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Friday, July 29, 2005

KYOTO TRUMPED

This is the other major news story today but unlike the IRA wasn't mentioned on this evenings BBC news (this is a bit of a response to Stuart on Scottish political Blogs Review in a friendly way that I concentrate on a limited range of stories - it is the rest of the world that lacks a sense of proportion not me).
It doesn't offer any specific targets, but does promise to pursue and share technologies like cleaner coal, solar and nuclear power that reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Washington says the pact will complement the United Nations-backed Kyoto protocol, the international agreement to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels. The U.S. and Australia are the only two industrialized nations that didn't sign the agreement.

"We are not detracting from Kyoto in any way at all. We are complementing it," said U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick
Which is diplomaticspeak for "Kyoto is a useless & incredibly expensive process that even its supporters say won't work (they hope that having accepted the principle of Kyoto next time we will be willing to spend 100 times more) & if there is a genuine CO2 problem pro-active processes are the way to solve it - & if the Europeans don't it like they can sit on it & rotate"

On this the US & Australia are absolutely right & by signing this they have neatly outflanked Kyoto putting most of the world's economy on their side & incidentally proving how economically marginalised the EU countries are becoming.

They are also technically right since mastering our environment rather than bowing down before it is what we humans do. There are a number of pro-active measures we can do if warming ever becomes a problem - putting dust in the upper atmosphere (we know this works because Krakatoa & Timbora did it & produced years without a summer), seeding the ocean with iron solution vastly increasing plankton growth (the geritol solution), or dumping biomass (straw) in deep ocean taking the CO2 out of circulation - all of these would likely cost less per year than Kyoto - not the regulatory structure just the cost of flying 16,000 bureaucrats to Kyoto to write the thing.

And then again we could just go nuclear.

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