Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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Didn't Al Gore sign the protocol?
NO!

I don't think there are a lot of similarities in the Clinton and the Bush administration approach towards the protocol.
You are correct. Their approaches are not similar; they are identical. The USA did not sign the Kyoto treaty in either the Clinton or Bush administrations.
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Meanwhile, in many western countries cars are built which burn, on average, less than half the gasoline the average American car needs. Meanwhile, houses are built which rely 100% on solar energy for warm water supply as well as for heating, all year round, on latitudes north of the northern US border. Meanwhile, many western countries are switching from coal, gas and nuclear energy to renewable energies.

All this while the USA has still the highest energy consumption per capita as well as in absolute numbers worldwide.
Excellent if true! If true, I'm confident the USA will soon emulates its bettors when their techniques are shown to be better.

Now, the main reason given for not implementing Kyoto is that it would be too much a strain on the economy. Quite interesting, for a country that is technologically as advanced as the United States - supposedly. Because I still fail to see how it would be bad for the economy if a government would try to implement measures to protect rather than pollute the environment.
Petroleum based energy production continues to be more economical. The environment is not being polluted by use of Petroleum based energy production. Human life spans and general health are still increasing worldwide especially in those countries, like China and India, that are rapidly expanding their use of petroleum based energy production.

The big concern (or should I say propaganda) of many--I think it invalid --is that such energy production is causing global warming.

Let me give you an example: around the world, 41 countries have adopted laws which allow companies as well as private people to sell electricity at a rate significantly higher than what would be paid for 'conventionally generated' electricity to the national suppliers. As a result, hundreds of new businesses have sprung up, focusing on renewable energies such as wind energy, geothermal enery, solar energy, biomass energy etc. The procedures that are being developed and discovered may very well conceivably cover a large percentage of the national power supply of these countries.
If true, I hope these techniques are soon emulated by the USA. Self-interest will be sufficient motive for theUSA without signing a treaty like Kyoto that seeks to limit the USA, while excusing almost everyone else.

Well, and what are the States doing? Falling behind, in the name of protecting the economy. How strange, isn't it?
I don't think the USA will fall behind for long if these techniques you describe are shown to be as valid as you claim.

[Didn't Al Gore sign the protocol? I don't think there are a lot of similarities in the Clinton and the Bush administration approach towards the protocol.

Meanwhile, in many western countries cars are built which burn, on average, less than half the gasoline the average American car needs. Meanwhile, houses are built which rely 100% on solar energy for warm water supply as well as for heating, all year round, on latitudes north of the northern US border. Meanwhile, many western countries are switching from coal, gas and nuclear energy to renewable energies.

All this while the USA has still the highest energy consumption per capita as well as in absolute numbers worldwide.

I haven't checked lately, but I know that a 2003 report by the EEA indicated that emissions of greenhouse gases by EU member states had increased for the second consecutive year (I think the worst offender was Ireland).

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However, despite its tough stance on Kyoto, the EU is some way off its own target. It pledged to bring total greenhouse gas emissions to 8% below 1990s levels by 2008-2012, but by 2002 they had dropped only 2.9% - and CO2 emissions had risen slightly. Only four EU countries are on track to achieve their own targets.

Emissions of climate-changing greenhouse gases from the European Union have increased in 2003, after having fallen in 2002. Emissions in the 15 old member states (EU-15) increased by 53 million tonnes (1.3%) between 2002 and 2003.Total EU-25 emissions increased by 1.5%, says the latest annual report on greenhouse gas emissions from the European Environment Agency.


Between 2002 and 2003 EU-15 emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2), which makes up over 80% of all EU-15 greenhouse gas emissions, increased by 59 million tonnes (1.8%). Since 1990 CO2 emissions in the EU-15 have increased by 3.4%.

Still, since 1990, the base year of the Kyoto Protocol, greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-15 have decreased by 1.7%. Five-year average emissions between 1999 and 2003 are currently 2.9% below the base year emissions.[/

From the source [/quote]the source, where JW got her above posted knowledge.


Again to say it loud: the 2003 report by the EA, JW noted above says:

Greenhouse gas emissions in the EU-15 have decreased by 1.7%. Five-year average emissions between 1999 and 2003 are currently 2.9% below the base year emissions.

Didn't Al Gore sign the protocol?

NO!

AlGore listened to his boss and voted it down

Al Gore did initial the treaty and President Clinton subsequently signed it.

The environment is not being polluted by use of Petroleum based energy production.

