Root Moose said:
Ultimately, I believe the fear of Kyoto, China, whatever is the expression of the most dangerous aspect of the human species: the fear of change/difference. No matter how "advanced" our technology becomes, at this stage our societies (i.e. humanity) are still pretty primitive. A frightened, shivering mouse backed into a dark corner comes to mind whenever I see public displays of "power".
I don't think the idea (or the goals) of Kyoto is bad or even unneeded. I just think it will be subverted, like the vast majority of politically driven agendas. Or on an even more realistic level, will be transformed into a real money maker. Read the proposition, running the whole thing like the stock market, buying and selling C02 futures and credits.
Resources are finite, wasting them on doomed exercises is wasteful. Shooting yourself in the foot by giving, even partial control of your business, to somebody of doubtful honesty is dumb.
Global warming is a problem, doubt Kyoto is the answer. I've been talking about global warming, way before it became the topic of the day. The whole thing was fairly evident in the mid 70`s. For a hobby naturalist like myself, it was kind of a glaring phenomenon.
Cutting back on CO2 emissions makes sense, harvesting forests, in a managed way makes sense. Trying to control the whole thing by posting it onto he stock exchange, sounds ludicrous.
The fear of change? You bet, change anything and the results are unpredictable **(global warming is change)**. We are paying the penalty now for the good/new ideas of the late 1800's and early 1900's. Think of the complexity of the economy, the more complex anything is (generally) the more fragile it becomes. Every time the base index for borrowing changes a quarter of a percent, a whole lot of people do a whole lot of hand wringing.
I can think of a whole lot of new ideas, that when implemented, turned out radically different from the intended results. It's kind of like the ecology, cut down a tree in the Amazon and the Sahara gets a little dryer.
Just to throw something out there, people are encouraged to buy newer fuel efficient cars. The car it's replacing cost resources and energy to produce, if it's retired before it's lifespan is up, that's wasted energy. The energy consumed in the production of it's replacement, may or may not reach the break even point in it's lifetime. Or in other words, the CO2 gases generated in it's production, the CO2 gases wasted in the production of the car it replaced and the CO2 produced by all of the employees that participated in it's production and the reduced CO2 emissions it will produce in it's lifetime, may or may not offset each other. It may actually produce more garbage. Fuel efficient cars, good idea, a practical solution, unlikely in a single generation.
I figured out a long time ago, it's doubtful the saved CO2 will ever equal the CO2 expended and wasted in the process of change.