The Trashing Of The Kyoto Treaty

[Rat Faced]

A lot of the work is self financing though...although there is an initial cost, the savings pay for themselves in the medium term; such as heat recovery systems. These reduce the amount of power that is needed, as the heat generated by process's is used as a power source in its own right.

Then there Carbon Dumps.........who the hell objects to planting forests on land that is being subsidiced to remain un-cropped?

I could understand the arguments if the technology to meet the targets wasnt already available, and in the medium to long term actually beneficial to industry at large.

Not all instances of course, as was hilighted earlier....if Industry implements changes just to have the goalposts moved, they will fight and i wouldnt blame them.

Its the "Heads up their Arse" attitude i dont understand.

[Biggles]

Rat Face

I think they are simply comfortable in that position

The big difficulty is as ever short-termism. The long term financial benefits may be ok but this year's financial report and price earnings ratios may look depressed.

Coupled in with this is the fear that the competitors will take short cuts. However, quite how they can look over their shoulders with their heads firmly implanted is beyond me.

[Alex H]

Originally posted by j2k4@8 December 2003 - 18:07
I scanned it pretty closely, but found no organizations that were not either part of the U.N. or of a suspect agenda, in my opinion.

Does that mean you're putting the United Nations in the same category as tree hugging hippies? Yes, hard as it may seem, I too hate extreamist environmentalists (but greatly admire their commitment).

And, am I correct in the understanding that you believe we (humans) are going to have AN effect on the planet Earth, so global warming may as well be it? I've noticed this idea mooted in the thread.

[j2k4]

Let's see if I can get this across:

I am for preserving our environment, including the rain forest.

I am for cleaning up the messes we have made, and that we can clean up.

I am in favor of requiring businesses to have realistic, effective, redundant pollution controls.

I am in favor of punishing those industries, businesses and individuals who transgress against the environment.

However:

I am not in favor of restricting business or industry merely on the "chance" it may harm the environment, or the idea some agenda-driven group "thinks" it might.

Unless it can be proven conclusively to be the case, then these organizations ought to stand down.

I am in favor of a "world public" developing an aversion to inflammatory and subversive environmentalist rhetoric.

I think "environmental terrorists" should be treated the same way as Al Qaeda, not honored for their "commitment".

Hope that clears a few things up.

As an aside: the Mississippi River delta, and it's inherent natural structuring (upon which the city of New Orleans is built) is, as a matter of natural course, changing in ways that put the survival of New Orleans at risk.

Would taking steps to save the city be wrong?

Would taking steps to preserve the delta be wrong?

While I'm at it:

Should Venice, Italy be preserved or not?

Opinions?

[ilw]

US President George W Bush has been told by leading scientists that climate change is real and getting worse.
Their White House-commissioned report is now being reviewed by the president as he prepares to face European leaders angered by his attack on the Kyoto Protocol on climate change.
A panel from the National Academy of Sciences said a leading cause is emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels. Correspondents say this could put pressure on the administration to shift its position on global warming.

"Temperatures are, in fact, rising," the panel warned. "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in the earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise," the report said.

It warned that "national policy decisions made now and in the longer-term future will influence the extent of any damage suffered by vulnerable human populations and ecosystems later in this century".

Info on the NAS, their 'agenda' seems (imho) to be to look at the scientific evidence:

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit, self-perpetuating society of distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. Upon the authority of the charter granted to it by the Congress in 1863, the Academy has a mandate that requires it to advise the federal government on scientific and technical matters. Dr. Bruce Alberts is the president of the National Academy of Sciences.

Members and foreign associates of the Academy are elected in recognition of their distinguished and continuing achievements in original research; election to the Academy is considered one of the highest honors that can be accorded a scientist or engineer. The Academy membership is comprised of approximately 2,000 members and 300 foreign associates, of whom more than 180 have won Nobel Prizes.

Most mainstream scientists believe that human activity - notably emissions of greenhouse gases - has contributed to a significant increase in the average surface temperature of the planet.

from BBC news website but they don''t back it up.


Clearly i still can't show that a large majority are of the opinion that we're affecting the environment, because I can't find any surveys. However, i haven't seen any scientific bodies that have published reports that go against it and i'd be willing to put money on it being at least a majority of researchers who believe.

[Rat Faced]

Yes we should try and preserve them.

Same we should want to preserve the Low Countries and Oceanic Island Nations.

Is this wrong?


I love the way that some dont want to do anything until there is conclusive proof, by which time its way too late.

However, saving New Orleans from the Mississippi, and having it drownd in the Mexican Gulf appears to be indicative...



By the way, what proportion of USA's major cities are on the coast, and/or under sea level? When are you going to think about saving them? What will the Sea Defences Cost?

In Europe for the last 10 years, there is unprecedented flooding...why not ask the Insurance/Governmental Agencies how much this is costing? Just for starters....

[j2k4]

Okay, try this:

From the Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change-

Great Lakes Ice Cover
Volume 6, Number 16: 16 April 2003

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
A few days ago, we came across a news report from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune entitled "Greenhouse effect may make Minnesota into Kansas." As the former of these states had been home to several generations of our ancestors, we were naturally curious to learn about its impending transformation, so we read on.
All sorts of bad things were prophesied. Hence, we were not surprised to learn that the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) had organized the study on which the story was based and had also raised the money for it. Nevertheless, we went to their web site to learn more.

