This seems extraordinary. 10 years ago a bunch of bureaucrats, led by Al Gore, met in the Japanese city of Kyoto and dreamed up a “solution” to the apparent problem of global warming by drafting up a bunch of rules around limiting emissions.
These limits were inherently unfair to already developed countries and would have had the effect of grinding the world’s economy, if not to a halt, at least would have damaged it irreparably. Accordingly, the United States decided not to ratify it with a unanimous vote in the Senate, where all such ratifications occur.
Now, this is not to say that the agreement wasn’t signed by a representative of the United States. Al Gore did get behind this thing, but he couldn’t even get the support of his President, who quickly realized that the people weren’t going to like it one bit. That, of course, doesn’t stop the NY Times from making statements like this (note: this isn’t a commentary column, it’s a “news article”):
There appears to be broad consensus that this should be ready by 2009, in time to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the current agreement that limits emissions by all wealthy countries except the United States, which signed the Kyoto agreement but has refused to adopt it.
Interesting statement, considering what I just said above, isn’t it? Makes it sound like we’re supposed to be following this agreement, and the bias of the reporter is exposed. However, they do note later, although without the importance that I would put on it, that Russia, India and China also have not agreed to Kyoto and don’t look like they’re going to ante up to the new agreement drafted in the remote island nation of Bali. Considering that China is just now taking over as the world’s top emissions leader you would think that environmental advocates would start going after them and not the U.S., which, despite not agreeing to the UN’s blackmail, has far tougher federal incentives and regulations regarding pollution than most of the countries attending the event, and certainly more than the three mentioned above.
No mention is made of the agreement among southeastern Asian and Pacific region nations, brokered by the US a couple of years ago, that contained ideas and agreements that actually have a realistic shot at reducing global warming related emissions. That story was lost almost as fast as it was issued. Try to find it on Google. You’ll be digging.
Separately, the governments at the conference were close to agreement Friday on a system that would compensate developing countries for protecting their rainforests, a plan that environmentalists described as an innovative effort to mitigate global warming.
The precise ways that countries with large rainforests, like Indonesia and Brazil, would be compensated have not been fully worked out.
Here again we see how bureaucrats think. Instead of helping these countries get to a place where they’re economy is not based on ruining their own environment, we get economic blackmail. Or environmental welfare, if you like. We’ll just take money from those “rich” countries (capitalists) to help out the less fortunate so they won’t feel the need to cut down their forests (rob mini-marts).
This thinking is just futile, and the U.S. Senate is no more likely to ratify than the last time. The presence of Gore in Bali isn’t helping the cause.
The ridicule these people are getting by flying (some in private jets) to a remote island to discuss reducing emissions isn’t helping their cause either. Glenn Reynolds, one of the most read bloggers in the world, continually repeats the mantra that he’ll start taking global warming seriously when the people who are telling us it is start acting like it is.
And along with news of re-forming ice sheets in the Antarctic and evidence of solar effects on the atmosphere muddying up the global warming arguments, there’s a new possible cause of melting ice in Greenland. And it’s not humankind.
