Kyoto Protocol

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

Yup, Arctic is melting, but then it has happened before, like about 100 years ago (can't remember where I read that old account) but back then they thought it was a good thing.

Not even vaguely like this. We're talking about permafrost that has been there since the last ice age disappearing. Northern people can't navigate safely on the ice anymore because it is disappearing. So are the polar bears.

And the antarctic cap is growing.

That's not accurate. Parts of it are growing due a micro-climate (micro-climates were predicted in the earliest warming models). Other parts are shrinking though, so the claim that the entire ice mass is growing is misleading at best.

Those predictions were only made after the temp increase predictions failed.

The temperature increase predictions haven't failed. They are happening more quickly than predicted, but that isn't failure in the way that you mean. The predictions were made back in the 1980s before we expected to see any effect within 100 years.

Weather events have not become more extreme.

Yes they have. Including more freqent and violent storms, heat waves, droughts, floods, and cold snaps. Winter comes later and spring arrives earlier.

Hadn't heard that one. Friend of mine was in Tanzenia last summer and there was snow.

Now there isn't. Even last year it was severely reduced. Look it up.

I never heard the argument that the hockey stick was central to global warming theory or Kyoto, and never said that.

That is one of the central themes of the global warming deniers. If you have truly researched this, you have run across that little bit of misinformation more than once. It is what the astroturfs present as the main reason for the importance of the hockey stick theory.

It was done after the fact, but it was advanced as supporting evidence for global warming, and still is.

It is advanced as such because it still is evidence of global warming. It is one piece of a vast amount of scientific data.

My question was, since it doesn't show this historic event, would you then agree that it is bad science? Or are you suggesting that the little ice age never happened? (I did click on the link but didn't have time to go through all the material. I didn't find anything there that answered that question either.)

Do understand statisical data at all? Your sources have been shown not to understand it. Not surprising since they aren't scientists. You need to go through a lot of data. Several of the links I've supplied provide explanations or have links to explanations of how and why the hockey stick data works. If you won't read the data, I can't help you.

Kyoto fully implemented (including USA and Australia) with all countries meeting their targets would have no effect.

Again, this isn't accurate. We produce more greenhouse gasses every year, so saying that curbing those emissions would have no effect is silly.

Do you seriously believe that countries like China and India will sign on to the next round?

Yes. More than that, if we develop the technology they will adopt it even before they sign on. They are energy hungry but are not stuck with the existing infrastructure we are so they will adopt whatever provides energy.

Do you realize the extent of the action that would have to be taken if global warming theory were true? We'd have to shut down all industry and most agriculture in the world.

Again, that's not accurate. It's nothing more than a scare tactic.

We don't have the technology to replace current emission energy.

Actually we could halve our emissions just by using existing technologies off the shelf. Those technologies will advance and become more efficient as they are developed though. They always do.

They have a socialist agenda, and anti-capitalist agenda. Socialism is the politics of envy. It's not about climate, it's all about envy.

Bullshit. Malignant bullshit. There is no left-wing conspiracy attached to Kyoto or global warming theory. Science is notoriously apolitical.

Forget the Kyoto stuff and push the technology. The sooner we can develope a "cold fusion" type of energy production, the better.

Ah, do nothing until we find a magic bullet. Cold fusion or nothing. Science and technology doesn't work that way...it is built on what came before. There is no magic bullet. There are a variety of technologies that allow conservation and alternative energy production. They are available now, have been for decades, but they have been discouraged by the oil-interests and the governments they pay for.

 

[Extrafire]

Re: Kyoto

I'm getting a little tired of this so I'll respond to a couple points and leave it at that. Not as though I ever thought I would change your mind.

The temperature increase predictions haven't failed. They are happening more quickly than predicted, but that isn't failure in the way that you mean. The predictions were made back in the 1980s before we expected to see any effect within 100 years.

Oh yes they have. The first predictions were made in the 80's and they get revised every couple years, always downgraded. Not one has come close.

Yes they have. Including more freqent and violent storms, heat waves, droughts, floods, and cold snaps

We're told the have, but if you actually go back and check the statistics, they haven't

Quote:
I never heard the argument that the hockey stick was central to global warming theory or Kyoto, and never said that.


