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You are here: Home / Science & Technology / Over-Stating Kyoto?

Over-Stating Kyoto?

by John Cole|  September 14, 200510:59 am| 26 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

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I am with Kos (partially to mostly to maybe not at all) right up until the end (which I have bolded):

What kind of “intelligent design” would litter the ice with dead penguin babies? I know conservatives cheerlead death in Iraq and turn a blind eye to it in the gulf coast all the while yammering on and on about the “culture of life”, but this is about the most absurd thing I’ve read in a while.

Maybe these conservatives will join liberals in arguing for better pre- and post-natal care and universal health care to lower the infant penguin mortality rates? And since those nuts are now concerned about the Penguin Culture of Life, maybe they’ll put pressure on their patrons in the White House to do something about that global warming that may be killing of those precious penguiins. Here and here.

And after they help us pass the Kyoto Protocols, we can all ponder what kind of sadistic god would purposefully dump these poor, innocent penguins in cold-ass Antartica and make their lives such living hells.

It is my opinion that the potential impact of Kyoto has been overstated (notwithstanding the ‘us’ portion of ‘help us pass the Kyoto Protocols’- it was my understanding the only vote Kyoto ever saw left it without one vote in the Senate).

Am I wrong?

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Reader Interactions

26Comments

  1. 1.

    Mr Furious

    September 14, 2005 at 11:08 am

    Kos is just blathering on about penguins in order to avoid the hot topic of the day — Congressmen getting trucks stuck in the mud!

  2. 2.

    John Cole

    September 14, 2005 at 11:15 am

    Heh.

  3. 3.

    Krista

    September 14, 2005 at 11:25 am

    I think that other countries wouldn’t be so disdainful of the U.S. rejecting the Kyoto Protocols, if it weren’t for the fact that the current U.S. administration seems to not give a flying f**k at a rolling doughnut about the environment. If they think Kyoto’s not effective, fine — but there should be some serious attempts by the U.S. to come up with an alternative that IS effective.

  4. 4.

    TallDave

    September 14, 2005 at 11:33 am

    Well, Kyoto may not have gotten a vote, but it DID get one abstention iirc.

    And that’s a start.

    but there should be some serious attempts by the U.S. to come up with an alternative that IS effective.

    They did.

    In a surprise move that caught Europe’s smug moralists and the environmental movement’s noisy extremists flatfooted, the United States announced in Vientiane, Laos, last week that it was joining five other nations – China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia — in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change.

  5. 5.

    TallDave

    September 14, 2005 at 11:38 am

    the current U.S. administration seems to not give a flying f**k at a rolling doughnut about the environment.

    Cute phraseology, but here’s a more prosaic observation: he EU’s emissions rose 3.6% between 2001 and 2004 (those in the US fell).

  6. 6.

    Trent

    September 14, 2005 at 11:40 am

    Cute phraseology, but here’s a more prosaic observation: he EU’s emissions rose 3.6% between 2001 and 2004 (those in the US fell).

    Cite the source…

  7. 7.

    Krista

    September 14, 2005 at 11:42 am

    Well, I’ll be damned. That’s great! The more ideas bouncing around on how to fix this problem, the better. And it does sound promising, no?

    I didn’t get the whole reason why conservatives are all excited about penguins all of a sudden, but just did some browsing and found out. Ye gods

  8. 8.

    Emma Zahn

    September 14, 2005 at 12:06 pm

    Interesting article TallDave linked to. And it is good to know that the countries that objected to Kyoto are proposing their own solutions since that implies they recognize the problem. Do you think the threat of Kyoto provided any incentive for them to do so?

  9. 9.

    Tim F

    September 14, 2005 at 12:15 pm

    Kyoto was not meant to solve the problem by itself. It was meant to be a good start for a much larger effort. So to answer your question, anybody who understands Kyoto would agree that even in the best of cases it wouldn’t do that much. It wasn’t meant to.

    Think of Kyoto as your first Plame consensus diary. Then think of the first Bush administration as P Luk or Darrell.

