Kyoto Protocol and U.N. conference in Montreal on world climate change.
It is interesting to peruse two articles that appeared on the same day on the Montreal conference: One in the Fresno Bee from the NY Times and one reported in the Wall Street Journal. Both were published on December 10, 2005. Bill Clinton, was heralded as the new expert on Global warming whereas the Wall Street Journal pointed out that in 1997, the U.S. Senate adopted The Byrd-Hagel Resolution by 95-0, urging the Clinton Administration not to sign any climate change protocol that “would result in serious harm to the economy.” In 1998 Al Gore signed the Protocol . Yet President Clinton, who was in Montreal at the recent summit to scold the Bush Administration for its inaction, never submitted it to the Senate.
At the present time, India and China which are exempt from Kyoto’s emissions cuts, have no plans to submit to the mandates of Kyoto any time soon, despite the fact that China is the world's second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. Global warming is defined as an absolute fact to to most of us and even if we accept global warming as a phenomenon that has taken place in the past and now currently, does human activity get all of the blame?
A Canadian study quoted in the Journal article found that ”a Medieval warm period had indeed occurred, suggesting that periods of warming and cooling were natural trends unrelated to the number of SUV’s on the road.” Also pointed out were the data distortions caused by the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines. That eruption initially caused ocean temperatures to cool; now temperatures are rising as the “Pinatubo effect” unwinds and distorts the long term trend. As the journal again points out , environmental issues are better approached through economic growth and technology rather than targets and command-and-control mechanisms. It is difficult to determine the truth of this issue because the environmental people will not tolerate another opinion opposed to their belief that global warming and its causes are an absolute certainty. The two articles show that there is indeed a division of ideas and articles written about this problem should try to publish both sides of the argument.
Gary Marsella