That is one of the central themes of the global warming deniers. If you have truly researched this, you have run across that little bit of misinformation more than once. It is what the astroturfs present as the main reason for the importance of the hockey stick theory.

Considering all the years I've been following this debate, and considering the side I'm on, you'd think I would have heard that argument, but I hadn't till you brought it up. I think it's likely just propaganda by your side to discredit your opponents.

My question was, since it doesn't show this historic event, would you then agree that it is bad science? Or are you suggesting that the little ice age never happened? (I did click on the link but didn't have time to go through all the material. I didn't find anything there that answered that question either.)


Do understand statisical data at all? Your sources have been shown not to understand it. Not surprising since they aren't scientists. You need to go through a lot of data. Several of the links I've supplied provide explanations or have links to explanations of how and why the hockey stick data works. If you won't read the data, I can't help you.

Boy, you sure do know how to dodge the question. I wonder why? I suspect it's because you know that either way you answer it you're wrong. If you say it never happened, you're obviously wrong, since it's a historic fact. If you say it did, then the hockey stick is obviously bad science. (It's OK, I won't ask you again.)

Again, this isn't accurate. We produce more greenhouse gasses every year, so saying that curbing those emissions would have no effect is silly.

Even Kyoto supporters have acknowledged that full implementation will have a neglagible effect. If we slow the warming from a period of 100 years to 106 years the end result is still the same.

Yes. More than that, if we develop the technology they will adopt it even before they sign on. They are energy hungry but are not stuck with the existing infrastructure we are so they will adopt whatever provides energy.

Damn right they'll adopt the technology. Who wouldn't? And yes, they are just as stuck as we are with the existing infrastructure. But they aren’t dumb enough to sign onto the kind of deal we did.

Do you realize the extent of the action that would have to be taken if global warming theory were true? We'd have to shut down all industry and most agriculture in the world.

Again, that's not accurate. It's nothing more than a scare tactic.

Use a little logic here. If the atmospheric balance is as delicate as you say, and human emissions are having the effect you say, then they must be virtually eliminated. That's just common sense. We don't have the technology to replace all that in the time frame you require.

Those technologies will advance and become more efficient as they are developed though. They always do.

Yup, you're right about that, as long as the private sector is free to develope it.

Bullshit. Malignant bullshit. There is no left-wing conspiracy attached to Kyoto or global warming theory. Science is notoriously apolitical.

There's no left-wing conspiracy as such, but the leftists do want to dismantle the capitalist system and this is a handy tool that they've recognized as effective to that purpose. Science is apolitical but scientists are human. When they have the opportunity to tap into never ending research grants many of them will find what the grantors want. And the government wants global warming.

Ah, do nothing until we find a magic bullet. Cold fusion or nothing. Science and technology doesn't work that way...it is built on what came before.

No, that's not what I said. Instead of wasting time and money on a symbolic program that accomplishes nothing, it would be money better spent to put it into science and technology research in order to come up with something that actually works as quickly as possible.

Damn! I posted way more than I intended to.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

Damn! I posted way more than I intended to.

And even with all that typing, you never got one fact right.

I haven't dodged any questions, by the way. I can't help it if you are too lazy to read the links or not literate enough to understand them. Actually the problem was revealed when you tried to say that this was all some leftist conspiracy. You are dogmatically incapable of accepting the truth because you feel politically threatened by it.

:roll:

 

[Extrafire]

Re: Kyoto

I was asking you for your opinion. Easy question to answer but no, you just post links, won't answer, dodge, dodge, dodge........

I'll say no more.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

These are from the BBC

"This is a tiny step in the hockey stick analysis. If you do it in different ways, you still get the answer you got before, providing you don't throw away any significant data," said Gavin Schmidt, of the US space agency's (Nasa) Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, US, who has worked in the past with Michael Mann.

Dr Schmidt points out that McIntyre and McKitrick use a different convention but do not alter subsequent steps in their analysis to account for this.