  10. 10.

    scs

    September 14, 2005 at 12:27 pm

    I agree TallDave. The EU use of greenhouse gasses has been rising. They are nowhere near reaching their Kyoto goals. Also they also emit a large proportion of greenhouse gasses just as the US does. I believe the US and the EU both emit about 20% each of the world’s gasses. They have a greater population than us, but we also have a greater, more spread out land mass, with more extrem temperatures. Anyway, you always hear about the big bad US, but what about the EU? You never hear about them. Euro-left conspiracy?

  11. 11.

    stoj

    September 14, 2005 at 1:05 pm

    [Whether it was the result of natural climate variability in the Antarctic circumpolar wave cycle or an anomaly related to global warming is not possible to determine…]

    From the NG article Kos links to, discussing why the penguin population decreased so much…

  12. 12.

    BumperStickerist

    September 14, 2005 at 1:06 pm

    What kind of “intelligent design” would litter the ice with dead penguin babies?

    For starters, a Leopard Seal might, given a chance.

  13. 13.

    TallDave

    September 14, 2005 at 1:36 pm

    I didn’t get the whole reason why conservatives are all excited about penguins all of a sudden, but just did some browsing and found out. Ye gods

    Well, since no one else made the obvious connection…

    I think we all suspected Rick Santorum was behind this.

  14. 14.

    Krista

    September 14, 2005 at 1:59 pm

    Ah yes…Rick Santorum. I still think that whole “Santorum” thing that Dan Savage started was a beautiful bit of revenge.

  15. 15.

    Chris

    September 14, 2005 at 2:16 pm

    Speaking of the most absurd things I have read:

    I know conservatives cheerlead death in Iraq and turn a blind eye to it in the gulf coast all the while yammering on and on about the “culture of life”,

  16. 16.

    tBone

    September 14, 2005 at 2:26 pm

    Well, since no one else made the obvious connection…

    I think we all suspected Rick Santorum was behind this.

    Excellent link, TD. Now, for bonus points, use the phrases “Rick Santorum was behind this” and “gay penguins” in the same sentence. :)

  17. 17.

    KB

    September 14, 2005 at 2:26 pm

    The EU use of greenhouse gasses has been rising. They are nowhere near reaching their Kyoto goals. Also they also emit a large proportion of greenhouse gasses just as the US does. I believe the US and the EU both emit about 20% each of the world’s gasses.

    Well in 2001 the EU greehouse emmissions were around 57% of the US.
    As for not reaching the Kyoto levels, it depends which countries you’re talking about. The UK, Germany, france,Sweden are all on or above target already.

  18. 18.

    Tim F

    September 14, 2005 at 2:31 pm

    Rightwingers love the penguin movie because it’s threatening to knock Fahrenheit 9/11 off of the #1 slot for highest-grossing documentary ever. Not that I care one way or the other, but there it is.

  19. 19.

    scs

    September 14, 2005 at 3:28 pm

    Well in 2001 the EU greehouse emmissions were around 57% of the US.

    KB, where did you get this info? I have seen differently.

  20. 20.

    TallDave

    September 14, 2005 at 4:29 pm

    KB,

    That actually bring up one major issue that, iirc, helped defeat Kyoto: net carbon emissions. We have huge forests in N America that act as a carbon sink. Europe is relatively deforested. Kyoto did not recognize that fact.

  21. 21.

    shark

    September 14, 2005 at 5:34 pm

    I don’t think the effects of Kyoto are overstated. They’re downright harmful Just ask New Zealand how great Kyoto is turning out to be for them seeing as they unexpectedly grew their economy and instead of reaping $$$ from carbon credits, now suddenly find themselves on the hook for billion or so dollars

  22. 22.

    scs

    September 14, 2005 at 7:19 pm

    KB, I think I know how you get your calculations. EU and USA both emit about roughly 20% of the gasses (the whole industrial world emits 55%) The population of the EU is close to 400,000,000 as compared to the US, about 270,000,000. So population to population, you may be close. However, land size to land size, the US is bigger and less densely concentrated. Those areas must be traversed to bring the people in the country supplies. And the US doesn’t have the mild Gulf Stream climate that Europe has, so we need more in heating and AC energy. Taking that into consideration, the US I believe is roughly in line with the EU. Come on, I’ve been there. They drive and they have lots of traffic jams too. They are no conserving angels. And the on-track countries you mentioned are maybe 1/4 of the EU. What about the rest?

