When I read this, I just had to laugh out loud:
"The outcome [of the UN Climate Conference in Bali] may help determine how high the planet's temperatures rise for decades to come."
I'm laughing again as I post this 'cuz it's just so damn funny! Thanks to AP "Special Correspondent" Charles Hanley for making my day just a bit brighter!!
First of all, the supposition that a U.N. agreement will have any impact whatsoever on anything is a complete joke. No one has paid any U.N. resolution any attention for decades. Not to mention, none of the Kyoto countries are meeting their CO2 emissions goals anyway.
Then, to suggest that we can "determine" the planet's temperature through management of CO2 is complete lunacy. Uh, the Earth's climate is never static and has changed drastically over vast periods of time. It's been warmer and it's been colder and it's had nothing to do with us. So, while we might be able to slightly impact the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, that doesn't mean it will affect the temperature in a linear manner. DUH!
And EVEN IF we could control the temperature through managing CO2 emissions, it's still pure folly to think that we can manage CO2 levels. We've heard doomsday talk of global warming for at least 10 to 15 years and emissions have only gone up. Most of us have hardly changed our CO2 habits and what changes some of us have made are meaningless.
By the way, funny tidbit on Al Gore. Apparently, Al has made his house "green" by adding solar, thermal heating, rain catching, etc.. Basically, he's copied George Bush who was green long before Al. But I have a question. Why did Al feel the need to do this when he was already buying carbon credits to make his house "carbon neutral"? I guess he's admitting that buying credits is in fact the big joke that we already knew it was.
I applaud Al for making his house green, but he's still got a LONG way to go. I researched solar and I can tell you that using solar energy for his mansion may reduce his electric usage by no more than 10% to 20%. His house is too damn big - he'd need a few acres of solar panels to make a dent - and it's in Nashville (deserts work better for solar!). So good for Al, but now if he truly cared, he'd live in a smaller house and start flying commercial. No, his efforts will never be enough for me to stop calling him a complete fraud and hypocrite. But nice try!
UPDATE: Kyoto Progress ( from the American Thinker and census.gov)
The Kyoto treaty was agreed upon in late 1997 and countries started signing and ratifying it in 1998. A list of countries and their carbon dioxide emissions due to consumption of fossil fuels is available from the U.S. government. If we look at that data and compare 2004 (latest year for which data is available) to 1997 (last year before the Kyoto treaty was signed), we find the following.
* Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
* Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 21.1%.
* Emissions from non-signers increased 10.0%.
* Emissions from the U.S. increased 6.6%.
I guess we should sign on so we can get on with the CO2 increase. Merry Christmas!! HO HO HO!!
Great post here.
Of course, since we are the kings of polluters,
a 6.6% increase is very substantial.
Of corse, we didn't even recognize Kyoto, that's our boy!
Bush loves polluters! They're his people.
And you're right about UN resolutions. Nobody gives
a damn unless they want to start a war! Then they come in
handy. And of course, Israel has rebuffed UN resolution 242
for fifty years, but they're our government's friends,
so keep on killing those Palestinians for Christ's sake!
"Yahoooo, we're all gnna die!"
Have a beautiful day my friend,
Joe
And as to the idea that the U.S. is "leading" by having a lower rate of increase in carbon emissions: come on Hoodo, you had to know the problem with that "statistic". Were you just testing us?
One correction, I think it's "whoopee we're all gonna die".
I used the SAME table he uses and compare the increase in emissions for a GROUP of years before 1997 and after 1997, and find very different results.
Emissions from countries that signed the treaty increased 11.65 percent while emissions from non-signers increased 12.01 percent.
http://unremarkablepolitics.blogspot.com/2007/12/kyoto-protocol-why-us-must-ratify.html
As for the "test", i don't know what you're talking about. If you mean that our carbon increased more in real numbers, but lower as a percent - so what? Kyoto is based on a reduction of usage from a specific year for that country which means that percentage increase or decrease from a particular year is what's important, not the actual amount. In fact, the percentage change in emmission is the key figure in making progress. If Europe grew by a higher percentage than us, then they will eventually catch up to our total emmissions right? You can compare our emmissions to others all you want - of course ours is the highest because it is totally in line with our economy. We have the highest standard of living in the world, so it follows. However, we will also be leading in terms of finding technologies to reduce it when two things happen: 1) your leftist environmental wackos stop blocking nuclear energy and 2) it becomes an economic imperative for the free-market to find solutions (and I don't mean gov't mandates). By the way, the car you drive, the air-conditioner you use in the summer and heat in the winter, the computer(s) you use and 5 televisions in your house, your vacation trips via airlines and on and on are your contributions. How will signing Kyoto change how you live?
Jags, you really crack me up. I'm not going to look up your numbers and mine, I'll just believe yours all the way. If you don't see how funny they are, then we'll just have to agree to disagree.
My original point was that the AP and UN can say all they want about controling temperatures, but the fact is we can't and we won't (i.e. won't change our behavior radically enough to even make a dent). My follow on point was that signing the Kyoto vs. not signing it really doesn't seem to have made much difference (i.e. no one really is successfully reducing emmissions). You didn't refute the main point, the follow on point or any support arguments (even using Jags percentages instead of mine).
Your comments are interesting, but I'd rather hear how you think I'm wrong.