As a result, he says, McIntyre and McKitrick's analysis removes crucial data included in the original hockey stick work.

"They keep going on about one data set, but there are loads of others that show the same thing," Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, UK, commented.

He points to a paper published in February in Nature by Anders Moberg and colleagues that found the late 20th Century was the warmest period in at least the past 2,000 years, using data from climate proxies such as lake sediments and stalagmites.

These are from Deltoid. You can check the links within the website for more information.

McKitrick guide

There seems to be some confusion about McKitrick’s latest attempt to refute global warming. For instance, Andrew Sullivan thinks that McKitrick’s famous degrees-radians screw up is part of this latest attempt. However, McKitrick claims to have refuted global warming in several different ways and the degrees-radians screw up was a in a different paper to his latest one. I decided to draw up a table to help folks sort them out.
Authors Summary Consequences if he is right Status
Essex and McKitrick There is no physical basis to average temperature. No global warming because there is no such thing as global temperature. Failed—the whole field of thermodynamics has not been thrown out.
McKitrick and McIntyre version 1 The hockey stick graph was the product of “collation errors, unjustifiable truncations of extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculations of principal components, and other quality control defects.” The global warming we are seeing might be natural. Mann et al publish a correction to the supplementary information for the hockey stick graph. They say that the errors do not affect their published results.
McKitrick and Michaels Surface temperature record is contaminated by economic influences. No evidence that there is global warming going on Results go away after errors such as confusing degrees with radians are corrected.
McKitrick and McIntyre version 2 hockey stick is the product of improper normalization of the data. The global warming we are seeing might be natural. Jury is still out, but it does not look promising for McKitrick

Meanwhile, James Annan agrees with Connolley’s concerns about M&Mv2:

Having had a quick glance at this and their papers, I think I agree with you. In fact it appears that we can add not knowing the difference between multiplication and division, to the already impressive list of blunders that M&M have made. They even seem to talk about adding the mean to the time series rather than subtracting it too. I might check this more carefully over the next few days if no-one else beats me to it.

Brad DeLong also seems to agree.

But Connolley argues—I think correctly—that McKitrick and McIntyre are simply confused: the normalizations diminish the influence of series that show a recent uptrend.

Deja Hockey Stick

In this column, Richard Muller claims that McKitrick and McIntyre have shown that the hockey stick graph is an “artifact of poor mathematics”. If you have been following the global warming debate this claim should look familiar, because McKitrick and McIntyre made the same claim last year as well. So what’s new? Well, last year they claimed that the hockey stick was the product “collation errors, unjustifiable truncations of extrapolation of source data, obsolete data, geographical location errors, incorrect calculations of principal components, and other quality control defects.” Now they are saying that the hockey stick is the product of improper normalization of the data. This is an improvement on their previous claims, since it seems that it will be reasonably simple to test. William Connolley has looked at the data and thinks M&M are probably wrong:

But (having read their paper) I now think I understand what they think the problem is (aside: they complain about data issues with some series but I think this is beside the point: the main point they are talking about is below), and I think that they are probably wrong, based on reading MBH’s Fortran (aside: Fortran is a terrible language for doing this stuff, they should use a vector language like IDL). But anyway:

Lets for the moment assume for simplicity that these series run from 1000 (AD) to 1980. MBH want to calibrate them against the instrumental record so they standardise them to 1902–1980. 1902–1980 is the “training period”.

What M&M are saying (and Muller is repeating) is (and I quote): the data

“were first scaled to the 1902-1980 mean and standard deviation, then the PCs were computed using singular value decomposition (SVD) on the transformed data…”

they complain that this means that:

“For stationary series in which the 1902–1980 mean is the same as the 1400–1980 mean, the MBH98 method approximately zero-centers the series. But for those series where the 1902–1980 mean shifts (up or down) away from the 1400–1980 mean, the variance of the shifted series will be inflated.”