  23. 23.

    The Comish (sic)

    September 14, 2005 at 8:22 pm

    TallDave:

    Well, Kyoto may not have gotten a vote, but it DID get one abstention iirc.

    I believe the vote was 95-0 against (and it wasn’t a vote on ratification, but a vote urging the President not to sign the treaty without modifications; President Clinton knew it wouldn’t be ratified so he wisely decided against submitting it to the Senate). However, the treaty still bears the non-binding signature of Vice President Gore, and although the treaty isnt binding on the US, the US hasn’t withdrawn from it yet.

    Objections to the Kyoto treaty are myriad and come from both sides of the aisle. The left sees it as little more than a symbolic gesture, since it is designed to reduce the rise in global temperatures by 0.02 degrees and 0.28 degrees (Celsuis) by the year 2050.

    Attacks from the right point out that in exchange for this slight benefit, there could be significant damage to the economy. It turns out that the pollution we’re throwing out is a by-product of the industry that gives our economy life. Barring the cheap advent of new technology or the purchase of emissions shares from 3rd world countries, the only way that the US could meet its emissions quotas would be to shut down American factories. Thus, people would be put out of work, the nation’s GDP would decline, tax dollars would go down, etc. (Note — signing a treaty that would harm the economy is the best way for a President of either party to get voted out of office, meaning we shouldn’t expect Kyoto to be signed anytime soon.)

    Naturally, the right also criticizes the science of global warming. This criticism is not limited to the American right, though. For example, the Russian Academy of Sciences said that Kyoto has no scientific justification.

    Attacks from both sides point out that the treaty is not binding on China or India, which are considered “developing countries” under Kyoto, and thus not required to reduce their emissions. China is currently the world’s 2nd largest emitter of grennhouse gasses in the world, and is in a development spree right now. China’s emissions from 1990 to 2003 increased about 40%.

    More Kyoto reading from Wikipedia (I advise heavy application of grains of salt in reading Wiki, though):

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

  24. 24.

    The Comish (sic)

    September 14, 2005 at 8:25 pm

    Tim F:

    Rightwingers love the penguin movie because it’s threatening to knock Fahrenheit 9/11 off of the #1 slot for highest-grossing documentary ever. Not that I care one way or the other, but there it is.

    Believe it or not, Tim F may be right. I’ve actually heard conservatives making exactly this argument. Ridiculous.

  25. 25.

    goonie bird

    September 14, 2005 at 10:04 pm

    Its not the global warming its the HOT AIR from GREENPEACE,SIERRA CLUB,WORLD WILDLIFE FUND and the rest of the eco-freaks and AL GORE as well

  26. 26.

    Daryl Coleman

    March 5, 2006 at 8:36 am

    With regard to Kyoto, I would ask how many of you have actually been to China? Well, I have been there, and can tell you that they make the United States look absolutley clean in comparison. China is one of the filthiest and most polluting countries I have ever seen. There are many places there, especially along the Pacific coastline, where on a clear day you NEVER see the sun, due to the pollution in the air. And some of their rivers, like the Pearl River at Guangzhou (near Hong Kong), are vitual garbage dumps. You look at the river and could almost walk across the garbage in that river without getting your feet wet. I would wager to say that, though you might have seen some of these conditions here in the US earlier in our history, you certainly would not see anything close to this now. I was appalled at the pollution I saw over there. And, to top it off, China, as a developing country, would be largely exempt from Kyoto. That is, in my mind, the one very good reason for our not ratifying it as it is currently written.

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