Kyoyo

[yrwyddfa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3702640.stm

Who needs the Yanks, then . . .

[Shaggy Hiker]

Was the spelling of your subject line intentional? Should I laugh or not

I'd sure like to see that treaty go through. Frankly, the US has never done well without a challenge. We have a tendency to rest on past success. Any pollution is waste, so there are always ways to improve. Anything that pushes us to innovate is a good thing. We can't stay where we are, we must move forward.

[yrwyddfa]

Don't you think this news area is a bit up and down?

[Shaggy Hiker]

Yes, but such a simple typo...so rich.

[DeadEyes]

Originally posted by yrwyddfa
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3702640.stm

Who needs the Yanks, then . . .

Well we do given that they are the biggest polluters. What will happen now is that all the countries who signed up will help limit the effects of gases.
America will say things are getting better, and as such don't have to do anything. I'm just waiting for China to really get going (is it just me or is it getting hotter in here)

[yrwyddfa]

The Yanks, as I understand, are interested in internal affairs, and could not give a monkeys bollock to what happens elsewhere.

After all GWB will be dead before NYC is underwater; why should he care?

[yrwyddfa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ts/4105327.stm

Interesting . . .

[MasterBlaster]

After all GWB will be dead before NYC is underwater; why should he care?

Not if a giant hemroid from outor space crashes into the atlantic see and a giant title wave covers new york. Hopefully ben aflek will be able to get to outer space first and blow up that mean hemeroid.

We all know that driving too many cars causes hemeroids from outer space to melt and flood stuff.

[yrwyddfa]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programme...nt/4664031.stm
Is this true?

[Xanith]

Its from the BBC....I doubt it

X

[yrwyddfa]

Is there anyone from America who is literate and intelligent? Come on guys! I'm losing the faith here . . .

[Valleysboy1978]

[yrwyddfa]

I'm not being funny, or even trying to be offensive.

I'm sick and tired of some people who are only ever reactionary. People who think they have a well-thought out opinion.

In fact they only respond to what has already been said. They add nothing to any argument.

It drives me up the wall.

At least some of the people here put their heads on the block, and actually give something of themselves.

I take my hat off to those very few. You know who you are.

[Valleysboy1978]

Indeed, and considering it's the middle of the day in the US they have gone very quiet. Most interesting.

As for putting my head on the block....the US should face up to the fact they are the biggest polluter and should be responsible adults by admiting it. Then do something about it whether it be proven or not is secondary because it is the right thing to do for future generations

[yrwyddfa]

I think that one of the points that is missing is, like you say, polluting our shared home can never be a good thing.

Whether or not C02 will result in global catastophe is irrelevant. Whacking out 25% of the worlds greenhouse gases surely is not a favourable position to be in. Do these people want healthy children?

I agree that the vast vast majority of western economies have exploited natural resources in order to gain their power. Surely, now, the US is in a position where it can relax on the exploitation? Is their economy so bound to exploitation of mineral resources that they cannot change? Can they not provide a covenant of anthropological unity?

I remember a conversation where someone (whom I presume is American) spouted out stuff about the US being a knowledge economy. That America is great because of intellectual prowess, and freedom - and under no circumstances was their geographic wealth relevant.

Now we hear that Bush is telling the world that that's not true, the economy relies very significantly on natural resources. That being 'green', that ensuring a healthy world would hurt the US economy so bad that it's not worth pursuing.

I agree completely that every (first) nation in the world is guilty of extreme exploitation. I understand that we all have, at least, some part to play in the current situtation.

What I don't understand is why the world's greatest (current) country is not prepared to do anything about it - and other much more minor countries (like the UK) are prepared to immediately commit to cleaning up their industry and their economies.

I guess meglomania is just too addictive. Like crack-cocaine - it leaves a bad smell about the place.

[Xanith]

I'm not being funny, or even trying to be offensive.

I'm sick and tired of some people who are only ever reactionary. People who think they have a well-thought out opinion.

In fact they only respond to what has already been said. They add nothing to any argument.

It drives me up the wall.

At least some of the people here put their heads on the block, and actually give something of themselves.

I take my hat off to those very few. You know who you are.

While I admire your pursuit of an intellectual exchange of ideas there is a point where it becomes necessary to point out flaws or inconsistencies in another persons assertion. You must understand that if you “put your head on the block” as you have stated, you must be prepared to have it chopped off every once and awhile

X

[Valleysboy1978]

You still haven't commented on the US's stubborness regarding pollution, Xanith

[yrwyddfa]

Xanith never does. Read his last post. Adds nothing to the argument one way or the other.

I reckon that Xanith is a pseudonym for a random word generator

[Valleysboy1978]

Perhaps Xanith is one of those new software apps where it tries to keep a conversation going by using standard responses?