This is a plausible idea: if you take 2 series, statistically identical, but when one trends up at the end where the other happens to be flat, and you compute the SD of just the end bit, and then scale the series to this SD, then you would indeed inflate the variance of the up trending series artificially. But hold on a minute… this is odd… why would you scale the series to the SD? You would expect to scale the series by the SD. Which would, in fact, reduce the variance of upwards trending series. And also, you might well think, shouldn’t you take out a linear trend over 1902–1980 before computing the SD?

So we need to look at MBH’s software, not M&M’s description of it. MBH’s software is here, and you can of course read it yourself… Fortran is so easy to read…

What they do is (search down over the reading in data till you get to 9999 continue):

1. remove the 1902-1980 mean
2. calc the SD over this period
3. divide the whole series by this SD, point by point

At this point, the new data are in the situation I described above: datasets that trend upwards at the end have had their variance reduced not increased. But there is more…

4. remove the linear trend from the new 1902-1980 series
5. compute the SD again for 1902-1980 of the detrended data
6. divide the whole series by this SD.

This was exactly what I was expecting to see: remove the linear trend before computing the SD.

Then the SVD type stuff begins. So… what does that all mean? It certainly looks a bit odd, because steps 1–3 appear redundant. The scaling done in 4–6 is all you need. Is the scaling of 1–3 harmful? Not obviously.

Perhaps someone would care to go through and check this. If I haven’t made a mistake then I think M&M’s complaints are unjustified and Nature correct to reject their article.

My previous experience with McKitrick gives me no confidence in his work. David Appell is also sceptical of this latest attack on the hockey stick.

Envirotruth or Envirodare

The grandly named EnviroTruth web site has section that purports to debunk “myths” about climate change. The “myths” include the usual false claims such as satellite measurements don’t show warming, but “myth” number 11 is pretty funny.

Here’s “myth” 11:

Those Who Question Whether Human Activity Contributes in Any Significant Fashion to Climate Change are Secretly Funded by Coal, Oil, Gas and Other “Smokestack” Industries.’

Brandon MacGillis of Ozone Action, a Washington DC-based public interest group, refers to global warming doubters as “part of a handful of skeptics, mostly coal producers and users, who are still trying to debate the scientific certainty of this threat.” David Suzuki, an influential Canadian environmentalist, makes a similar claim and refers to those who oppose his views on this topic as “anti-environmentalists.”

Here’s their debunking:

Despite the condemnations of radical environmentalists, it is a safe bet to conclude that scientists who express skepticism about the likelihood of an imminent, human-caused climate change catastrophe act independently of their funding sources - in other words, they aren’t motivated by money. With all scientists competing for very limited funding resources, and due to the strong media and government interest in this area, it has become an attractive selling point for scientists to be able to associate their research in some way with global warming. As a consequence, reference to global warming tends to be made whenever possible, often for projects that are often only distantly related to that line of research. Global warming skeptics are unable to make this association and, thus, have no covert incentive to oppose the alarmists. More to the point, the vast majority would receive more funding if they did endorse the more politically-correct global warming theory.

I hope you were paying attention there. Did you notice that they never got around to actually saying that the alleged myth was false? In fact they seem to have tacitly admitted that the sceptics are funded by carbon energy companies. Their assertion that these sceptics could get more money is also pretty silly. Scientists are funded to conduct research, not reach pre-defined conclusions. If the sceptics could do work that could meet the standards of the top journals, then they could get funding without taking money from energy companies.

So anyway, who funds Envirotruth? If you follow the links from their page you eventually get to this page, which states:

Our audited figures show that most – 81.5% in 2002, 93% in 2001, 93% in 2000, 88% in 1999 and 80% in 1998 – of The National Center’s funding comes from small gifts from individuals. The remainder comes from foundation/non-profit grants (16% in 2002, 4.6% in 2001, 3% in 2000, 5% in 1999 and 11.6% in 1998), with additional income coming from corporate contributions (2.0% in 2002, 2.6% in 2001, 4% in 2000, 4% in 1999 and 8% in 1998), sales of publications and materials and interest income.

Cool, no mention of funding by energy companies.

However, if you check the always useful Disinfopedia you find that

In 2003 [ExxonMobil] boosted its general operating support to $25,000 with another $30,000 for “global climate change/EnviroTruth website”

Not only is Envirotruth specifically funded by an oil company, it’s secretly funded by an oil company. That was some refutation.

