Kyoto protocol was based on some dubious science. While it's pretty clear that human activity has boosted CO2 levels to record levels, and there's strong evidence that global warming is occuring, the two aren't properly linked. For example, it hasn't been shown that reducing CO2 levels will reverse global warming. Another possibility is that increasing solar output is responsible for global warming not human activity. There's some evidence that the IPCC [www.ipcc.ch] study (I am unable to find the "first assessment" report on the web) that the Kyoto treaty is based on was presented in a misleading light (eg, the summary of the report doesn't agree [junkscience.com] with the body of the report).
Second, only reduction in CO2 production is considered for the Kyoto treaty. Some work has been done on carbon sequestration. While these methods may prove infeasible, it seems absurd to ignore them in the treaty.
Further, developed countries have to cut back, but underdeveloped ones do not. I wonder how long this disparity can continue before we see countries withdraw from the treaty. In particular, I suspect that Russia will withdraw once it has entered the WTO (apparently the carrot used to lure them into the treaty by the EU).
No cost/benefit analysis has been performed. Is it really better to restrain economic activity rather than to deal with the costs of global warming due to greenhouse gases? The apparent reduction in economic activity that would be experienced by the EU (the most likely ones to comply with the treaty) might mean a significant drop in global standards of living.
Re:some thoughts on this (Score:4, Insightful)
They show a strong correlation, and while it's difficult to show conclusively that the latter is a result of the former, there's a clear scientific understanding of how increasing CO2 levels can lead to warming (the greenhouse effect). There's also no other good candidate, so Occam's Razor comes into play.
Another possibility is that increasing solar output is responsible for global warming not human activity.
It's a possibility but no real evidence has been found for it, so it is really speculation.
Second, only reduction in CO2 production is considered for the Kyoto treaty. Some work has been done on carbon sequestration. While these methods may prove infeasible, it seems absurd to ignore them in the treaty.
Since none of them are practical at the moment this isn't really surprising.
Further, developed countries have to cut back, but underdeveloped ones do not.
Developing countries do have restrictions on how much they can increase their emissions by. This "disparity" is because industrialised countries are already far greater polluters.
Wow, how is it that so few people realize... (Score:3, Interesting)
that Russia ratified Kyoto pretty just solely to get support from several EU nations in their attempt to join the EU? They didn't do it out of some desire to help the environment. It was politics. (Even NPR's story about Russia's ratification said that this was the reason.)
Russia and the EU (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Wow, how is it that so few people realize... (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean to tell me that Russia adopted the treaty for essentially the same reason the US didn't; Because the treaty has no enforcable impact on a nation violating the treaty, and because the endorsement is a non-binding political ploy?
Now THAT'S crazy talk.
Kyoto is ineffective and potentially harmfull (Score:3, Insightful)
In particular the danger with Kyoto is that it places legal caps on emissions from developed countries while enforcing no such requirements on third world countries. There are non-binding targets but realistically few third world countries are going to sacrifice economic development for a non-binding CO2 emissions target. I can't really say I blame them, certainly if I was living in poor squalid conditions I would not take kindly to my government sacrificing my chance to earn a better wage because the industrialized countries dumped too much CO2 into the air when they were trying to modernize.
The economic consequences now seem fairly obvious. A plant built in a first world country, party to the Kyoto treaty, is likely to require a more expensive emission control system or the purchase of emissions credits in addition to the already high price of labor. Therefore Kyoto is likely to simply encourage the building of CO2 emitting plants in third world countries on whom the treaty is not binding. Even if some provision of the treaty or national law prevents the company in question from building such a plant themselves it will only be a short time before investors in china or elsewhere realize they can produce widgets much cheaper and construct a factory to supply them.
Now if the effect of the treaty was simply to move jobs and plants overseas I would have no problem with it. I think the idea that americans (or your favorite first world nation) should keep jobs rather than giving them to desperatly poor third world nations is downright selfish. The claptrap that these jobs, who the people in the third world seem to overwhelmingly prefer to their former employment, are somehow actually bad for the residents of the third world is just a flimsy cover story so liberals don't feel squeamish about supporting organized labour. Admitedly there are cases where companies have moved in and abused the local population, and we need to be carefull about totalitarian regimes like china joining forces with multinational corporations to exploit their citizens. However, it is arrogant and insulting to suggest that the citizens of a democracy like india are not perfectly capable of deciding if a corporate factory or plant is to their national detriment or benefit.
