Kyoto Protocol on greenhouse gases takes Effect

[Goose75]

so what you are saying dearman, is that an international communistic approach to global resource managemant is utopian because of the tragedy of the commons or the inherent selfishness of human beings?

I would like to think it is not or we are doomed.

Actually I was thinking a capitalist approach. The US is a capitalist nation that has had a problem breeding corruption in it's socialist endeavors. Better to take a monetary approach with a capitalist nation. Lasting nations are built upon money or power. The US is money based. We don’t want to rule the world; we just want to be rich, fat and left alone. Cater to those factors if you want to get a positive response.

 

[archman]

Actually I was thinking a capitalist approach. The US is a capitalist nation that has had a problem breeding corruption in it's socialist endeavors. Better to take a monetary approach with a capitalist nation. Lasting nations are built upon money or power. The US is money based. We don’t want to rule the world; we just want to be rich, fat and left alone. Cater to those factors if you want to get a positive response.

That is in fact what the position is (crudely) within the White House. A recent radio interview with Christine Whitmire said stuff along those lines.

 

[Kim]

In Americas defense their are a few things that are not being said yet. First of all it is untrue to say that America is in denial about global warming, they just don't see the solutions in the same way. Some individual states within the US have laws on emissions that go far beyond what the Kyoto protocol demands. They don't need permission from the White House to pass these laws. Secondly American industry is not really the problem - it's mostly new and efficient and already has much lower emission levels than comparable emissions in other countries. The main reason that America has the highest per capita emission rate in the world is simply because of domestic consumption levels. This means that as the people become more aware of the effects they will work themselves to reduce fuel consumption. Fuel is not getting any cheaper and so yes, the driving force will become money - something Americans understand!
However, as I said earlier, under the new protocols there is something else to do with money - emissions can now be traded between countries. This is going to create an entirely new economic incentive which only countries within the protocol will be able to take advantage of. Why do you think Russia finally agreed to sign up? They will be a large beneficiary of this as their emissions are now very low due to the collapse of large parts of the old inefficient Soviet plants. The incentive to develop new manufacturing processes that use less energy (therefore make less emissions) will cut manufacturing costs and after the original R&D and startup costs - produce more competitive products. One example of this that has already happened was the streamlining of the European steel manufacturing which has left America playing internal catch-up, while externally complaining about the cheap steel that everyone else is making. Even though the White House tried to use protective import tariffs to protect American steel manufacturers, these were found to be illegal by the WTO and the tariffs had to be lifted.
The Kyoto protocol directly effects those who have signed up to it, but it indirectly effects everyone, and best of all it is a step, however small, in the right direction.

 

[Jonathan]

Actually I think it goes a little further than that. It puts a monetary value on greenhouse gas emissions. I predict that very shortly we will see trade in this commodity on international stock markets. That will obviously be at a cost to some...and we know how business needs to cut costs! You can't make money longterm if you destroy your client base.

Actually CBOT (Chicargo Board of Trade) already did, starting in 1993 I believe, selling Sulphur Diaoxide allowances. Most of these used to be bought from Russia - not because they were any good at reducing their emmissions, the simply could not afford to run the factories spitting out all the pollution.

There was a move a few years to get Joe Public to buy these so that US companies could not but I don't think it amounted to much. Unfortunately we are all too apathetic - probably the biggest global disease that!

 

[Scubaroo]

Simple request - can people please write in paragraphs! Makes following these threads much easier.

 

[drbill]

Of course there are natural fluctuations in both greenhouse gases and temperature. The question to ask is what is the RATE of these changes? Can these ancient ice cores give is resolution on the order of decades? Or is it limited to centuries or millenia? The resolution of these data is key to interpreting the rate of change and therefore how significant the current (and apparently greatly enhanced) temperature changes are relative to the background. The great thing is that we have these data available, the important thing is how finely can we resolve them?

Dr. Bil

To clear some other questions that were raised, this is the post.

The data collected from ancient ice cores show a series of spikes and dips in temperature and the amount of greenhouse gases present in the atmosphere. The average global temperature has always risen after rising amounts of greenhouse gases. Yes, natural events such as volcanoes can emit more greenhouse gases than all of human history. In the preindustrial earth, natural events would have caused dips and spikes in the level of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. To enlighten paulchristenson's question.

Natural emissions such as volcanoes, forest fires, and animals that emit methane are largely out of human control.

Nature does have carbon sinks that remove CO2 from the atmosphere. The Siberian peat bogs locked up millions of tons of carbon in their decomposed plant material. If rising global temperatures continue, these natural carbon sinks could be disrupted and could no longer contain it's carbon. The warming temperatures could melt the permafrost in the Siberian peat bog, and thus release the stored carbon into the atmosphere. Global warming would then progress at an exponencial rate. The oceans with it's photosynthetic plankton are another one of earth's major carbon sinks. So are the forests and rainforests. Yet as of now, our natural carbon sinks are being destroyed.

The point of cutting human emissions is to REDUCE HUMAN INDUCED CLIMATE CHANGE.

The key is HUMAN INDUCED. We do not want to push nature's limit, the result could be catastrophe out of anyone's imagination.

 

[drbill]

If I'm not mistaken, even our globally "esteemed" President Bush finally accepted the reality of global warming. Given the possibility he may not accept the theory of evolution, I think this suggests a tremendous acknowledgement of the reality of this problem!

Right?

Dr. Bill
Tongue in Cheek

 

[lobbolt]

If I'm not mistaken, even our globally "esteemed" President Bush finally accepted the reality of global warming. Given the possibility he may not accept the theory of evolution, I think this suggests a tremendous acknowledgement of the reality of this problem!

Right?

Dr. Bill
Tongue in Cheek

If he accepts the reality of global warming, why didn't the USA ratify the Kyoto Protocol. We are the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally.

 

[Hockeynut]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,147995,00.html

I suppose it's not real news since it came from fox but from this article,

" Both global warming skeptics and advocates agree that the potential amount of warming that hypothetically might be avoided through Kyoto Protocol implementation is roughly 0.07 degrees centigrade by the year 2050. "

I personally would rather save the 100's of billions and let her warm up .07.

And this,

" But the hockey stick has been way oversold.

Stephen McIntyre, a Canadian minerals consultant who has spent a great deal of time and (his own) money studying the graph says that, for one thing, the mathematical technique used to draw the graph is prone to generating hockey stick-like graphs even when applied to random data. So the hockey stick graph data proves nothing according to McIntyre.

McIntyre would like to do more research on the hockey stick, but the graph’s author, Michael Mann of the University of Virginia, is blocking that effort.

McIntyre requested the raw data Mann used to construct the hockey stick. But after initially providing some information, Mann refused further cooperation, claiming he doesn’t have time to respond to “every frivolous note” from nonscientists, according to the Journal.

While McIntyre thinks there are more errors in the method used to develop the hockey stick, Mann refuses to release the requested computer code claiming that, “Giving them the algorithm would be giving in to the intimidation tactics that these people are engaged in,” reported the Journal."




That sounds like his hockey stick data is seriously flawed and he knows it.

 

[drbill]

If he accepts the reality of global warming, why didn't the USA ratify the Kyoto Protocol. We are the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases globally.

I was being facetious. He doesn't want to accept responsibility.

On a per capita basis I think the data shows the US is the greatest contributor by far to the situation. If you look at China's emissions (ranking #2 in total) on a per capita basis, they produce far less.

Dr. Bill
The Tide is High... and Getting Higher!