Pat Michaels’ Kyoto scam

Readers may remember Pat Michaels, who authored a paper one that “disproved” global warming by deliberately removing almost one-third of the satellite data from his analysis and co-operated with Ross McKitrick on another paper that managed to “prove” that global warming wasn’t happening by mixing up degrees with radians. Alan Anderson has responded to my criticism of his claim that Kyoto was a dastardly EU plot to cripple the US economy by offering up an article by … Pat Michaels.

I’m afraid that this article is up to Michael’s usual standards. He constructs a measure of carbon efficiency by dividing a country’s CO2 emissions per unit of GDP by the area of that country. His rationale for this is that larger countries have to consume more energy on transportation. But Michael’s measure makes absolutely no sense at all.

1. While it is true that in a larger country you can travel further inside the country, that distance is not proportional to the area of the country. For instance, if country A is twice as far from North to South and twice as far from East to West as country B, then the area of country A is four times that of country B, but you can only travel twice as far in country A.
2. Imagine dividing the US into two equal sized countries. By Michael’s measure the efficiency of each piece is half that of the US, even though nothing else has changed. The reason is that Michael’s measure does not include international travel at all.

If you wanted to do a competent job of estimating the effects of Kyoto on transport in different countries you would need to show that the fraction of energy consumed by transportation is significantly different in each country, and that transportation would be particularly affected by Kyoto. Michaels does none of this, instead presenting his bogus measure as if it meant something.

Michaels also falsely claims that Kyoto “would cost us about 3 percent of GDP per year”. In fact, an extensive comparison of several studies finds:

All the studies project irreducible losses to the economy that are small (less than 1 percent of GDP in 2010 and 2020) in absolute magnitude

Why did Michaels advance such a nonsensical measure? It couldn’t have anything to do with funding by coal and oil interests, could it?

Update: Anderson has another post where he offers an article by Christopher Horner in another attempt to support his position:

For any other ignorant types out there who prefer factual arguments to rhetoric, here is an interesting article about the next likely step in the EU’s campaign to undermine US economic competitive advantage under the aegis of fighting climate change.

Here are some of the alleged “factual arguments”:

Doubtless accompanied by specious claims of scientific certainty, its plea would claim that the U.S. refusal to follow the EU’s greenhouse gas (Kyoto) path constitutes impermissible protectionism and/or “eco-dumping.” Incredibly, the WTO has indicated a willingness to accept such an argument, also advocated by some as a path to “harmonize” the otherwise incompatible pro-trade and anti-energy pacts….

mindless carbon dioxide suppression….

Any treaty threatening the economic health of nations will ultimately collapse of its own potential harm, though not without first wreaking havoc…

one important step would be to abandon Kyoto once and for all, with its built-in appeasement of ideological extremists seeking to impede global prosperity…

Of course, these aren’t “factual arguments”. For example, Horner offers no evidence that Kyoto will wreak havoc, no evidence that Kyoto is intended to appease “ideological extremists”, no evidence that the people who designed Kyoto are “mindless” and no evidence that the plea to the WTO was accompanied by “specious claims of scientific certainty. Nor is there any reason to believe that these “factual arguments” are accurate—they are nothing more than empty rhetoric, deployed because the actual facts are not helpful to Horner.

And guess who employs Horner to write this rubbish? The Competitive Enterprise Institute. Readers may recall fellow CEI employee Paul Georgia, who told the world that average temperature had no physical meaning. And Iain Murray, another CEI employess, who tried to rewrite basic epidemilogical principles and insisted that the evidence for global warming was cooked up. The CEI warns people that using Linux is legally risky, attacked the FDA when it proposed regulating tobacco, and relentlessly attacks Kyoto. It is no doubt just a coincidence that the CEI receives extensive funding from Microsoft, Philip Morris and Exxon.

Since you didn't read the last ones, I put up the pertinient parts of some new ones here.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

I was asking you for your opinion. Easy question to answer but no, you just post links, won't answer, dodge, dodge, dodge........

