China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter

[ctj]

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I think that those who oppose Kyoto on the grounds that China isn't covered are letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. The fact is, there is a ton of good that the West can do to solve global warming. China not doing their part is no excuse for the West to not do theirs.

Also, my liberal side tells me that we should bear a greater burden to cut CO2 precisely because we're wealthier and we can afford it.

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The point is, we are told that global warming is a 'crisis', requiring that we submit to taxation, regulation, and limitation of energy production and usage - ie. more gov't mirocmanagement of our lives. But if the crisis is so dire as to warrant these remedies, why is 2/3 of the world allowed to continue to exacerbate the problem?

Furthermore, Kyoto provides incentives (by exempting 'developing' nations) to shift carbon emission from Europe and the US (if US ratified Kyoto) to China and India which likely emit more CO2 per unit of production.

Since the even doomsayers (by their actions) seem to tacitly acknowledge that the problem isn't quite such an immediate crisis, I'd prefer to let the market deal with it: there are lots of entrepeneurs out there trying to make money from clean power generation, hi-tech carbon fixation, etc, etc.

[adios]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that those who oppose Kyoto on the grounds that China isn't covered are letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. The fact is, there is a ton of good that the West can do to solve global warming. China not doing their part is no excuse for the West to not do theirs.

Also, my liberal side tells me that we should bear a greater burden to cut CO2 precisely because we're wealthier and we can afford it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's not only re-distribute income to U.S. citizens, let's re-distribute it to the rest of the world too.

U.S. Senate voted 95-0 to not ratify the treaty. Many, many opinions that Kyoto would cost U.S. citizens jobs, result in higher energy costs for U.S. consummers, and do little to halt the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

[AzDesertRat]

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Why is it crazy that the Kyoto Protocol doesnt apply to developing nations?

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Question of the day--while I would consider myself somewhat of an environmentalist, I thought Kyoto's biggest shortfall is that it failed to included two of the fastest growing economies in the world who also happened to be the most populous. Between both of them, they have almost a third of the world's population. How much sense does it make not to include them reducing their emissions in any talks?

[wacki]

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Remember Kyoto protocol doesn't apply to China or India. How crazy is that? UN supporters take note.

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I would just like to point out that a lot of the scientists I know don't support Kyoto. Of all the climatologists I've met or talked to via e-mail only one of them had expressed faith in it. Heck, even some of the people that wrote the damn thing (Thomas C. Heller) were criticizing it over a year ago. There are tons of anti-kyoto posts on the environmental blog Grist Mill.

In all honesty I'd like to have a list of scientists that actually do support it. It would be interesting to see how many people I know and respect are on that list.

[wacki]

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Many, many opinions that Kyoto would cost U.S. citizens jobs, result in higher energy costs for U.S. consummers, and do little to halt the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.

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The job loss argument is nonsense. Steven Schneider compared the recent gas price hikes against Kyoto and it was many many times larger. Unfortunately that price signal is in the transportation sector and not the power grid. As far as Kyoto making a difference I will actually go as far as saying it does more harm than good for a wide variety of reasons. On paper Kyoto looks nice once you actually understand it but in the real world it's a complete disaster. There are more than a few environmentalists and scientist that hold this opinion as well. For example:

Mary Taylor, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said: “It really is perverse. It allows western companies to continue polluting while handing over large amounts of money to a company in India, which itself produces large amounts of greenhouse gases.”

In all honesty I don't understand the people that support Kyoto. It's like they have blind faith in insanely complex big brother big government projects. When I first heard about carbon trading my first impression was "well, that's a breeding ground for abuse and corruption". And that is exactly what is going on.

[lehighguy]

But wouldn't we have to change our lifestyles without our carbon credit "indulgences".

Environmentalism was always about rich white people wanting to feel good about themselves by forcing difficult changes on people other then themselves.

[threeonefour]

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Remember Kyoto protocol doesn't apply to China or India. How crazy is that? UN supporters take note.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would just like to point out that a lot of the scientists I know don't support Kyoto. Of all the climatologists I've met or talked to via e-mail only one of them had expressed faith in it. Heck, even some of the people that wrote the damn thing (Thomas C. Heller) were criticizing it over a year ago. There are tons of anti-kyoto posts on the environmental blog Grist Mill.

In all honesty I'd like to have a list of scientists that actually do support it. It would be interesting to see how many people I know and respect are on that list.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think a lot of the argument centering around what scientists think about policy is garbage. they aren't economists, they aren't political scientist, they aren't policy makers, they really can only weigh in on policy in a very limited fashion.


of course their opinions are worthwhile, but they aren't the be all, end all of policy discussion.

[wacki]

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But wouldn't we have to change our lifestyles without our carbon credit "indulgences".

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As long as you continue to eat food produced by diesel guzzling tractors then no amount of lifestyle change will stop a major climate shift. It will only slow the process down. Major advances in technology need to happen and it is my opinion that these "lifestyle" people need to run the numbers on how much of a reduction in CO2 we need to stabilize at 550ppm. In all honesty I think we will be lucky to stabilize at 750ppm which is much higher than what the IPCC projections are based off of. And there are a lot of incredibly smart people that are saying exactly this. While I'm happy that I will be fine future generations have a massive problem to deal with.

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Environmentalism was always about rich white people wanting to feel good about themselves by forcing difficult changes on people other then themselves.

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If you are talking Sheryl "one square" Crow, Meryl Streep and other limousine liberals then I agree.

[wacki]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Remember Kyoto protocol doesn't apply to China or India. How crazy is that? UN supporters take note.

[/ QUOTE ]

I would just like to point out that a lot of the scientists I know don't support Kyoto. Of all the climatologists I've met or talked to via e-mail only one of them had expressed faith in it. Heck, even some of the people that wrote the damn thing (Thomas C. Heller) were criticizing it over a year ago. There are tons of anti-kyoto posts on the environmental blog Grist Mill.

In all honesty I'd like to have a list of scientists that actually do support it. It would be interesting to see how many people I know and respect are on that list.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think a lot of the argument centering around what scientists think about policy is garbage. they aren't economists, they aren't political scientist, they aren't policy makers, they really can only weigh in on policy in a very limited fashion.


of course their opinions are worthwhile, but they aren't the be all, end all of policy discussion.

[/ QUOTE ]

True but a lot of people denounce the science because they think scientists are trying to push their 'anti-American socialist Kyoto' on the world when that is simply not true.

[JOHNY CA$H]

[ QUOTE ]
I think that those who oppose Kyoto on the grounds that China isn't covered are letting the perfect become the enemy of the good. The fact is, there is a ton of good that the West can do to solve global warming. China not doing their part is no excuse for the West to not do theirs.

Also, my liberal side tells me that we should bear a greater burden to cut CO2 precisely because we're wealthier and we can afford it.

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