I didn't miss it; those are things that have happened/are happening in the world but aside from biofuels (and DDT--I'm not sure that's relevant because it's carcinogenic, so malaria is the lesser evil)
DDT is NOT carcinogenic. That's just one of the lies made up to get it banned. While the campaign to ban it was ongoing, a supporter of DDT would eat it by the spoonful to demonstrate its safety. And speaking from personal experience, I grew up on an apple orchard in the Okanaganin the '50's. My father used DDT extensively, even handled it with bare hands. For some other pesticides he suited up in protective clothing, but DDT was safe. He lived to 102.
Sure it's easy for you to believe that malaria is the lesser evil when it's just a few million black people in Africa, but I bet if it was your kids who were vulnerable you'd think different. I got to know some refugees from Sudan and their biggest and ever present fear (after the political unrest and killings) for their kids was malaria. One of the things they specifically mentioned that they liked about Canada was the absence of that killer.
you haven't really made a clear cause and effect connection between the GW movement and all of the above. Sure that's what you're saying but you haven't really backed it up with why that is so.
I listed my concerns as the reason for my protest. You mean you're unaware of the cost of reducing CO2 emissions? Or the effect such expenditure would have on the various economies of the world? I'm surprised.
Now you're talking. The pro-Kyoto argument is that reduction of emissions would result in lower health costs/deaths. The argument is dependent on the idea that average global temperatures are rising and all that that implies.
"all that that implies" is myth. (I'm assuming you're referring to the scare mongering about desertification, increased hurricane and tornado activity and severity, severe weather events, massive crop failures, rising oceans flooding lowlands etc, etc.) However, let's pretend it's not myth but true.
Since it Kyoto doesn't really cover for example water sources (aside from indirectly via polluted rainfall), it doesn't seem reasonable to put people's immediate welfare on the line for the sake of reducing just emissions, in most cases.
Take Forestry for as example of an exception: limits on clear-cutting would cause significant job-loss in the Forestry/lumber industry. However, the costs of losing all that air-filtering potential due to clear-cutting outweighs the cost of unemployment.
You may not be aware, but my career has been in the BC forest industry, first as an employee of the ministry of forests, and later (mostly) in the industry.
So my first question is; Why just clear cutting? Why not all logging? After all, a trees "air filtering potential" is ended when it is cut, either in a clear cut or selective cut.
Second question; Do you think a tree will live forever? They're all going to die anyway eventually. The new seedling that springs up in a logged area isn't any less "air filtering" than one that seeds naturally in a naturally deforested area.
Third question; What the heck do you mean by "air filtering"?
The idea that "Green jobs" are somehow an effective employment-gap filler seems unlikely though. Some jobs are created, but it hardly counters the job loss at the other end. People who promote that just seem to want to have their cake and eat it to; going "green" requires sacrifice (at least initially until you introduce large-scale economic changes to regain viability).
Imposed "green jobs" are overall job killers. "Green jobs" that arise from the economy due to a response to demand are beneficial to the ecnonomy. Any "sacrifice" such as illustrated by the Spanish example I provided will result in large-scale economic changes, but those will be detrimental to the economy for as long as they are imposed by a government.
[BTW I assume by "AGW" you actually meant GW (i.e. Kyoto won't have any impact on non-human-caused CC).]
No, I mean AGW. Even the proponents admit that it will have no meaningful effect. When Vice President Al Gore proudly brought the Kyoto agreement home he knew it would be a tough sell to the American public, so he ordered a scientific study to determine just what the result of a 100% compliance with reduction targets would achieve, thinking that the public would be willing to sacrifice if they knew just how much they would achieve. The result - a reduction in the rate of warming of 7/100th of 1 degree C over the next 50 years. Notice that this isn't a reduction in global temperatures, but only a tiny slowing in the RATE of warming. That's why he and Clinton abandoned any thought of ratifying or implementing it.
I would still say that intended threats to human welfare, like companies polluting water sources just to save a buck (i.e. causing ill-health and death supposedly for the sake of cutting costs and keeping a few more people employed) are more logical targets for protest than generally well-meaning threats to jobs (i.e. Earth Hour).
While I would agree with you that those are laudable targets for protest, I still think it makes much more sense to target the threat that has the most potential for harm (more harm than all those others combined) namely the AGW scare, of which the earth hour demonstration was a part.
I would wager that most of the human-caused health threats faced by humans today all over the world are preventable without causing economic havoc.
And, to be honest, if it does cause havoc...balls to that economy. Humans need to learn how to live responsibly for *uck's sake.
We basically agree on that, and the biggest human caused threat would be the AGW scam.