I don't have the scientific and mathematical background nor access to all of the data used to form an opinion. Neither do you.

I do have the research background to check sources though. That's something else you apparently don't have. Let me give you a hand...a kind of quick checklist. Sources become tainted when they have a vested interest in the outcome. Sources become unreliable when they have promoted similar stories that have been proven false in the past. Unprofessional sources who have stories that are brought into question by professional sources are unreliable.

Oh, by the way, the hockey stick "debunkers" don't have the scientific or mathematical backgrounds either. They do connections to Exxon and reputations for being wrong though. Their work has been brought into question by professionals.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Kyoto

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide

http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=22

 

[Extrafire]

Re: Kyoto

Since you didn't read the last ones, I put up the pertinient parts of some new ones here.

Well I just perused that and it's stuff I've seen before, but none of it relates to the question I was asking other than perifially.

I don't have the scientific and mathematical background nor access to all of the data used to form an opinion. Neither do you

Totally not required to answer my question. You don't need to annalze the data in order to tell me if, in your opinion, the little ice age did or did not happen.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Kyoto

The question isn't whether the little ice age happened or not. The question is if it was global (still highly debatable) and, if so, how it would affect the data.

The answer, according to the experts, is that it would have no significant effect on the data.

You will now retreat into gobbledegook about your hockey stick, which is still valid according to everybody who doesn't get a cheque from Exxon, and completely ignore all the other data that supports anthropogenic global warming.

I can post links and science and truth forever. All you have is some weird faith that the world won't get too bad before you choke on your own vomit.

 

[Extrafire]

RE: Kyoto

Still dodging

 

[Vanni Fucci]

Re: Kyoto

I think the problem may be that some of the people denying the effects of global warming are doing so because if we ruin this planet, then their end times prophesies won't be fulfilled, and they'll get shafted out of their ticket into heaven...

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

I'm not dodging at all, Extrafire. The little ice age, as recorded in Europe, is a scientific fact. That's never been in question. You are the one that's dodging by not dealing with the vast majority of scientific data and relying on a mining executive and an economist who have come up with two separate theories, both of which have been brought into serious question by experts, that fail to address all of the issues in questions.

 

[Extrafire]

RE: Kyoto

No, those people have the idea that the world is going to end soon so we don't have to worry about anything environmental. They don't care one way or the other, although they may resent the dollars spent on it.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Kyoto

That is part of the problem, Vanni. Extrafire here has other issues though. He won't tell us what they are, possibly because his previous performances have embarrassed him, but he definitely has issues.

 

[Extrafire]

Re: Kyoto

Extrafire here has other issues though. He won't tell us what they are, possibly because his previous performances have embarrassed him, but he definitely has issues.

I'm not embarrassed at all. Other issues? Hmmm......I'm worried I won't have enough money for retirement, does that qualify?

The little ice age, as recorded in Europe, is a scientific fact. That's never been in question

WOW! Thanks, I didn't think you'd do that. Actually though, it's a historic fact and a scientific fact all over the world, not just Europe.

Here's an older one:

And even with all that typing, you never got one fact right.

Not even the one where I agreed with you?

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

WOW! Thanks, I didn't think you'd do that.

I didn't realize it was in question.

What you don't understand is that I used to be you, Extrafire. I love v-8 motors and the smell of exhaust. I like lighting fires. Hell, I like lighting myself on fire...ask Zen. I started out knowing deep in my heart that global warming couldn't be right because it would be a major inconvenience to me.

I did the reading though. All of it. I looked into the science and the economics and the political ramifications. In the end the science trumps the political ramifications and supports the economics. Every single global warming denier that I have encountered is worried obout their own personal wealth and their own political stance.

Guess what? I was there pushing for the political stance to change, pointing at the science, before the people I support were on board.

 

[Extrafire]

Re: Kyoto

I didn't realize it was in question.

?????? That's the question I've been after you not to dodge all these posts!

What you don't understand is that I used to be you, Extrafire. I love v-8 motors and the smell of exhaust.

Every single global warming denier that I have encountered is worried obout their own personal wealth and their own political stance.

