NPR and The Kyoto Protocols

Sometimes they don't proofread their own stuff.

Published on December 14, 2004 By greywar In Politics

The other day on the way in to work at around 0430L I caught an interesting little piece NPR was doing on Brazil and it's implementation of the Kyoto Environmental Protocols. The pice was about 10 minutes long with 9 miuntes and 30 seconds devoted to the lionization of Brazil for it's "progressive move towards using cane alchohol as fuels for their vehicles. Cane fules they explained produce virtually no emissions when compared to gasoline and was cheaper to boot! "Well ain't that grand?" thought I.

I was even thinking to myself for a few minutes that maybe Kyoto really had something going for it when the closed with the important bit of news in this whole ten minute spiel. In the last 30 secinds they revealed that adoption of Kyoto had led to a huge demnad for cane fields which hjad led to deforestation and land speculation on a scale never seen before. In fact the amount of forest land lost to cane fields (forests are the most important air scrubbers on the planet) far offset any reduction in emissions! Way to go enviro-tards!

9:30 spend telling us how great Kyoto is and 30 seconds on telling us the actual truth. NPR never dissapoints!

Comments (Page 7)

drmiler

on Dec 22, 2004

Reply #106 By: Solitair - 12/22/2004 12:42:08 PM

The US pollutes more per capita or in total. Swapping the two makes no difference. Only per GDP does the US not show as the greatest polluter, and this is just because the US has the largest GDP. It still means the US is the largest polluter of greenhouse gases.

That's like saying that an adult eats more food than a new born infant.

Yes it is. Now imagine there was a shortage of food for the next 50 years. Your arguement is saying that the kid should never be allowed to grow up or eat more. Why should the original adult always be allowed eat more? The arguement put forward by Kyoto is that the adults need to start cutting down immediately and once the kids start turning into teenagers they also need to cut down. But at the moment they are still kids.

Neither Nitrogen or Oxygens are actually poisons.

That's where you would be *wrong*. Ask any sport or deep sea diver about *oxygen* poisoning. Given the correct circumstances either gas can be piosonous to humans.And BTW please use correct terminology. Greenhouse gases are not actually considered pollutants. If they were then we need to address population control also.

greywar

on Dec 22, 2004

Thats reaching down pretty far into the semantics barrel. I understand it was to rebut an equally semantics based argument but I just don't think the meat of the issue lies here.

Draginol

on Dec 22, 2004

Yes it is. Now imagine there was a shortage of food for the next 50 years. Your arguement is saying that the kid should never be allowed to grow up or eat more. Why should the original adult always be allowed eat more? The arguement put forward by Kyoto is that the adults need to start cutting down immediately and once the kids start turning into teenagers they also need to cut down. But at the moment they are still kids.

Kyoto doesn't pre-suppose that we are about to run out of resources.

The US position is that everyone should get to eat as much as they want.

By contrast, Kyoto basically says that certain fat children (China and India) get to eat whatever they want but the US (the adult) and to a lesser extent Europe (also an adult) have to go on a diet.

I prefer the US position.

Draginol

on Dec 22, 2004

No because needed. The US has a fundamental right to ignore the treaty for whatever reason it wants. The other 90% of the planet however disagree with your reasons. Doesn't change your right to ignore the treaty, but you are in a small minority in believing this is a bad treaty. It's US versus the entire planet on this issue.

Well given that most of the planet wasn't affected by Kyoto, that really doesn't mean anything. That was, afterall, what ultimately killed it for us. Most of the world's population was exempted from Kyoto while the US (and to a lesser extent Europe) had to do most of the heavy lifting.

I'm sure the "rest of the world" would be willing to pass a treaty that says that the US has to give everyone else a bunch of money. And it your quote would be just as applicable - the US would be a small minority not wanting to pay the rest of the world a bunch of money and that it is the rest of the world versus the US.

Unfortunately for "the rest of the world" there is no world government. And "treaties" like Kyoto make it obvious why there shouldn't be.

Solitair

on Dec 23, 2004

Most of the world's population was exempted from Kyoto

This is indeed true, but most of the world's polluters were not exempt. The only noticeable exceptions were China and India. India pollutes about 1/8 of the US total greenhouse gas quantity while china pollutes almost 1/2. I know that the US really wanted these two nations included in round 1 reductions and considers their exclusion to be a valid reason not to join, but these countries have agreed that in round 2 they would reduce emissions. Furthermore much of their pollution is directly related to their huge populations (heating and cooking fires, and power gneration) and not due to production. Unlike the western world which can reduce industry emissions they currently can't even produce enough electricity to supply their heating and lighting requirements. While the rest of the world is meeting round 1 reductions they will be focussing on supplying the infrastructure required so that in round 2 they can and will make reductions. This means building more powerful but efficient and low polluting power stations, weaning their populations of wood and coal fires, and putting laws in place that can be used to force industry to control pollution in round 2.

The arguement for these two nations (especially China) having to control emissions in round 1 is strong, but in the end agreement was reached that this could wait till 2012. In the meantime the rest of the world is making a start. It's a pity that the US refuses to join us.

Paul.

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