At the UCS website we were greeted by a press release stating "Global Warming Will Alter Character of Great Lakes Region." One of the predicted changes that caught our collective eye was the claim there would be less winter ice cover of the lakes within the region as the area warmed. Turning to the actual report upon which the press release was based (Kling et al., 2003), we found this was indeed what was predicted, although with respect to recorded reality, the authors stated that "in the Great Lakes themselves, the extent of ice cover has been highly variable from 1963 to the present with no long-term trend [our italics]." Nevertheless, they promoted the notion of declining winter ice cover by stating immediately thereafter that "in recent years the Great Lakes have had little ice cover."

Determined to dig a bit deeper into this latter claim, we turned to the study of Assel et al. (2003) -- which was not referenced by Kling et al. -- to see if there was any evidence for this assertion. For Lakes Michigan, Huron and Ontario, there was none; winter ice cover at the end of the measurement period was essentially the same as it was at the beginning. Lakes Superior and Erie, on the other hand, did show a bit of a decline in winter ice cover. However, in the following and most recent winter (2002) -- data for which were not available when the paper of Assel et al. was written but were subsequently reported on the Internet by the Canadian Ice Service -- Lakes Superior and Erie, as well as Lake Huron, experienced 100% ice cover, as noted by Reuters and CBC News on 11 March 2003 and by CNN and the London Free Press News on 12 March 2003.

So how unusual is it for Lakes Superior, Huron and Erie to freeze over completely? And in the same year?

In carefully inspecting the data presentations of Assel et al., it appears that in addition to 2002, prior complete freeze-overs of Lake Erie occurred in 1998, 1997, 1979, 1978 and 1977. Lake Superior, on the other hand, froze over completely only twice before, in 1996 and 1979; while Lake Huron never completely froze over during the prior period of time stretching all the way back to 1963. In addition, the data reveal that only once before have two of these three Great Lakes ever experienced 100% ice cover in the same year (1979); and never before, in the period from 1963 to the present, have all three of them completely frozen over in the same year.

Of course, one incredibly anomalous year does not define a trend. But it can sure raise havoc with the status quo or any prior weak trend. Hence, much more data will clearly be required before we can say with any confidence what the long-term future will hold for the climate of the Great Lakes region, although that fact appears to be no impediment to those intent on scaring the people of the world into believing they must act now, and in heroic fashion, to prevent catastrophic consequences.

The senior author of the Union of Concerned Scientists study, for example, is quoted in that organization's press release of 8 April 2003 as saying that the people of the Great Lakes region need to "reduce the amount of fossil fuels [they] burn to produce electricity and drive [their] cars," while another of the authors (a staff scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists) says that "waiting 10 or more years to reduce emissions will increase the eventual severity, expense, and likelihood of irreversible losses," which, she adds, would be "a terrible legacy to leave our children and grandchildren."

It is amazing that such great ills can be so emotionally projected on the basis of so little firm data.

Sherwood, Keith and Craig Idso

References
Assel, R., Cronk, K. and Norton, D. 2003. Recent trends in Laurentian Great Lakes ice cover. Climatic Change 57: 185-204.

Kling, G.W., Hayhoe, K., Johnson, L.B., Magnuson, J.J., Polasky, S., Robinson, S.K., Shuter, B.J., Wander, M.M., Wuebbles, D.J., Zak, D.R., Lindroth, R.L., Moser, S.C. and Wilson, M.L. 2003. Confronting Climate Change in the Great Lakes Region: Impacts on our Communities and Ecosystems. Union of Concerned Scientists, Cambridge, MA, and Ecological Society of America, Washington, DC.

I've watched and experienced this phenomenon.

I have personal anecdotal evidence which I deem sufficient to counter any claims of global warming; Lake Superior is about 150 feet from me as I type this.

I should accede the possibility that this fearsome "Global" concern may somehow be skipping over me, but, hey, if the PC assholes have, in their quest to turn language on it's head, deemed that the term "global" has acquired a "spottiness" it didn't possess previously, I must have missed that, too.

Rat-

If we act to save New Orleans and/or Venice or any other coastal cities, we would be interfering with the "natural" course of events, not to mention risking massive violations of "Wetlands" legislation.

How do you propose we work around these difficulties?

[Sparkle1984]

I am in favor of a "world public" developing an aversion to inflammatory and subversive environmentalist rhetoric.

I think "environmental terrorists" should be treated the same way as Al Qaeda, not honored for their "commitment".

Firstly, what on earth is a "world public"?!
And I can't believe that what you call "environmental terrorists" should be treated the same way as Al Qaeda!!
Have you ever seen an environmentalist killing people?!!

[clocker]

Originally posted by Sparkle1984@9 December 2003 - 08:58

Have you ever seen an environmentalist killing people?!!

Ask a logger about the joys of discovering a spiked tree....

[j2k4]

Originally posted by Sparkle1984@9 December 2003 - 11:58

I am in favor of a "world public" developing an aversion to inflammatory and subversive environmentalist rhetoric.

I think "environmental terrorists" should be treated the same way as Al Qaeda, not honored for their "commitment".

Firstly, what on earth is a "world public"?!
And I can't believe that what you call "environmental terrorists" should be treated the same way as Al Qaeda!!
Have you ever seen an environmentalist killing people?!!

Sparkle-

Absent a long track record of popular usage, what would you imagine my newly coined term World Public to mean?

Are you without mental capacity or imagination or something?

Hey-if the PC people can do it, so can I.

Welcome to MY New World Order.

Re: your statement about equating enviro-terrorists with Al Qaeda:

Yes, you heard me right-OFF WITH THEIR FUCKIN'HEADS!

A terrorist is a terrorist is a terrorist.