I love V8 engines, but I really wish I didn't have one. Too costly to run, but I couldn't find what I needed at the time.

I guess I'm a new experiece for you. My personal wealth is already screwed (wish I could blame it on someone else, but I have to be honest, it was all my doing). My political stance is free enterprise capitalist. I used to be socialist but after a reading a lot on economics and human nature, and observing the problems with socialist societies, I switched side. My opposition to Kyoto is twofold; I'm not convinced that humans are a cause of any problem (you're certain I'm wrong) and Kyoto couldn't address the problem even if I am wrong, so it would be a costly mistake.

Like you I'm a huge fan of technology, as I've posted before. Like you, I believe the only solution to the problem (if it exists) is technology. That should be our whole focus, not the flawed treaty. The currently skyrocketing oil prices will do more to spur technological change than any treaty you or the world can devise.

Enough for tonight. Going to bed.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Re: Kyoto

My opposition to Kyoto is twofold; I'm not convinced that humans are a cause of any problem (you're certain I'm wrong) and Kyoto couldn't address the problem even if I am wrong, so it would be a costly mistake.

I'm certain that you are wrong because the scientific data shows you to be wrong.

Kyoto is not the final answer. It is merely a first tiny step to get us on our way. It would be a better deal, but the US insisted on massive concessions to sign on. Then Bush came to power and tried to scuttle the deal because he's a greedy oil bastard.

As a deal that drives technological change, it is proving quite effective. Wind, tidal and hydro power are increasingly coming on-line. The automakers are making noises like they will clean up their acts a bit.

Who is still opposing the deal? The US mainly, even though they shouldn't be involved anymore. Now why would they still be trying to sink it? Hmmm...could be that they are concerned about losing control of energy.

 

[MMMike]

Re: Kyoto

The currently skyrocketing oil prices will do more to spur technological change than any treaty you or the world can devise.

This I don't think even Kyoto supporters (of which I am one) would argue with. But we can't count on this alone to solve the world's troubles.

 

[no1important]

RE: Kyoto

The currently skyrocketing oil prices will do more to spur technological change than any treaty you or the world can devise.

That sounds like what logically should happen. But I think Big Oil, Big Auto,Big Business will "intentionally" slow it dowm as money,cash and power/control is what they thrive on. Plus gas is about 1$ a litre now and I have heard gas being as high as $1.50 a litre in the next few months and if oil hits 90-100$ gas will be about $2.00 litre, so for the life of me I don't know why more people are not marching in the street demanding "envirnomently clean and effecient vehicles" instead of just bitching about the price at the pump.

We have and had the technology to run "clean vehicles etc" for a while. I mean how many times do we see "hybirds, smart cars etc" on the news. So why have they not been mass produced? so the cost comes down so these vehicles are affordable for everyone?

Legislate banning of v8 motors or demand all new vehicles must get 40 mpg or better yet, Why doesn't the governmennt legislate laws demanding these alternative vehicles and fuels like nat gas, propane or even clean diesal be put in every new vehicle to be sold in Canada?. That would be the easiest and quickest way to decrease combustable motors. They do not take the initiave because the "Big Corperations" are the ones who seem to have a lot of pull with governments for some reason. Could it be they are fellow business cohorts or donate money to help them get into office or throw them "kick-backs" we do not know about?

Kyoto is a start but it should be accelerated or have somethng else that takes affect sooner. Kyoto is a start but like all things/changes to do with the environment get implimented at a snails pace. Its like governments are to scared to do anything that effects big business especially oil.

What you don't understand is that I used to be you, Extrafire. I love v-8 motors and the smell of exhaust. I like lighting fires. Hell, I like lighting myself on fire...ask Zen. I started out knowing deep in my heart that global warming couldn't be right because it would be a major inconvenience to me.

Until about 15 years ago I was the same. Then I went up to Northern BC for a fishing trip and saw what these oil/logging companies were doing to the environment and I changed. I felt so sick at what I saw. Destroying Crown Land that belongs to everyone just for money. It was an eye opener and was sad but it stuck with me to this day.