George Bush and Kyoto

[John Simkin]

George Bush has always been unwilling to sign up to the Kyoto agreement. It was environmental agreements like Kyoto that got Al Gore defeated in 2000. The oil industry poured money into Bush's campaign in order to defeat Gore. Since then Bush has employed people who could be bought to advise him on the problem of Global Warming. Unlike others from the rest of the world, these so-called experts are virtually the only scientists to say that it is not happening. Recently, even Bush has had to backdown from this and at the recent G8 meeting issued a statement that human behaviour might be playing a role in global warming. However, he is unwilling to take action to stop it happening, claiming that to do so would cost jobs in the United States. This is not true as can be seen in those countries who have taken strong measures to slow down the process of global warming.

It has been announced today that the United States and Australia have been working in secret for 12 months on an alternative to the Kyoto protocol. They have persuaded China, India and South Korea to join this new club that will attempt to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Details of the agreement are not yet public but it is clear it is designed to give US and Australian companies selling renewable energy and carbon dioxide-cutting technologies access to markets in Asia.

It is thought the pact does not include any targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, which the rest of the developed world has signed up to under Kyoto.

The US, Australia and China are big coal exporters and are anxious to develop and export clean coal technologies.

As pressure groups have been quick to point out, without targets and timetables, the agreement will have no impact on global warming.

[Brent Crosby]

I'd like to add the Bush administration, as far as my research concerns, has yet to have an actual pro-environmental record. He has done plenty positive pro-economy issues, but yet has to have done anything of substantial that protects environmental concerns. The Republican movement has and will continue to say Bush's administration is simply deregulating the over-regulation of the Democrats. I believe this is correct as far as it will go. However, oilmen, oil, and environmentalist, environment. There is no real gray area here for me. The saddening part is the conservative agenda is to promote environmental extremism, and only that. Again, this is correct as far as it will go, but it is conservative hosts like Rush Limbaugh who sicken me as he is a master of half-truths and so pushes a form of "environmental backlash" which creates a picture where all of environmentalism is extremism. It should be noted that I believe environmentalists are hurting the green message enough all by themselves, but it is the conservative agenda that frustrates me as well because they paint a very grim and one-sided picture. Teddy Roosevelt was the model for our natural heritages, and it should be noted the left are in fact today the conservatives (regulation/over-regulation) on the environment while the conservatives are the liberals. Conservative and conservation were once one in the same, but now this is just another example which is indicative of our times where both ideologies will at minimum toe the line, and maximum, abandon past ideologies all together for corporate welfare.

Having spent a better part of the last two years listening to quite a bit of conservative radio, I have come to realize they really do not care about environmental protection. They care about leftist extremism. I sit with them on quite a few issues, but on the environment I am overwhelmingly in support of the left. It's saddening because to vote for them is based not on one of the positions I'm most passionate about. I think Teddy would be disappointed if he knew about the role reversal in our two party's.

Another point that I'm passionate about is our National Parks. I'm not convinced from the conservative perspective that deregulating everything is the answer. I'm more of the belief of having some regulation on the parks is a better alternative than opening them up to the prospect of whomever has the most money to buy and own them. This could lead to a corporate monopolization. I genuinely do not have a lot of faith in the market to protect our National Parks. There's something wrong with listening to the 'suits & ties' division on a matter that requires conservationists and scientists.

[Brent Crosby]

I'd like to add the Bush administration, as far as my research concerns, has yet to have an actual pro-environmental record. He has done plenty positive pro-economy issues, but yet has to have done anything of substantial that protects environmental concerns. The Republican movement has and will continue to say Bush's administration is simply deregulating the over-regulation of the Democrats. I believe this is correct as far as it will go. However, oilmen, oil, and environmentalist, environment. There is no real gray area here for me. The saddening part is the conservative agenda is to promote environmental extremism, and only that. Again, this is correct as far as it will go, but it is conservative hosts like Rush Limbaugh who sicken me as he is a master of half-truths and so pushes a form of "environmental backlash" which creates a picture where all of environmentalism is extremism. It should be noted that I believe environmentalists are hurting the green message enough all by themselves, but it is the conservative agenda that frustrates me as well because they paint a very grim and one-sided picture. Teddy Roosevelt was the model for our natural heritages, and it should be noted the left are in fact today the conservatives (regulation/over-regulation) on the environment while the conservatives are the liberals. Conservative and conservation were once one in the same, but now this is just another example which is indicative of our times where both ideologies will at minimum toe the line, and maximum, abandon past ideologies all together for corporate welfare.

