Merrick Responds to 'Global Warning' Hello me dear,
Finally I get around to replying to your doofer:
>http://www.ericfrancis.com/planetwaves/globalwarning.html
It's a good article, and does a superb job of seeing the wider picture (I particularly like the stuff about using the products ain't the same as buying the ideology. A line I use a lot is 'if we are to find a way out of this it has to be by an inclusive network of compassion that recognizes that we have ALL been duped into depending on things that ruin us').
However, I'm really worried by the way the Kyoto agreement is seen as a good thing. Now I know your article doesn't exactly banner-wave for it, but it really needs overt and unequivocal criticism. Unfortunately Bush's rejection of it has shifted the ground under discussion to put Kyoto at the sensible end of the spectrum.
Kyoto is a mechanism that guarantees that the world will pollute with CO2 to 94.8% of 1990 levels. Any shortfall by a country will be sold - for hard cash - to someone who wants to pollute over this limit.
UN Scientists agree we need immediate reductions to a maximum 40% of 1990 levels. Nobody can seriously say that a 5.2% cut will help, we're just driving off a cliff at a slightly slower speed. The fact that 'carbon trading' will be a hugely lucrative market means that any attempts at further reductions will be vehemently opposed by those who want to pollute over their limit (and don't want to pay for more carbon credits), those who pollute under their limit (and don't want to lose their valuable credits they sell), and those who broker the trading. Kyoto is an entrenchment of CO2 polluting, it's a suicide note from the environment ministers of the world.
As a further issue, it is grossly inequitable - the limits are all set by 1990 levels. Those who polluted the most then get the most carbon credit. Thus it rewards the polluters and penalizes the cleaner nations and industries. The human race owes a massive debt to the atmosphere, and yet we are rewarding people in direct proportion to how much debt they ran up. This is obscene and, like the carbon trading, is biased towards the rich industrialized nations. It's a new way for the rich to get richer at the expense of the poor.
Nobody is suggesting that Bush rejected the treaty cos it wasn't stringent enough, but scuppering it would've been a huge favour to our chances of finding a real solution.
When the last round of climate change talks took place in Den Haag in the Netherlands, I wrote an article called Climate Change Summit: Business As Usual that covers a lot of this stuff in detail. It's still online at
http://www.headheritage.co.uk/uknow/features/index.php?id=13Please don't think I'm dissing your intelligent and sussed article, I'm not. I just wanna do a lot of waking people up to the fact that Kyoto is a scam run by the polluters to ensure they carry on as they are.
love ya,
M x x
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