Climate Talks End Amid Row (Beep Throws In A Dose Of America Bashing

World climate talks in Bali have gone into their scheduled last day amid fierce disagreement over targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

EU ministers have warned they will boycott a US-led climate summit next month unless the Bush administration backs firm targets for emissions cuts.

Indonesia is trying to broker a compromise that would remove firm targets from the final text.

My own country, the US, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali Al Gore

Q and A: Bali summit "We are entering the final hours of the conference ,and I'm pleased to say there has been progress both towards the 'Bali roadmap' and some other important issues," said the EU's Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas.

The Bali roadmap is the document supposed to emerge from this conference that will set the parameters for negotiating a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, whose current emissions targets expire in 2012.

The European Union states and their allies want industrialised countries to agree to cuts of 25%-40% in greenhouse gas emissions - which mainly come from burning fossil fuels - from 1990 levels by 2020.

"We continue to insist on including a reference to an indicative emissions reduction range for developed countries for 2020," Mr Dimas re-affirmed.

On the other side are the US, Canada and Japan. The US in particular, which has not ratified the Kyoto agreement, says any numerical agreement would prejudge the outcome of future talks.

The Indonesian-led compromise proposal would remove the 2020 numerical target, but maintain a longer term ambition of more than halving emissions by 2050.

Many environmental advocates, including former US vice-president Al Gore, have criticised the US approach.

Mr Gore won loud applause from delegates as he said: "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali."

"You can decide to move forward and do the difficult work that needs to be done," he said.

The US is the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, and most parties recognise that climate change talks without it would be meaningless.

In September the US hosted the inaugural summit of the "major economies" or "big emitters" group, which brings together 16 of the leading greenhouse gas producing countries.

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin, reporting from Bali, says the European threat to boycott the conference pushes President Bush into a corner.

Either he agrees to negotiate big cuts, or he has to explain to an increasingly concerned American public why Europe is boycotting a meeting which the President himself has invented and championed, our correspondent says.

The Bali Conference would exempt developing countries from having to contribute to reducing CO2 emissions. But that didn't stop the BBC from throwing in some good old fashioned America-bashing:

Mr Gore won loud applause from delegates as he said: "My own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress in Bali."

And then there's this:

The BBC's environment analyst Roger Harrabin, reporting from Bali, says the European threat to boycott the conference pushes President Bush into a corner.

Either he agrees to negotiate big cuts, or he has to explain to an increasingly concerned American public why Europe is boycotting a meeting which the president himself has invented and championed, our correspondent says.

Its all Bush's fault for refusing to commit America to a scheme that would handcuff our economy and hand a huge advantage to Third World competitors. I think the American people know the stakes involved better than the MSM.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

As a consultant to industry and as a broker, Gore and his associates will reap billions in a North American carbon credit trading system.

NEWSWEEK: AL GORE NOW WORTH MORE THAN $100 MILLION

[Since 2000, according to published reports, the former veep has transformed himself from a public servant with around $1 million in the bank to a sparkling private consultant with a net worth estimated to be north of $100 million. He’s a senior adviser to Google, a board member at Apple and now a newly minted general partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, the Silicon Valley venture-capital firm that made billions investing early in Netscape, Amazon and Google.]

http://www.newsweek.com/id/71011

U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions Declined 1.5 Percent in 2006

Total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 7,075.6 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2006, a decrease of 1.5 percent from the 2005 level according to Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2006, a report released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Since 1990, U.S. GHG emissions have grown at an average annual rate of 0.9 percent. The 2006 emissions decrease is only the third decline in annual emissions since 1990.

U.S. GHG emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or “U.S. GHG-intensity,” fell from 653 metric tons per million 2000 constant dollars of GDP (MTCO2e/$Million GDP) in 2005 to 625 MTCO2e /$Million GDP in 2006, a decline of 4.2 percent. Since 1990, the annual average decline in GHG-intensity has been 2.0 percent.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/neic/press/press291.html

Just what is a “greenhouse gas”, and how do any of the schemes revealed have anything to do with “reducing” them in any way?

The only thing that seems to have been done is to put an elaborate method of transfer payments in place, for the trading of “carbon credits” (for a fee) between “Haves” and “Have-nots”, with the perpetrators of the scheme getting commissions on every transfer of “carbon credits” (which appear to have been manufactured out of thin air).

The most corrosive and dangerous gas of all in our atmosphere is elemental oxygen, which makes up some 21% of earth’s air supply, but would not exist as a free substance at all, but for carbon dioxide and water vapor. And that only because of the presence of green growing plants, both standing on the land and in the seas.

The Lord in all his wisdom arranged for there to be a steady quantity of carbon dioxide to be formed, to constantly replenish the atmosphere with this very necessary compound, so that free oxygen is continuously generated, thereby assuring that all animal life, including humans, may breath deeply and consume the largesse of plant life directly, and indirectly, through the flesh of animal life, to sustain themselves. All life on earth was made adaptable to some very wide variations in the presence of both carbon dioxide and water vapor in the atmosphere and dissolved in the seas of the world, that life in all its variety may continue.

Now comes Al Gore, with his pronouncements that carbon dioxide is a “pollutant”, theefore bad, and must be strictly regulated “for the good of us all”. The basis of that regulation looks suspiciously like just another way to extract fees and taxes from the “producers” of carbon dioxide, for the benefit of “sequesterers” of carbon dioxide.

Well, NEWS FLASH. The “production” of carbon dioxide and its later “sequestration” from the atmosphere goes on perfectly well with NO input whatsoever from the actions of humanity, as the presence of “excess” carbon dioxide is readily absorbed by more luxuriant growth of plant matter. Even mining fossil carbon compounds out of the earth’s crust and burning them does not in any way this ecological balance for more than a season at most. All it takes is the presence of sunshine and sufficient warmth to assure the continued growth of plants.

Does global warming occur? Of course, and throughout the ages, the latent heat of the earth’s atmosphere and hydrosphere has risen and fallen, a number of times. Life (including humanity) has adapted, every time. What causes global warming? Greater or lesser amounts of radiation received from the sun. What causes greater (or lesser) amounts of radiation from the sun to be retained in the earth’s biosphere? Well, now, the earth radiates just about as much energy from the side turned away from the sun, as is absorbed on the side that is turned toward the sun. And the biggest factor of all in that absorption and release of energy received from the sun?

Water vapor. Water has a most peculiar capacity for absorbing, holding and releasing heat energy, and is actually the standard for measuring the capability of all other compounds and elements to gain or lose heat. Carbon dioxide has a similar capacity to absorb energy, but since water vapor is present in the atmosphere, and is constantly cycling between the liquid, gaseous and solid states, while carbon dioxide only exists as the gaseous form under typical conditions of pressure and temperature in our atmosphere, the potential for absorption and release of heat energy is about a thousand times as great for water in all its forms, as compared to carbon dioxide. First of all, because there is WAY more water vapor in our atmosphere than carbon dioxide, and the fact that the phase change from solid to liquid to vapor for water either absorbs or releases HUGE quantities of heat. Look it up.

Thermodynamics. The curse of the fanciful imagination.

Runaway heating of the earth, its atmosphere, and its oceans is just about as likely as a race of fairies transporting us all to the moon. Ain’t gonna happen.

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