Having spent a better part of the last two years listening to quite a bit of conservative radio, I have come to realize they really do not care about environmental protection. They care about leftist extremism. I sit with them on quite a few issues, but on the environment I am overwhelmingly in support of the left. It's saddening because to vote for them is based not on one of the positions I'm most passionate about. I think Teddy would be disappointed if he knew about the role reversal in our two party's.

Another point that I'm passionate about is our National Parks. I'm not convinced from the conservative perspective that deregulating everything is the answer. I'm more of the belief of having some regulation on the parks is a better alternative than opening them up to the prospect of whomever has the most money to buy and own them. This could lead to a corporate monopolization. I genuinely do not have a lot of faith in the market to protect our National Parks. There's something wrong with listening to the 'suits & ties' division on a matter that requires conservationists and scientists.

[Brent Crosby]

I thought this was a phenomenal review from Amazon on the book "Earth Report 2000." It comes from my blog:

Ronald Bailey’s dumbed down “Earth Report” is nothing more than vulgar anthropocentrism marketed as feel-good ecology neatly packaged for the McMasses. Actually, even the title of the book is a misnomer. While Bailey’s book is a “report” of sorts, at no point does the author seem to express a sincere or grounded interest in the “earth”.

Perhaps the book's greatest flaw, aside from the curiously misinterpreted statistics and erroneous conclusions, is its perverse avoidance of addressing the spiritual and philosophical issues logically raised when considering mankind’s roll in the natural world. While the book does a good job of inundating readers with all sorts of statistics and corporate-sponsored meditations, Bailey refuses, in a rather disturbingly determined sort of way, to pose the “larger questions”. The result is a book that too often feels intentionally rushed and suspiciously simple.

In Bailey’s worldview nature is a tangible commodity with a value that can fluctuate (...). “Ecology” is seen only as a tool to better manage natural assets to meet corporate and economic needs. This “nature as product” ideology has been practiced by capitalist entities since the industrial revolution, but Bailey’s attempt to bring it to the masses, and the simplistic manner of his presentation presents a new and dangerous trend. Bailey even insists that we should judge a species as “good” or “bad” depending on its relative worth to mankind. For example, Bailey believes that North American white-tail deer are, “dangerous mammals” and “killers” because they have the audacity to stray onto roads and highways where they often cause serious accidents when struck by fast-moving cars and trucks. Not only do these deer/vehicle collisions cause human fatalities, they ALSO result in over 1 billion dollars worth of insurance claims annually. To Bailey this represents a prime example of poor asset management (the deer of course being the poorly managed asset). Bailey never once considers that the massive deer overpopulation (which has logically increased the risk of deer/vehicle collisions) may have something to do with reduced deer habitat and the almost complete annihilation of the white-tail deer’s natural predators (courtesy of mankind).

Bailey’s disarmingly pronounced hubris in “Earth Report” is matched only by his inane insistence that there aren’t even any real ecological issues at all (at least in the “green” sense)! Counter arguments are seen as radical and suspicious.

The technocrat-friendly ideas presented by Ronald Bailey in “Earth Report” are not only arrogant and misguided, they are downright dangerous. Bailey’s subtle and consistent suggestion that all is really well in the world, may just cost us that, the world.

[Guest Stephen Turner]

After New Orleans perhaps a more sane approach can be hoped for? or in the words of Don McLean "They would not listen, their not listening still, Perhaps they never will" When all the Yah Yah & Gab Gab has been spoken on this issue, one fact remains, We have one home, Earth, If we dont start to tidy up the mess we have created future generations will curse the fact that we were born.

[John Simkin]

It has been argued that as these extreme weather conditions were caused by oceans getting warming it should have been called Hurricane Kyoto.