If the NYT and the IPCC are disappointed then all is not lost.
Posted on 12/17/2007 4:05:30 AM PST by ricks_place
A week that could have brought important progress on climate change ended in disappointment.
In Bali, where delegates from 187 countries met to begin framing a new global warming treaty, America’s negotiators were in full foot-dragging mode, acting as spoilers rather than providing the leadership the world needs.
In Washington, caving to pressures from the White House, the utilities and the oil companies, the Senate settled for a merely decent energy bill instead of a very good one that would have set the country on a clear path to a cleaner energy future.
The news from Bali was particularly disheartening. The delegates agreed to negotiate by 2009 a new and more comprehensive global treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol. (Kyoto expires in 2012 and requires that only industrialized nations reduce their production of greenhouse gases.) They pledged for the first time to address deforestation, which accounts for one-fifth of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. And they received vague assurances from China — which will soon overtake the United States as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases — and other emerging powers that they would seek “measurable, reportable and verifiable” emissions cuts.
From the United States the delegates got nothing, except a promise to participate in the forthcoming negotiations. Even prying that out of the Bush administration required enormous effort.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
At least the NYT is not demonstrating any bias here.
As a farmer, I’m disappointed by the climate just about every day. It never does what I want.
The government already taxes big oil. They tax them at the pump. Citizen's pay for the privilege of buying gasoline from Big Oil and are penalized to the tune of about 20% for it. Taxes in other ranks (not of the pump) would only add to the price at the pump and the collections the government would receive. There is no such thing as a "company" paying taxes. The cost of taxes and of doing business is all rolled into the price that consumers pay, especially with regards to commodities.
“At least the NYT is not demonstrating any bias here.”
Nope. No bias at all. </sarc_off>
The Kyoto Protocol: A Post-Mortem
S. Fred Singer
It may not be a household word, but by now the Kyoto Protocol has become a well-known political slogan. President Bush has called it “fundamentally flawed,” while some environmentalists in America and Europe have said it is essential for saving the Earth’s climate and the future of humanity itself. Many on the right have called it economic madness, while for many on the left it is an ecological article of faith. There seems to be no position in between.
The Kyoto Protocol is a treaty intended to ration the use of energy in order to address the concerns of those who believe that we face a global warming catastrophe. These worriers include not only environmental groups and anti-capitalist radicals, but also a surprising number of mainstream technocrats throughout the West, such as former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill and Sir David King, the scientific advisor to the British government, who equates the threat of warming with that of international terrorism.
But the facts have always made it clear that Kyoto would be outrageously costly and completely ineffective—as designed, it would not even noticeably influence the climate. And more importantly, in light of recent developments, the treaty is essentially defunct. Now may be the ideal moment to reexamine the origins and shortcomings of the Kyoto Protocol, and to learn its lessons before future global warming treaties repeat its mistakes.
S. Fred Singer, “The Kyoto Protocol: A Post-Mortem,” The New Atlantis, Number 4, Winter 2004, pp. 66-73.
Full Text http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/4/singer.htm
It's rare that I am in agreement with the NYT. US negotiators should not have gone the the conference in "foot dragging mode." Rather they sould not hove gone to the conference at all.
It makes me feel so good to know that the New York Times and a bunch of European envirowhackos are disappointed.
Here is to still needing a coat in the winter.
I’m sure the folks in New England probably agree.
It was nice to see Bloomberg News tally the total amount of carbon output of those attending; an estimated 20,000 vehicle for 1 year to hold a conference with lavish amenities.
If the IPCC is looking for leadership, why is it hard to ask that they look into a mirror?
My wife is in New Hartford area right now. She says it’s snowing in New England in December. Imagine that? The funny thing about the global warming crowd is that it has become the new model to prove that the use of statistics in an unscientific manner can prove whatever you want. We are classmates of a scientist who was employed by an arm of congress to review some climate report for them. He spent a year plus trying to support the conclusions based on the data. In the end he could only preface the report’s validity with phrases like “might, and could possibly”. They (congress panel leaders) tried to have him arrested. It seems he could not take a conclusion and support it with facts.
I think they are blowing sunshine up our .... shorts. I think they are trying to deceive us as there will be glaciers covering Wisconsin in a short 10,000 years.
Sorry....New Haven.
40% of the country can be categorized as having a liberal political opinion about most government policies.
Therefore, 30% of the nation will believe any statistic that a liberal politician or pundit quotes.
For the record, there’s a frickin glacier covering my place in Wisconsin right now. We have not seen a high above 20 with lows a few below or above zero for two weeks now. It’s not even winter yet!
What scares me is if they get something pushed through and the Global temps do drop they will claim victory and then feel they can do anything they want. Free society will be gone forever.
The uncaring conservative policies of our government have caused certain death and suffering to our population in the past, right now, and in the future. Unless something is done right now, and at great rates of public expenditure, 100% of Americans and their children will become victims.
The chilly weather you describe is more acurately named Climate Change, another product of Global Warming.
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