Interestingly the United States has nearly the world's lowest energy consumption per unit of production or GDP.

WE consume more energy, but we produce much more useful stuff.

The Tyotas, BMWs, Audis and Mercedes sold in such great numbers here have more or less the same gasoline requirements as those sold in Europe and Asia.

Admittedly small high efficiency autos aren't particularly popular here, but I susprct that is simply a result of the high taxes imposed on fuel in Europe.

Solar and wind energy account at best for a trivial component of elecrtical power production around the world, There are technical and environmental reasons that limit the utility of solar power.

JW, Kyoto is dead because Bush and Blair say so? (btw, not was Blair really said, but whatever) You do realize that Kyoto isn't something given to the world by B&B, right? It's an agreement signed by 156 nations.

The Kyoto protocol on climate change cannot work in its current form, Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.
Most of the developed world - except the US - has signed up to the agreement.

But Mr Blair, writing in the Observer, said cuts in greenhouse gas emissions can only be achieved by establishing an initiative that includes the US.

Any new agreement after the Kyoto protocol expires in 2012 would not be able to work either if, as with Kyoto, the US is not part of it, Mr Blair said.

He blamed the problems surrounding the climate change debate as the "trouble with so much international politics: a reluctance to face up to reality and the practical action needed to tackle problems".

I notice that despite their now ten year old promises to eliminate this source of power, neither Sweden nor Germany have reduced their output a bit. France, of course continues to produce more than 70% of its electrical power in nuclear reactors.

Lots of misinformation and half-truths out there masquerading as fact on this subject.

If you look around the Arctic and Greenland there has been a change. There isn't the amount of snow there as before and the polars bears are threatened. All of those opposed to global warming warnings are probably employed by oil companies or related industries dependent on oil company businesses.

Old Europe,

Your photo of the solar heater installation was both interesting and apt (I have installed a solar preheater on the roof of my home in California which has reduced my electrical bill slightly. However it will take about six years to recover the cost of installation). I agree that this is a useful and beneficial way to reduce residential energy requirements. Such things are used here as well, but not as widely as is possible - here or in Europe. I expect that rising energy prices will take care of that. ( I dread the government-directed solutions favored by so many environmental zealots - we have seen more than enough of the people who are sure they know how we shouuld live and who are willing to force us to comply with their conceits.) However it remains a fact that solar power is not ever likely to be either a significant substitute for petroleum or a major source of electrical power.

Throughout the western world electrical power is generated primarily through coal or nuclear power. Owing to the ready availabiliuty of Russian and North African natural gas that fuel is increasingly sugnificant in Europe. (However a unit of heat released in an electrical power generating plant by burning gas releases exactly as much CO2 as does one burning coal.)

Petroleum is the principal fuel for transportations systems world wide. I probably exaggerated a bit in the point about the efficiency (in economic terms) of energy use in America. However the argument goes like this - GDP per capita in the United States is about 25% higher than that in Europe. While we do consume more energy per capita than Europeans (but much less thasn Canadians), our energy consumption per unit of GDP is hardly greater than that in Europe - and far far less than that in China, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and many other countries. . An American who works 50 hours/week and takes two weeks of vacation/year and drives to work in an SUV is being no more wasteful than a Frenchman who takes six weeks of vacation each year and works 35 hours/week and drives around in a crappy little Renault.

I generally prefer market forces to government regulation in improving the design of automobiles and power generating systems. In the United States the principal factors inhibiting the reduction of greenhouse gases in electrical power prioduction are well-intended but basically stupid environmental laws. Euroipean countries established very high taxes on petroleum immediately after WWII to reduce imports and facilitate the reconstruction of their economies. They have kept them through the ensuing prosperity and apparently have adjusted to them == though I doubt very seriously that if these taxes did noit now exist, Europeans would accept their imposition now. Americans are much more tax adverse than Europeans, and I for one am glad of that. We provided the petroleum for the western allies in WWII and significantly depleted our long-term reserves in the process. One might wish that Europeans would be a bit more conscious of what we have done for them and a bit less self righteous in their rather easy and superficial criticisms of us.

"An American who works 50 hours/week and takes two weeks of vacation/year and drives to work in an SUV is being no more wasteful than a Frenchman who takes six weeks of vacation each year and works 35 hours/week and drives around in a crappy little Renault."

How do you know its a crappy little Renault? Could be a bicycle with onions on the handlebars.

I will take no merde from a Froggy with onions on his handlebars !! (Hell I don't even take much from otherwise agreeable Brits !