According to the AP:The United States defended its decision not to sign the Kyoto Protocol on Monday, saying during the opening of a global summit on climate change that it is doing more than most countries to protect the earth’s atmosphere.
Well, who knows? But a short way down in the article:
Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty, he takes global warming seriously and noted that U.S. greenhouse gas emissions had actually gone down by eight-tenths of a percent under Bush.
Wait a minute. The US economy grew at a fairly good clip under the Bush administration and yet greenhouse emissions actually went down? How could that have happened? Some people, of course, as noted in the article, are skeptical:
Elizabeth May of the Sierra Club Canada, however, accused the world’s biggest polluter of trying to derail the Kyoto accord, which has been ratified by 140 nations.
“We have a lot of positive, constructive American engagement here in Montreal – and none of it’s from the Bush administration, which represents the single biggest threat to global progress,” May said.
Fighting words from Ms. May indeed, but then words from a Canadian these days may be worth as much as a drink of water in Harbin. What’s beginning to interest me in my… er… “modern maturity” (?) is how things are rarely as they seem. We residents of Los Angeles, if we’re honest, are now pretty grateful we can see the mountains from our back yards and can even play a set of tennis without collapsing. Something changed. But how? Well, here’s an interesting quote:
Despite a childhood in Southern California, Richard Nixon was so hopelessly disconnected from nature that he wore dress shoes to the beach. Yet, no other chief executive approved as much important environmental legislation.
The author of the monograph being described here goes on to opine that Nixon did all this only for poltical reasons and later reversed his views. Could be, but the legislation lived on and changed America. So things happen in strange ways. I used to be for Kyoto, but now find it too politically-motivated and essentially anti-environmental in its complete inability to deal with the world’s fastest growing economies. But what do I know? Well, I think I do know this – morality (and ecology) is not as simple as Ms. May of the Sierra Club wants to make it. I used to be a member of the Sierra Club too. But these days I favor the older High Sierra. You remember the Raoul Walsh film in which Bogie plays ‘Mad Dog’ Roy Earle, the escaped con. The whole world hates him but there’s something good about him too. Now there’s nothing even remotely ex-connish or Mad Doggish about Bush, but he suffers from that same kind of misjudgment. Bono, of course, recognized this when he noted Bush’s generosity in Africa. I guess the Ms. Mays of the world can’t wrap their minds around that. They’re kind of stuck in their world views and fund-raising needs. Ultimately, I don’t think that’s very good for the environment.
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14 Comments
1. Foobarista:Not only that, but the US gained in population too during this time. And the US is kicking the heck out of most of the Kyotians (?) at their CO2 emissions game, not just during Herr Halliburton’s administration, but since 1990 as well. And if you recall that the US is the fastest growing country in their list by a good margin, we look positively Gaia Green…
Here’s my blog entry on this…
Nov 28, 2005 - 9:58 pm 2. Sandy P:World’s largest polluter?
what, we send black clouds across the Atlantic like China does to US?
We wear masks to breathe?
–Dr. Harlan L. Watson, senior climate negotiator for the State Department, said that while President Bush declined to join the treaty,–
Excuse me??? Someone from State doesn’t know how this country works???
Oh, wait……………
Nov 28, 2005 - 10:11 pm 3. Fresh Air:Well, Roger, who knows about all this. But greenhouse gases are one thing and the (a) presence of global warming caused by (b) the presence of greenhouse gases caused by (c) certain human activities (as opposed to, say, cow manure or sunspots) is just a bit too much for this linear thinker to swallow.
A pair of Canadian scientists put together an excellent video presentation debunking the famous Mann “hockey stick” of historical temperature data. It should be required viewing for anyone from the Sierra Club or any other goofy environmental organization that shoots its mouth off about global warming.
Besides, George Bush coming into office wasn’t some kind of erasure of history. The Senate voted, as I recall, 95-0 against Kyoto while Bill Clinton was in office.. Despite Clinton’s cynical promotion of the treaty to placate Al “Earth in the Balance” Gore, he never pushed for its ratification and had to know it never had a prayer.
Kyoto was then, and is now, a profoundly stupid treaty that would amount to nothing more than rich countries subsdizing poor ones while at the same time ruining the global economy. There is a reason even Democrats like John Kerry could see why Kyoto was a bad deal.
But this is what you get from Sierra Club types: emotion instead of reason, appeals to fear and question-begging. Appalling, really, that people like this woman have jobs doing p.r.
