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written by Arnaud , April 11, 2007

Mark,

Allow me a few "corrections" and comments:

Kyoto was indeed signed by the US. You'll find Clinton's signature on it. Yet, the same Clinton never had the guts to present the treaty to Congress for final ratification. In 1998, a tired of waiting Senate took the matter into its own hands: 95 against, 0 for, 5 abstention. Kyoto dead! Must have already been then next and today's current administration's fault. That's called the Bush preemptive power of nuisance.

"While there is virtually conclusive evidence stating that the economic cost of not fighting climate change greatly outweighs the cost of doing so"?!?
Says who? The Stern report?
Well, according to Sir Stern himself the end of the century generations will be 8 times richer than ours. My take is that they'll be so much richer that "if" "eventually" "possibly" "probably" "perhaps" "may be" ... global warming cost them 20% of their then GDP, they can pay for it.
Should we not want to offset our financially irresponsible way of life on the next generations, I'd suggest we start with no more budget deficits, no more debts and hence reduced welfare programs. That would be a good start in showing our sense of responsibilities; let's deal with the sure facts: debts of today will have to be paid tomorrow and just keep an eye on the doom sayers that claim that global warming "might" "could" "eventually" "possibly" "probably" "perhaps" be caused by humans and "might" "could" "eventually" "possibly" "probably" "perhaps" have adverse effects.

Arnaud

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written by Mark B. , April 13, 2007

Thanks for the comment. Few things to keep in mind:

1) The U.S. may not have ratified the Kyoto Protocol in the late 1990's, but the U.S. also didn't ratify it after 2000 when given the chance again. And today (with the exception of Australia), the U.S. is the only country in the developed world to not be a part of the largest and most influential doctrine created in the battle against climate change. If the world's greatest superpower is looking for excuses to not change the current paradigm it operates in, despite potentially catastrophic consequences, then that says something. Regardless of who is in office.

2) Sir Stern may be predicting that we will be eight times richer than we are today, but I don't think he is counting on expending those riches to offset damage done by climate change. As such, all the extra prosperity that we are working so hard to gain will be nullified by our actions (or lack thereof) from a century prior. We will be no better off than we are today, hindering our evolution, and much less the fact that there could be damage done (extinct animal species, loss of human lives due to excessive drought, etc.) that is irreversible. No amount of prosperity can reclaim that.

Is that a way to live? The risk of doing nothing is much, much too large.

3) Semantics aside, that's not the main point of the article. Even without federally mandated regulations in place to curb emissions, certain enterprises are voluntarily taking action now to prepare themselves best for when these regulations eventually do take effect, and they will have the best market position compared to their peers. This especially goes for the enterprises in heavily GHG-laden industries such as utilities. Such examples include AEP and FPL.

Regional GHG markets such as RGGI, CCEX, and California's AB 32 bill all provide a forum for these voluntary emission reduction actions to take place. And the continued advancement of these voluntary markets only begs for a national program to be in place.

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written by Arnaud , April 18, 2007

“POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CONSEQUENCES”

In just three words you have managed to define the “XXIst Century Church of Global Warmism.”

“Potentially”: everything announced by the Holly Bible of Global Warmism is: potentially, probably, possibly, eventually, maybe, could be, perhaps, conceivably…
“Castrophic consequences”: respecting the church scriptures, everything announced is, like in the First Testament of the Inconvenient Truth: “catastrophic”, “disastrous”, “of biblical proportion”, “devastating”, “gloom”, and “has end of days perfume”
(“extinct animal species”, “loss of human lives”, “irreversible”, “risk of doing nothing is much, much too large”)

Yet, I must admit I understand the caution and the dooms day visions and vocabulary. After all, we are dealing with more or less the same Apostles who once announced the “population bomb”, the “freeze scare”, the “end of gas by the mid 80’s”, the “big starvation”, the “nightmarish nuclear holocaust”, the “killing smog”, the “depleted ozone layer” …

Sorry but I am an atheist, I am a non-believer. Islamo-facists would call me an apostate and would want to cut my head; just like members of the XXIst Century Church of GW smear people in disagreement, or want to take their meteorologist’s license away, or try to cut them from research financing, or threaten their lives, or call them “holocaust deniers”, or …


More down to earth:

Ref. 1).

I dare you, I double dare you.
Democrats could now demand that the president send the Kyoto Protocol to the Senate so they can embrace it. I’d enjoy seeing the Dems bracing around while trying to explain why on earth significant reduction of greenhouse-gas emissions in America is necessary while some 129 “developing nations”, including the second, fourth, 10th, 11th, 13th and 15th largest economies (China, India, Brazil, South Korea, Mexico and Indonesia), have signed it but have no "specific scheduled commitments." A big chunk of the Senators who served in 1997 are gone. Let's find out if the 2007 Democrat majority disagrees with the 1997 one.

I take it you leave in NYC, you should petition right away your junior Senator.

Ref. 2)

Please read the Stern report. Not all the new riches will be offset, 20% of them. Providing of course the predicted doomed future survives all the “probably”, “eventually” and “maybes”. Take these 20% off, and these generations will still be 6.4 times richer as ours.
As I said earlier, let them pay. If you want to save them some money, please feel free and let the IRS know that you want to pay extra taxes to offset your current horrendous carbon foot print. Show me the walk. Or tell your Junior Senator that you expect less spending on existing welfare, medicare, social security, pork barrels…

Compliance with Kyoto would reduce global warming by an amount too small to measure. But the cost of compliance just to the United States would be higher than the cost of providing the entire world with clean drinking water and sanitation, which would prevent two million deaths (from diseases like infant diarrhea) a year and prevent half a billion people from becoming seriously ill each year.
Nature designed us as carnivores, but what does nature know about nature? Meat has been designated a menace. Among the 51 exhortations in Time magazine's "global warming survival guide" (April 9), No. 22 says a BMW is less responsible than a Big Mac for "climate change," that conveniently imprecise name for our peril. This is because the world meat industry produces 18% of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions, more than transportation produces. Nitrous oxide in manure (warming effect: 296 times greater than that of carbon) and methane from animal flatulence (23 times greater) mean that "a 16-ounce T-bone is like a Hummer on a plate."
If California improbably achieves its goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 25% by 2020, at a cost not yet computed, it will have reduced its contribution to global greenhouse-gas emissions 0.3%. Staggering!

And so on, and so on, and so on.

That free market and enterprises are willingly betting on such lunacies is the ultimate proof Karl Marx was looking for to demonstrate how imperfect capitalism is.