...
... first, you can not limit discussion only to options that seem appropriate to you. Second, given that relationship CO2-temperature is not known, whatever limit is set is based on political considerations, not technical ones. The fact is, that we could take CO2 emissions back to preindustrial levels and we do not know if temperature would go down accordingly.
There seems to be a misunderstanding here. It goes without saying that neither I - nor, for that matter, any other
Agorist - can limit discussion on the forum - how would we enforce our ukases ? Moreover such an attempt would be not merely bootless but pointless - what's the use of a deliberative body like our own if discussion be limited ? While we do deliberate as a collective, we make no collective decisions - who then can possibly gain by invoking cloture ? Besides, I
like free-wheeling discussions - so long as we all respect each other's right to his or her opinions....
What I have attempted to say - and my apologies if I have expressed myself with less than crystal clarity - is
not that the Kyoto Protocol option and that advocated by Professor McKibben (the two that were the subject of the discussion) are the only acceptable ones - my point (not an order) was that
discussion of alternatives should not be considered a substitute for
action on them. It may indeed be the case that the homeostatic mechanisms that regulate temperature and its distribution on Earth have become so out of whack that reducing CO[sub]2[/sub] emissions to pre-industrial levels will not have the desired effect of reducing global warming - but as that hypothesis, unlike that concerning the (as yet imperfectly quantified) relation between higher emission levels and higher temperature, remains both untested and unpredicted by present theoretical models, why counsel dispair ? Maybe, just maybe, the system is not so disrupted that it cannot be fixed ?...
In any event, even in the US (
the major country in the context of emissions) more and more people seem to be becoming convinced that the issue requires action. While some of our fellow
Agorists seem to regard everything (?) printed in the
New York Times as unreliable, I, for one, certainly hope that the views expressed in a
leader published today, and which I reproduce below, do possess a basis in reality....
Henri
PS : As regards the scientific credibility of hr Lomborg (an economist devoid, if I am not misinformed, of any training in the natural sciences), the interested reader can find some (critical) sources
here....
June 14, 2005
Feeling the Heat
President Bush has been running from the issue of global warming for four years, but the walls are closing in. Scientists throughout the world are telling him that the rise in atmospheric temperature justifies aggressive action. Arnold Schwarzenegger and other prominent Republicans are telling him to get off the dime. His corporate allies are deserting him. And the Senate is inching closer to endorsing a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions.
A result is that Mr. Bush seems increasingly isolated and his rhetoric of denial increasingly irrational. Last week, a whistleblower asserted that a senior White House official, formerly an oil lobbyist, had changed scientific reports to minimize the climate problem. The official, Philip Cooney, resigned last Friday, although the White House insisted that the embarrassing disclosures had nothing to do with his departure. Whatever the truth, this was hardly the first time Bush officials cooked the books for political ends. It was just this kind of nonsense that persuaded an exasperated Christie Whitman to return to private life.
Out in the real world, hardly anyone denies the importance of the issue anymore. Just over a week ago, Mr. Schwarzenegger pledged to slow, stop and ultimately reverse California's greenhouse gas emissions by requiring big improvements in automobile efficiency and pushing for energy sources other than fossil fuels. "The debate is over," the governor said. "We know the science, we see the threat, and we know the time for action is now."
As if on cue, the National Academy of Sciences and 10 of its counterparts around the world declared that the science of global warming is clear enough to warrant prompt reductions in greenhouse gases. Mainstream scientists have long accepted the link between warming and human activity. What made this statement exceptional was its tone and its timing, coming a month before Mr. Bush and other leaders from the Group of 8 industrialized nations are to meet in Gleneagles, Scotland, where Prime Minister Tony Blair will put climate change near the top of the agenda.
As things stand now, Mr. Bush will be going to that meeting empty-handed, despite Mr. Blair's efforts last week to make him take the issue more seriously. Perhaps the Senate can give him something positive to point to, although it will have to act fast. Three different global warming proposals requiring mandatory controls on carbon dioxide, the main global warming gas, could surface as amendments during the forthcoming debate on the energy bill, scheduled to begin in earnest this week.
One of these, the McCain-Lieberman bill, received a surprising 43 votes in October 2003. That was before the rest of the world began moving toward mandatory controls and before American power companies began to slowly accept that such controls were not only inevitable but also necessary to spur the development of more efficient ways of producing energy.
The results could be better this time. There is speculation that a less ambitious but also less costly bill sponsored by Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, and modeled after proposals from the bipartisan National Commission on Energy Policy, could win a filibuster-proof 60 votes. That may be a long shot. But what is clear is that the warming issue is gaining traction at home and abroad, inspired partly by Mr. Bush's incorrigible stubbornness.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