Nov 28, 2005 - 10:26 pm 4. Joseph (formerly Samuel):This is the kind of politics that disillusions me. Is who implements the policy more important then the actual policy? If people would track their list of policy priorities and accept progress from wherever it may come rather then rooting for the ‘home team’ we would be so much better off.
In coaching sports I have been successful for one reason. Years ago I assisted a coach who insisted on keeping detailed stats using them in decision making. He declared, “my own eyes and personal prejudices will deceive, stats never lie.” I would say at least 30% of my coaching decisions are positively changed because I chose to ignore my prejudices and follow the facts. I wish people would support ideas over partisanship and quit qualifing good deeds of the opposition party as something cynical, sometimes it may be, but most often the true cynicism lies with those who place party over policy.
Follow the stats, Nixon did much for the environment, Clinton for the economy both were morally lacking. Bush has done the most for education and is jeered for it. He has done the most for Africa yet has a 2% approval among Blacks. He has done the most for Israel yet recieved barely 30% of the Jewish vote.
Stats don’t lie but people sure do. Such lies will never change the truth, following them is a sure recipe for failure.
Nov 29, 2005 - 3:32 am 5. Ed Poinsett:Bush knew what he was doing in not championing that anti-US Treaty. If Bill Clinton and Al Gore couldn’t get even one pro vote in the senate that they controlled, what were Bush’s chances. Today signatories like the UK and New Zealand are having serious second thoughts and are planning to opt out at the earliest. 2012, I think.
Nov 29, 2005 - 3:34 am 6. Richard Nieporent:The Sierra Club, like the ACLU, at one time served a useful purpose. Now it is simply an advocate for Left-wing political causes many of which have precious little to do with the environment. The Kyoto treaty is a political document, not a scientific document. Its purpose is to damage the US economy. The CO2 numbers were originally set by the Europeans so that they could meet the Kyoto goals without damaging their economies while having a major impact on the US economy. (It turns out they miscalculated the numbers and they are also having trouble meeting the goals.) By excluding the developing nations such as China and India, it shows that the Kyoto treaty is not a serious document. The Kyoto treaty is just a way of wrapping the same old Left wing charge that the US is using more than their “fair share” of the world’s resources in a pseudo-scientific box. In effect, it is very much like the attempt to use Intelligent Design as a means of giving a scientific facade to Creationism. Only in this case we are using the “science” of global warming as a way of attacking the US.
Nov 29, 2005 - 5:03 am 7. Ari Tai:re: radical environmentalism. I don’t understand why Mr. Bush (and the previous Senate vote) doesn’t get more credit for taking a principled position that argues for keeping the government out of the business of promoting a religion. In his September Senate testimony Mr. (Dr.) Crichton describes how the non-science and politicization of this debate debases all science (and increases risks and danger to the populace v. the obverse).
re: climate fear mongering, esp. “rising oceans” dispossessing the poor.. I’m reminded of how often the well-intentioned political process yields unintended results. It could well be that any actual warming (up to another 20, if not 50+(!) degrees C
will reduce the height of the ocean (as warmer southern ocean water puts more moisture over the world’s coldest continent-sized high plateau – where it’s a balmy MINUS 20C in mid-summer – i.e. Antarctica). And our ability to model and predict past Antarctic history for this “simple” question is little better than tossing a coin.
Nov 29, 2005 - 8:05 am 8. Jonathan Sabin:Being a big fan of facts, I spend a lot of time reviewing temperature data. Check out the temps for LA since 1880 at the NASA/GISS site.
The temps have been dropping pretty much since the President came into office. Oh, the irony!
Nov 29, 2005 - 8:50 am 9. Stace:Leftists tend to be more concerned with process than results. If a good policy comes to pass, I don’t give a damn which political party did it or for what reasons. That’s why even though I’m a member of a dozen or so conservation organizations, Sierra Club and Greenpeace are not among them. The groups I belong to try to work with whatever party is in power.
An example: A couple of years ago the Corps of Engineers was planning to change the classification of certain smaller wetland units, which would have made them vunerable to destruction. The American Wildlife Conservation Partners, a consortium of hunting groups, wangled an invitation to the Whitehouse to talk with the President, and got to sit down with him for an hour. They persuaded him to deep-six the Corps proposal. That’s the kind of results you can get when you don’t think of the president as Chimpy McHitlerburton.