[yrwyddfa]

[Wally Pipp]

He used to be a neocon propaganda outlet. Remember the pre-Iraq war days? He's done nothing else ever since. That's why he's on ignore.

[moeur]

yrwyddfa: I'm sick and tired of some people who are only ever reactionary. People who think they have a well-thought out opinion.

Me too, that's why it's so tiring to listen to all this global warming nonsense.

Seriously, do some research yourself instead of just assuming that what the media feeds you is gospel.

The global warming scenerio is not accepted throughout the scientific community.

If you have, however, done reasearch and have come to the personal conclusion that the world is being destroyed by green-house gasses, then the next thing to do is look at the solution.

Is the solution to get the US to cut it's emissions or should we instead go after the countries that are the largest producers and potential future producers.

[Xanith]

I personally don’t know anyone who is pro-pollution. Everyone wants clean air and clean water. However I cannot see imposing such restrictive environmental controls based solely on an unproven theory. There is a great divide in the scientific community when it comes to the theory of global warming/cooling/climate change. While temperatures are rising who is to say this is not just part of a normal cycle of climate change. We do know for a fact that at one time most of the earth was covered by glaciers and was a lot cooler than it is today.

The other point is having a protocol that leaves out the countries of India and China whose emissions of such material deemed as harmful to the environment is growing at a significant rate every year. Such a standard if applied should be even and fair across all countries. Leaving out two of the potential top polluters of the planet doesn’t seem exactly fair.

Finally I believe there to be some ulterior motives behind trying to set up such a protocol and saving the planet is far from it. There are those who would like nothing better than to restrain the US economy by imposing such strict environmental standards. They would use such a protocol as an economic leash to rein in the powerful and influential US economy.

I only see the US and its emissions getting better in the coming years anyway, without the need of any global protocol. Emissions for cars in the US have been dropping steadily since the 70’s with newer vehicles having to conform to stricter and stricter environmental standards. This combined with the increased use of alternate fuels will greatly reduce the pollution created by automobiles. Industry is also faced with increased environmental standards that they have to meet. While they may be occasionally relaxed in recessions to spur economic growth as the years progress business in the US are faced with stricter and stricter environmental regulations.

Therefore it is my conclusion that the US doesn’t need to abide by such a protocol because it is based on an unproven theory, not applied evenly to all countries, and I believe would be used as a political tool to control the US economy. That combined with the US already making strides to cut its own emissions leads me to believe such a protocol is not necessary.

I would just like to add that I will post on subject that I am interested in and feel I can make some valid input into. That does not mean I will not simply post to point out when someone is using an incomplete source to make a point. If some people have a problem with that then so be it. I have been on the end of some name calling simply because I have differing opinions, that doesn’t bother me either simply because once I know someone stoops to name-calling it means they have no intellectual avenues left and they know they have lost the debate.

X

[moeur]

This is very well put and touches on the major points in the argument against ratifying the Kyoto Treaty.

I too suspect that the intentions behind the treaty were to do economic damage to the US.

As far as the scientific evidence is concerned; this would not be the first time that politicos spouted false science to achive their ends. There is legitimate research out there, but the problem is the results are inconclusive. The way climate predictions are made is that someone comes up with a model, the model is run on a super-computer and the results are analyzed to see if the model's conclusions make sense.

In the case of climate change, there are many models and all of them give different results. This is because the problem is so complex that many approximations and assumtions have to be made.

As a scientist myself (not an atmospheric scientist) I am familiar with some of the ways projects can get funded. A PI who wants funding must go where the money is and with something as polically charged as climate change, there is a lot of money available. He must also many times, show his belief that his result will come out supporting the position of the funders.

Fortunately, valid published research is subject to peer review, but peer review is guided by the beliefs of the peers. The beliefs of scientific peers can be based on many things including hunches, but also a desire to keep a field alive. What better way to keep the field of climate research alive than to promote for results that show some type of future catastrophe.

I read both mainstream publications and scientific journals for my information on something like this. My own conclusions from what I've read are:

Is the Earth currently warming? - I don't know. There is as much data out there to support this claim as there is against it.

Is there a good scientific argument that links human production of green-house gasses to climate change? - No, the state of the research today is not advanced enough to answer this question.

Shouldn't we just be safe and stop production of green-house gasses? - This kind of thinking really bugs me. First of all, this could do serious economic damage to many countries. Second, it's is crazy to act on every suspicion you have regardless of the known evidence.

[NotLKH]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertain...ts/4105327.stm

Interesting . . .

Reading this article reminded me of a question.

Are Hybred and/or Electric cars cleaner than normal automobiles?

