Hot fun in the Summer Time....

I read this great article off of CNN the other day about the Kyoto treaty.

My stance on this treaty remains that it was a biased agreement meant to be more as a thinly guised tariff on the American Economy than a fair across the board cut in the growth of emissions. More than this, as it turns out most (if not almost all) of the Nations involved haven't lived up to the treaty. One in particular, who's government is still openly (and may I add hypocritically) critical of the United State's failure to adopt it, is none other than our northern neighbors Canada. Canada has led the pack since 1990, increasing emissions by 25.8 % instead of the 6% they were supposed to cut. The EU has perhaps faired the best, reducing emissions by 1%. However the article makes the point that this is likely due to the exodus of industry and the closure of many major pollution causing plants, rather than the concerted efforts to get green.

The dirty secret behind Kyoto

A couple of additional points.... Clinton, shelved Kyoto and avoided it like the plague. (It was a politicians nightmare, damned if you do, damned if you don't). Instead Clinton came off as pro environment while actually doing the opposite behind closed doors. Clinton generally made it easier for industry to operate. Clinton made a clever political ploy to sign off on multiple new emissions, BLM forestry laws, and water polluting restrictions. He did this days before leaving office, knowing that Bush would have to overturn them, or face the destruction of existing industry across the country.

From: Environmentalists Run Hot and Cold on Clinton Environmental Record
Investigative journalist David Helvarg, author of "Blue Frontier, Saving America's Living Seas," applauds Clinton for his recent green deeds. But Helvarg views Clinton's environmental record as "pretty poor until the last six months."
Hamilton credits green activism for bringing Clinton back into the fold in recent months. Helvarg has a more cynical view, seeing Clinton's about-face on the environment as post-impeachment damage control for the history books.
"I think in the long run, the American environment owes a lot to Monica Lewinsky," he says.

Bush is completely awful on the environment, and save W suddenly taking an interest in his "legacy" I don't see much change in the near future.

My criticism of Bush on Kyoto is as follows. Bush buried Kyoto for good and said he would not enter the treaty. The administration, in a fine example of its arrogance, did nothing in the way of offering an alternative or a compromise. Instead Bush left it up to industry to cut back on their emissions based on pre-existing legislation and their own free will.

Bush, I'm fairly sure, thinks the Earth is merely a big toy provided to us by God, to use as we wish. Or at least that is how he tends to act. He denies global warming exists and then hires scientists formerly employed by oil interests to back up this ideology.

His "banner fuel conservation plan" early on was nothing more than another gift to the oil industry. Bush cut much of the federal funding that Clinton had directed towards developing hybrid technology, and instead re-directed it towards hydrogen fuel cells. What little people know, is that to make the "hydrogen", oil would be used, a comparable amount. Not only is it more dangerous and difficult to use, it would further cement the hold that fossil fuels has over our country.

Not till the price of oil per barrel surpassed $70, and gas was more than $3/gallon on a regular basis, has Bush wavered on his "burn baby burn" philosophy of resource consumption. It took the destruction of the world trade center, two category 4 hurricanes, and turmoil...(not un-tethered to Bush foreign policy) in the mideast. And now suddenly Bush in the State of the Union starts preaching about alternative fuel and doing photo ops at hybrid plants. My favorite moment was when Bush claimed that he would try to make all gas in the U.S. contain a percentage of ethanol... and then his press secretary said "Oh he didn't actually mean that" later the next day.

SO the Terminator and Blair, circumvent Bushie in this latest ploy, and hey... perhaps this is the tactic that needs to be employed. Let the states willing to do what is right start striking up deals with the European nations as though they were sovereign states. Didn't Bush say he was a "Uniter" when he campaigned back in 2000? What happened?

Blair, Arnie 'global warming pact'