Loss of jobs, though probably the concern of the Bush administration, is not the real danger. More disturbing is the prospect that by further encouraging factory relocation to the third world we actually increase CO2 emissions. Already most first world countries have some emission control requirements but by increasing the cost of emissions significantly we will push many plants and operations over the line where relocation guarantees a significant increase in profit. However, once in a third world country they will have even less incentive to curtail CO2 emissions thus potentially increasing global CO2 production.
Admitedly this is probably much more of an issue for the US, because of it's more liquid markets and production, than it is for europe. Also europe may already be affected by this problem with factories moving the the USA. So while european nations signing the Kyoto treaty may result in a reduction of CO2 emissions it is quite possible that the long term effect of a US signature would be to *increase* emissions by encouraging factories to locate in areas wi
Environmental FAILURE (Score:4, Interesting)
It's amazing what ones choice of words can tell you about the person who wrote this story. Failure? Failure assumes one wanted to be involved in the first place. No, don't be so self-centered, I'm not talking about you. I'm talking about national policy in general. The US didn't want to be involved in Kyoto period. There was no failure. There was no effort, policy or want to join Kyoto. And as long as we're being unbiased, maybe it was because of studies such as this:
The Sun is Getting Hotter
G lobal warming has finally been explained: the Earth is getting hotter because the Sun is burning more brightly than at any time during the past 1,000 years, according to new research. A study by Swiss and German scientists suggests that increasing radiation from the sun is responsible for recent global climate changes.
Dr Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research, said: "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures. The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently - in the last 100 to 150 years."
Dr Solanki said that the brighter Sun and higher levels of "greenhouse gases", such as carbon dioxide, both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtm l?xml=/ne ws/2004/07/18/wsun18.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/07/18/i xnewstop.html
Or this:
Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high
T he Sun, Stanford University Sunspots are plentiful nowadays A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years. Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star's activity in the past.
They say that over the last century the number of sunspots rose at the same time that the Earth's climate became steadily warmer.
This trend is being amplified by gases from fossil fuel burning, they argue.
Sunspots have been monitored on the Sun since 1610, shortly after the invention of the telescope. They provide the longest-running direct measurement of our star's activity. The variation in sunspot numbers has revealed the Sun's 11-year cycle of activity as well as other, longer-term changes. In particular, it has been noted that between about 1645 and 1715, few sunspots were seen on the Sun's surface.
This period is called the Maunder Minimum after the English astronomer who studied it. Ice core disc, Epica Ice cores record climate trends back beyond human measurements It coincided with a spell of prolonged cold weather often referred to as the "Little Ice Age". Solar scientists strongly suspect there is a link between the two events - but the exact mechanism remains elusive.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/386975 3. stm
Or possibly even (and slightly more combative):
Global Warming Activists Studiously Ignore History's Cycles of Warming and Cooling
The latest pseudo-scientific parlor game is pretending that the Little Ice Age didn't happen. We're supposed to ignore the historic reality that the world's mean temperatures dropped sharply by 2 to 4 degrees Fahrenheit from about 1300 AD until at least 1850 AD and fell perhaps a freaky 9 degrees below today's average temperatures in the 13th century.
Let's pretend this well-documented spasm of freezing cold, advancing glaciers, and terrible storms did not freeze the Viking settlers on Greenland to death or create Europe's "year without a summer" in 1315, when crops failed and created massive famine. The silly game of "hide the Little Ice Age" is being played to support the g
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
bloody nose (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what we should do... (Score:4, Funny)
Here's an idea (Score:4, Funny)
How about planting a whole lot of trees?
Yes, I'm being facetious, but I'm also being a bit serious.
Here's another idea - find industrial sources of wasted CO2 and plant trees around them - or harvest the CO2. The Miller brewing company in Irwindale, CA comes to mind immediately - there's nothing surrounding the brewery but a quarry, interstates 605 and 210, and old US 66. And they brew shitloads of beer per month - that's a shitload of CO2.
Re:who says we failed? (Score:4, Informative)
"The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyotoist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. The majority of humankind does not accept this system, despite claims of worldwide support. Even with Russia's ratification, 75 per cent of the world's CO2 is emitted by, 68 per cent of the world's GDP is produced in, and 89 per cent of the world's population live in countries that are not handcuffed by Kyoto's restrictions. Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda. Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated."
http://www.envirotruth.org/news/20041115.cfm
Sites like "envirotruth" (Score:3, Informative)
Re:who says we failed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who says we failed? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who says we failed? (Score:5, Insightful)
and what happened to all the auto workers 10-20 years ago when robots began doing a significant portion of the work? what happened to all the people who's jobs were supplanted or eliminated because of computers? What about the pony express riders when the telegraph was invented?
change happens, we adapt. stifling change for job security is stupid.