After all, Regular cars have this chain of Kinetic Energy Production:
Distribute Fuel to Gas Station->Pump Fuel->Burn Fuel->Produce Kinetic Energy,
Which seems more efficient than
Distribute Fuel to Power Plant->Burn Fuel->Generate Electricity->Transmit over KV Lines->Charge Battery=>Discharge Battery->Produce Kinetic Energy

And of course, How much Fuel is burned off during the manufacturing process of a gas tank for a normal car vrs that of the battery pack for a hybred{Which also must have a gas tank anyways}/Electric car?


Any Opinions?

[moeur]

Hybid cars are more efficient than regular automobiles and they don't use powerlines like electric cars they just burn gas. The reason they are more efficient is because regular cars put big engines in them so that they have enough power to accelerate and bigger engines are less efficient. The hybrid uses its electric motor (the electricity is generated by the gas motor and stored in a battery) to help with the acceleration. Hybrids can also recover some of their kinetic energy while braking.

Electric cars may or may not be more effecient than gas cars, but they can be cleaner if the source of the electricty is clean energy such as that generated by a nuclear (nucular) power plant.

[yrwyddfa]

I personally don’t know anyone who is pro-pollution. Everyone wants clean air and clean water. However I cannot see imposing such restrictive environmental controls based solely on an unproven theory. There is a great divide in the scientific community when it comes to the theory of global warming/cooling/climate change. While temperatures are rising who is to say this is not just part of a normal cycle of climate change. We do know for a fact that at one time most of the earth was covered by glaciers and was a lot cooler than it is today.

Yes, it is a theory, and the only thing that we know for sure is that the scientific community have a consensus. These people would not be saying "I believe that", or "We think that" they would be saying "Here is the evidence" They are currently not saying that. You are right to say that the issue is not necessarily of global temperatures increasing, but rather, anthropological climatic change - or are we, as humand beings, to blame?

The other point is having a protocol that leaves out the countries of India and China whose emissions of such material deemed as harmful to the environment is growing at a significant rate every year. Such a standard if applied should be even and fair across all countries. Leaving out two of the potential top polluters of the planet doesn’t seem exactly fair.

Finally I believe there to be some ulterior motives behind trying to set up such a protocol and saving the planet is far from it. There are those who would like nothing better than to restrain the US economy by imposing such strict environmental standards. They would use such a protocol as an economic leash to rein in the powerful and influential US economy.

Again, I think that you have a point. I don't know whether I quite agree that it's all being done to bring the big ole US to it's knees. I agree that there is some politicising of the issues, though. The protocol, as you've pointed out, is flawed - in some senses fatally. Things have moved on since Kyoto but the protocol has no flexibility in incorporating rapidly changing science, economic, and political issues. I think that the world is conspiring against the US is a little strong, though. You have to remember that the US is currently (?) responsible for 25% of these gases. As the largest polluter surely you recognise that you would be a target for these people?

Therefore it is my conclusion that the US doesn’t need to abide by such a protocol because it is based on an unproven theory, not applied evenly to all countries, and I believe would be used as a political tool to control the US economy. That combined with the US already making strides to cut its own emissions leads me to believe such a protocol is not necessary.

Evolution is an unproven theory. Do your schools teach it as fact? I know they do in the UK. I am sure that there are other examples. The worry for the world (ie me) is that the US will not enter into the debate. As an unproven theory there is still miles to go in the debates. And as someone else said the science is not quite there yet, but one day it will be.

Ten years ago the 'unproven theory' camp were saying that the temperatures weren't going up. It was all down to mismeasurement and other factors like the Urban Heat Island effect. But now we see the temperature is going up - they've moved their stance to absorb this erm 'mistake' of theirs.

Effectively your argument is based on a risk assessment strategy. It is risky for the US economy to create internal policies that will radically reduce emmissions. Sure, it might happen through normal voter pressure, though, albeit a lot lot slower.

I would prefer a positive debunk of the theory rather than just saying that the theory is incomplete.

You may know that the atmosphere is non-linear in nature and is thus very very difficult to model. This may lead to the conclusion that under existing scientific principles it will never being proved until the event has happened.

Needless to say the mode of proof has not been offered by you or others, and I can't help here either. I don't see how you can ever be conviced that the causes are anthropological unless you wait until the event has happened. There are minor causalities already in journals. The problem, of course, being the atmosphere and the very very large number of causalities you would need to find in order to have objective proof. So large, in fact, that it would be impossible to achieve in our lifetimes - an NP-hard problem.

I think that the stance of 'it hasn't been proven yet' is a particularly easy one in this case, and sidesteps the reality that the US is acting on economic risk, and not environmental concerns.

[Valleysboy1978]

Hybrid cars are more efficient, and cheaper for the owner. I think it was Honda that just produced this cool hybrid. If you are doing city trips it will use electricity to power the car, but when the electricity starts to run out the petrol engine kicks in to recharge the electric. It doesn't take it over.
If you then hit a motorway (freeway to you yanks) then the electric engine switches off and the petrol engine take over as the acceleration is better. However, during this time the electric is recharging ready for when you reach your destination and you slow down to city speeds.