Nov 29, 2005 - 9:29 am 10. cathyf:Perhaps this is just a another typical case of a journalist mangling the scientist’s words. There’s emissions, and there’s net emissions. I live in the corn belt, where each year we watch corn plants go from bare dirt to 10 feet tall in about 6 weeks. Every single carbon atom in every single cell in every single one of those 10-foot-tall corn plants gets into the plant by sucking a CO2 molecule out of the air. Our agriculture is incredibly productive, and gets more productive every year. Farmers drip ammonia onto the fields, which means that the tonnage of CO2 sucked out of the air per acre goes up and up over time. Less productive land is continuously taken out of production (witness the depopulation of western South Dakota, for example.) It used to be (and still is in the developing world) that in order to get 700 bushels of corn, you needed 20 acres. Now you have 700 bushels of corn on 4 acres, and 16 acres of prairie grass, trees, and various random weeds. And all of that grass, trees and weeds sucks CO2 out of the air, too.
We may be the world’s biggest non-natural emitter of greenhouse gasses, but we’re also by far the world’s largest absorber of them, too. But under Kyoto we get no credit for removing CO2 from the air, and no credit for increasing the amount of CO2 we remove from the air.
Then there’s this crap:
This is only true if you define CO2 as “pollution.” Which is very dangerous hogwash, in that it allows people to increase real pollution in order to decrease CO2 emissions.
cathy
Nov 29, 2005 - 10:46 am 11. chip:US emissions declined in the period measured.
Kyoto signee Canada saw its emissions not only rise, but rise above its promised target.
Response from the Canadian environmentalist?
Blame America.
Nov 29, 2005 - 7:54 pm 12. corbusier:It always strikes me as snobbish to declare that the president has no appreciation of the environment. President Bush is probably one of the most in tune of all presidents with nature at the personal level. Few seem to realize just how he likes to spend his free time: clearing brush at his ranch (which is more of a quiet nature preserve than a place to herd cattle) going mountain-biking on ungroomed trails, and resting at his ecologically-designed ranch house, which collects rainwater and maximizes shade and daylight for more efficient climate control. The man likes to talk about the flat western landscape of his youth, and looks quite uncomfortable enjoying fancy cities, preferring to be out in the country instead. The main fallicy of many environmentalists is that everyone would have the same opinions on how to improve the environment if they would just interact with nature a bit more. I find that those who spend their life with nature acquire different views about protecting and managing the environment. They should be listened to.
Nov 29, 2005 - 8:04 pm 13. freetotem:“I used to be for Kyoto, but now find it too politically-motivated and essentially anti-environmental in its complete inability to deal with the world’s fastest growing economies.”
It’s not just the “inability” of Kyoto to deal with these countries. It’s that the proponents of Kyoto have no serious interest in doing so. That is because Kyoto, like much of today’s so-called environmentalism, isn’t about science (since, for example, China’s coal furnaces are a far larger problem than U.S. SUVs) but about Earth worship and anti-capitalism. Environmentalism has become the last refuge of the Marxists. The U.S. must especially be contained because it is the biggest sinner, being the most successful capitalist. The SUV is the symbol of global warming because it represents the sins of capitalism and “greed.” We have indulged, and we will be punished by a Higher Power, now “the Planet,” rather than God, by apocaplypse. Ancient apocalyptic myth, combined with inchoate Earth worship and the tattered end game of global Marxism. That is what Kyoto represents.
Dec 1, 2005 - 1:09 pm 14. freetotem:“I used to be for Kyoto, but now find it too politically-motivated and essentially anti-environmental in its complete inability to deal with the world’s fastest growing economies.”
It’s not just the “inability” of Kyoto to deal with these countries. It’s that the proponents of Kyoto have no serious interest in doing so. That is because Kyoto, like much of today’s so-called environmentalism, isn’t about science (since, for example, China’s coal furnaces are a far larger problem than U.S. SUVs) but about Earth worship and anti-capitalism. Environmentalism has become the last refuge of the Marxists. The U.S. must especially be contained because it is the biggest sinner, being the most successful capitalist. The SUV is the symbol of global warming because it represents the sins of capitalism and “greed.” We have indulged, and we will be punished by a Higher Power, now “the Planet,” rather than God, by apocaplypse. Ancient apocalyptic myth, combined with inchoate Earth worship and the tattered end game of global Marxism. That is what Kyoto represents.
Dec 1, 2005 - 1:15 pm