Re:90's levels (Score:3, Funny)
So yes. Yes, you can.
Re:Global warming is a myth in 3... 2... 1... (Score:5, Funny)
How was that? I tried to get all the crazy conspiracy elements into teh smallest space possible... what did I leave out?
Re:Who's the rogue state now? (Score:5, Informative)
This 'system' of vouchers is what the US will not buy into... as it leaves us at an automatic pollution deficit with nery little hope of ever catching up.
Re:Who's the rogue state now? (Score:5, Informative)
Then I'll be happy to help explain it. The short version: Kyoto would have required the US to cut its carbon-dioxide emissions by 30-40% over the next 10 years. Cutting CO2 emissions = cutting back on the use of carbon-based fuels like oil, gas, and coal. Those fuels produce over 2/3 of the energy used in the United States. Witness the downturn that the economy took just over the last few months as oil got a bit more expensive and energy production dropped. Now picture another 30-40% drop on top of that. Do you see begin to see how "cutting pollution is good for the economy" is a bit simplistic?
And what would be the end result of the US crippling its economy in this way? Estimates indicate that Kyoto would reduce global temperatures by 0.25 degrees F by the year 2100, and a rise in ocean temperatures of 0.11 degrees C over 40 years (see the journal Science, 4/13/01)
The Kyoto treaty is not the warm-and-fuzzy "save the environment!" treaty you think it is. It's rigid and onerous and gives the UN significant regulatory power over the industries (and economies) of nations that sign it. There's a reason that the Senate decided in a completely bipartisan fashion (95-0) to reject the treaty. It's bad for the US, and it still doesn't solve any global environmental problems.
Re:Who's the rogue state now? (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, if the treaty's ratification were expected instead of resisted, there would be a capital spending boom as companies geared up for the treaty. Those that didn't want to convert would end up subsidizing the industries that did.
A recent clean burning coal generation plant in Clark County Kentucky produced the following benefits, according to the Kentucky Association of Electric Cooperatives:
Up to 700 construction jobs at an average of $60,000 a year.
$11 million in state property taxes in its first 20 years of operation.
$1 million in revenue for Clark County from payroll taxes during construction.
New market for up to 1.2 million tons of coal each year.
Sharply reduced emissions through the latest, proven clean-coal technology called "circulating fluidized bed."
98 percent less sulfur dioxide and 5 times less nitrogen oxide than a conventional pulverized coal power plant.
Enough electricity to supply 19 cities the size of Winchester - 278 megawatts - that's dedicated to serve the cooperative member-owners in Kentucky.
Kyoto isn't the business busting treaty you think it is. We'll see the effects over the next ten years as signatories lap American industries.
Re:Who's the rogue state now? (Score:3, Insightful)
Err, no, there would be a capitol boom in scrubber spending and the like. Paid for by raising electric rates (and other energy?). In turn there will be a corresponding loss in spending in other areas, areas that I'd prefer to see spending.
Now I realize the economy is not a zero sum game, so the correlation will not be one to one. It will be there.
Re:Got it wrong again (Score:3, Insightful)
To the best of my knowledge, neither one of these things has happened in the US. Therefore, I submit that it will not, in fact, become law.
Well, the signatory countries have laws too, you know.
Actually, I think the poster merely misused the word "law" slightly; he just meant that, as the article says, the treaty is to become legally binding. Of course, it only applies to the countries that have ratified it.
Re:I Disagree (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, in a way, we have. We are watching exports drop as countries find alternatives to dealing with us. APEC is now working quite abit closer with Asia rather than with USA due to not trusting our politicians.
Now as to your arguments about production costs, well, you need to look at America vs. the far east/Central-South America/India/etc. We are losing
Yeah, gotta maintain the balance of power (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IF Global Warming were not due to man made caus (Score:3, Interesting)
There are a number of things that could be causing substantial changes in the Earth's global climate picture, and man-made pollution is only one of them.
I conceed that there are local environments that have changed substantially from 10,000 years ago, or even 200 years ago, and t