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Now that Australia has officially ratified the Kyoto protocol do you expect the US to abandon its position as the last remaining developed nation holding out against global green-house gas reduction targets?
My answer under this administration would be no it wont.
I think the world will move forward without the US for a year or so, then a new President will ratify Kyoto and bring the worlds largest emitter in line with the rest of the developed world.
Or are you righty's still claiming it is all a load of hot air coming out of the scientists mouths?
tomder55 agrees: not quite but you are close . Congress is set to pass mandatory CAFE standards that will be very difficult for the auto industry to meet.
Hadn't seen that yet... interesting stuff. Thanks!
There are a number of different arguments against it. One is that it would slow the growth of the world's industrial democracies and also transfer wealth to the third world in what they claim is a global socialism initiative.
If the US does and India and China do not, what trade implications are there?
How can US business compete, not only with their labor costs, but with the added reglations and costs?
He carried out dating tests on the fossil and the results suggest an age of between 80,000 and 150,000 years old
Previous fossils thought to belong to polar bears have been found as far south as the UK, including one from Kew Bridge in London, thought to be 70,000 years old
---- so #1] the polar bear may have been around 10,000 to 80,000 years longer than scientists originally thought
wow - what a margin of error
#2] the polar bear was once as far south as UK and despite the earth warming they continue to survive and will probably continue to survive.
Conserving energy, seeking alternate means to fossil fuels and general good stewardship of the earth is a good and worthy cause - just do it and stop politicizing it.
Skell, I am curious, but I thought that the Canadian government were also opposed as well with the states. Has the canadian government had a change of heart as well, or were there provisions that finally were agreed upon to pass kyoto. Hope you can answer these things for me.
Thanks.
Canada signed Kyoto back in 1997 (along with the US). Canada however also ratified this in 2002 and actually adopted the agreement and agreed to reduce emissions. Australia and the US were the only 2 developed countries not to do this.
Ill agree that there were / are some fundamental issues with Kyoto, however i think they are now being ironed out. Canada, along with other nations agreed with the US on some of these issues, however were still committed to finding a solution.
The problem in the recent talks in Bali was that the US stood in the way, at least until the very final day, of progress being made. Bali was designed for Kyoto nations to look at ways of continuing to reduce emissions beyond 2012.
Although the US actually didn't ratify Kyoto in Bali, they did agree to stay part of the 'climate change process'! Basically Washington has stood its ground on emission cuts claiming that setting goals would hurt its economic growth.
Doesn't really help smaller countries like Samoa, Tonga, Fiji etc. who are directly effected by climate change and rising sea levels. Someone should probably tell them they are just part of the cycle of life so put up with it! Im a little more understanding though. Its probably just a tad disheartening for them to hear that other countries cant 'afford' to do anything while there very existence is in jeopardy.
The reason why I asked is our present government has been absent and many people do not agree with the stance of our current government and in all honesty they wanted to scrap kyoto and not even try to reach their targets. The government here was also talking about bringing in their own targets for just us in Canada and not even be involved in kyoto but I also think that this stance was not well tolerated with the public so the government stood for certain changes in kyoto. In order for it to proceed. The governments point is do not just enforce this on the bigest countries but all developing countries.
By the way... what is the optimal temperature at which the Earth is supposed to operate at? Unless you know the answer to that question, how do you know that the planet is getting "too hot"? Maybe until now it has been too cold, and Nature is fixing that by raising temperatures. So what is the correct temperature of the planet supposed to be?
Fact is, the scientists never mention that point because they don't know the answer. They don't know what the optimal climate conditions are supposed to be, so they really can't say whether the world is getting too hot or too cold or just right. They can only say that temperatures are currently rising, and they ASSUME that this is a bad thing. But there is no proof that its a bad thing at all.
Without that information, how can you know what is best for the planet and for humanity?
Elliot
I dont know the answer to that Elliot. But I'll take the fact that during this 1500 year cycle your talking about, human life has survived and flourished just fine. Meaning we, and the rest of the life on this planet, like the temperature just how it is. There may be no proof Elliot that rising temperatures are bad thing (many will argue with that - I'm not sure your citizens in Hawaii will agree with you there), but there is proof (and your it) that the current temperature is a good thing.
So if life as we know it survives good enough at its current temperature, i say lets look at keeping it there. Id much rather look at our options and act now, then take our chances and hope that when the world heats up everything will be fine and dandy.
There may be no proof that rising temperatures are a bad thing, but there isn't proof that it is a good thing either.
We have a few options the way i see it.
We dont act, we save our money and the world doesnt survive. Well then nothing much is lost is it, because we were always going to lose anyway.
We do act, spend some money and save the world. I'd see it as money well spent don't you?
We do act even though we never had to (unknown), there is downturn in the world economy because of this, but nevertheless we still survive and we live to fight another day. The economy recovers and we move forward.
We dont act and nothing happens (again unknown). Everything goes on as normal.
Im a betting man Elliot but when it comes to the planet Earth id like to have a little more up my sleeve than a 1 in 2 unknown pop that may just very well determine the fate of the planet we live on.
Id prefer to have a few bob each way on something proactive even if i im not entirely convinced on whether i really need to throw my money on it in order to win.
Thats just me.
Im betting you'd be happy to simply do nothing and just hope for the best. Your a banker Elliot, surely thats a risk you wouldnt take with your money is it?
The reason why I asked is our present government has been absent and many people do not agree with the stance of our current government and in all honesty they wanted to scrap kyoto and not even try to reach their targets. The government here was also talking about bringing in their own targets for just us in Canada and not even be involved in kyoto but I also think that this stance was not well tolerated with the public so the government stood for certain changes in kyoto. In order for it to proceed. The governments point is do not just enforce this on the bigest countries but all developing countries.
I think you'll find that Kyoto was originally signed by a previous government (Liberal) and the current administration doesnt go along with that policy (probably only because it wasnt theres). You had a similar problem to us. Our ex-PM was a staunch Bush ally and basically took his policy on almost every international issue even though it wasnt the feelings of his electorate.
I guess that is why he was annihilated (the largest swing against a sitting government ever, and Howard, the PM, actually lost his own seat in parliament) at the recent federal elections and we now have a new government.
The French were publicly critical of your governments change in attitude. However it should be noted that they have succumbed to outside pressure and now agree with the rest of the the Kyoto worlds decisions in Bali.
Did you see the news that a study in the Royal Metereological Society plugged the info on climate into 22 different models the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) uses to model future climate trends . All 22 math models failed to predict the last twenty-five years accurately .
"The usual discussion is whether the climate model forecasts of Earth's climate 100 years or so into the future are realistic," said the lead author, Dr. David H. Douglass from the University of Rochester. "Here we have something more fundamental: Can the models accurately explain the climate from the recent past? It seems that the answer is no."
"The 22 climate models used in this study are the same models used by the UN Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC), which recently shared a Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore."
"We suggest ... that projections of future climate based on these models should be viewed with much caution," said Dr. Fred Singer from the University of Virginia.
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