I think they worked out that you can do almost 1000 miles to a full tank if you are constantly doing city trips. Pretty cost effective I'd say. As for emissions, the car is more clean but I couldn't comment on the production of it because I do not know enough facts.

[moeur]

we know for sure is that the scientific community have a consensus

This is the point, there is no consensus yet.

I would prefer a positive debunk of the theory rather than just saying that the theory is incomplete.

I would prefer Proof of the theory rather than saying I suspect so let's take drastic measures.

Ten years ago the 'unproven theory' camp were saying that the temperatures weren't going up

Thirty years ago we were being told to expect global cooling!

The bottom line is this. Do we cut emissions now at a crippling cost to our economy based on unsure predictions? It is a risk analysis we are looking at the immediate certain risk to our economy vs. and uncertain risk far off in the future.

[Valleysboy1978]

Pollution is not just about global warming/cooling
It is also about the dumping of waste into the ground and sea which cannot continue from industries that can afford to deal with the waste properly

[yrwyddfa]

Is the Earth currently warming? - I don't know. There is as much data out there to support this claim as there is against it.

Is there a good scientific argument that links human production of green-house gasses to climate change? - No, the state of the research today is not advanced enough to answer this question.

Shouldn't we just be safe and stop production of green-house gasses? - This kind of thinking really bugs me. First of all, this could do serious economic damage to many countries. Second, it's is crazy to act on every suspicion you have regardless of the known evidence.

Yes, the earth is currently warming. The issue is whether it's anthropological in cause.

Greenhouse gases can cause climate change. There is (somewhere) proof of that. Is the quantity of greenhouse gases, and the environment of the earth such that the quantity that humans are currently pumping out sufficient to trigger the greenhouse effect. Well, that's the argument, isn't it.

Should we be safe rather than sorry? Is it OK to continue to continue to exploit the evironment when there are concerns - proven or otherwise - about these actions?

Asthma in the UK is on a steep rising trend. Now, no-one knows why this is. There isn't any proof. But I know that when I take my daughter to London I have to take a bag of medication to prevent a rather prolonged trip to hospital, and a particularly uncomfortable time for my daughter.

What's in London? Apart from lots of pubs the only difference between where I live, Rochester in Kent, and London is the level of pollution. The measured level of pollution. Is there a link? I don't know, and there's arguments both ways in the journals. The peer reviewed journals. Should I continue to take my daughter to London ignoring my own (very) unproven theory that there's a link with pollution?

[yrwyddfa]

This is the point, there is no consensus yet.
I would prefer Proof of the theory rather than saying I suspect so let's take drastic measures.
Thirty years ago we were being told to expect global cooling!

The bottom line is this. Do we cut emissions now at a crippling cost to our economy based on unsure predictions? It is a risk analysis we are looking at the immediate certain risk to our economy vs. and uncertain risk far off in the future.

The global cooling theory was developed by a man called Iben Browning who has since been shown to be a quack.

I think that you'll find the majority of climate scientists agree Agreement, as you've pointed out though, is not evidence.

I don't think that in our lifetimes we will ever get proof of theory for the reasons I've already given.

[Wally Pipp]

it boils down to the same argument over and over again, be it environment, new technologies, research, medicine or whatever you care to name: if it isn't profitable, it won't be seriously considered.

People think with their pockets more than anything else today.

[yrwyddfa]

it boils down to the same argument over and over again, be it environment, new technologies, research, medicine or whatever you care to name: if it isn't profitable, it won't be seriously considered.

People think with their pockets more than anything else today.

Yes. that's very true. Market forces at their very best.

[Valleysboy1978]

Would have to agree with Wally on this

[yrwyddfa]

I think that everyone's agreeing with Wally here. There is no denial from our American friends that this is all about economics, and nothing to do with our environment.

[Wally Pipp]

No but for more and more people it precludes the option that perhaps the most expensive research today may be the saviour of the next decade.

Would anyone today give a damn about computers if they were developed today? Probably not because the prototypes would be hideously expensive and no-one would seriously consider computers as useful tools. Yet someone did in the past and now we can't think of a life without computers.

Same with Kyoto. For all we know it may be the right path to preserving this earth. Yet many people only think with their checkbooks and see it as hideously expensive.

That's the problem. Quality does not necessarily equal the cheapest option. In that respect price/quality is a rather useless indicator.

[yrwyddfa]

Bet the same people measure KLOC, too.

[Wally Pipp]

Probably

The term "non-profit organisation" should've given you an indication...

[moeur]

There is no denial from our American friends that this is all about economics, and nothing to do with our environment

I see, you wait till we're all in bed It's 2:30am on the west coast here and I'll be turning in now.