New Rule

[malkin]

I was just reading an article about pollution in China, and this bit really got to me:
Liu wears a small green cap and an oversize pair of sunglasses. "We are a developing country," he says. "We aren't yet in the position to take on international obligations." Beijing has signed the Kyoto Protocol -- which aims to reduce CO2 emissions worldwide by

Comments

[reese99]

This is exactly the reason the US didn't sign the Kyoto treaty: Between India and China, a full 1/3rd of the world's population was exempt from the treaty's provisions, leaving them with no incentives to embrace cleaner energies.

On the upside, both China and India are heavily investing in nuclear power, which means that they likely won't be producing quite as much CO2 as was originally feared by their recent decision to have their industrial revolutions.

Still, it's going to be another 2.3 billion cars on the road, and eventually, another 4.6 billion televisions which need power. If you're a believer in man-made global warming, it seems pretty inevitable that it's going to get much worse in the next few decades, regardless of what restrictions the western world chooses to place upon itself.

teenager diplomacy

[cheetahmaster]

This is exactly the reason the US didn't sign the Kyoto treaty: Between India and China, a full 1/3rd of the world's population was exempt from the treaty's provisions, leaving them with no incentives to embrace cleaner energies.

And if they're not going to do the right thing, we're not going to do the right thing either!

Re: teenager diplomacy

[reese99]

It's not like that, though. Our contributions to the whole global warming picture, again, assuming you buy into the idea it's man-made, are higher than anyone else /right now/, but that absolutely won't be the case for long. China and India are developing very quickly, and will rapidly become the largest polluters. All that the US's signing of Kyoto would do for the world's ecology is delay global warming by something like 6 years in the next 100, and even less after that (if we can reasonably estimate things like this that far out).

For the same money we would spend on Kyoto in the US in a single year, we could provide potable water to the entire world for ever. Of course, I don't see us rushing to do that, either, which is, in my opinion, unfortunate.

Re: teenager diplomacy

[cheetahmaster]

It's not like that, though.

I know. I agree that Kyoto is flawed, but I don't think we should have just rejected it without offering an alternative, or at least affiming our commitment to protecct the environment. Jusst rejecting it and plowing ahead isn't going to get uss anywhere either.

For the same money we would spend on Kyoto in the US in a single year, we could provide potable water to the entire world for ever. Of course, I don't see us rushing to do that, either, which is, in my opinion, unfortunate.

This is a totally hippie idea I can totally agree with.

[badmagic]

Which was why the US didn't sign the Kyoto protocols. But if you wait to do the right thing until the Chinese do it too, well, I hope you brought a book. Right & wrong mean something quite different over there.

[jorgesum]

Yes, this is exactly why the Kyoto Protocol is stupid. Not only does it fail to apply to the countries which soon will be doing most of the world's polluting, it doesn't actually provide any way of cutting CO2 emissions, just penalties for _not_ doing it.

It's like trying to learn to fly by repeatedly jumping off the table and fining yourself fifty bucks every time you don't wind up hovering. If you don't actually have any technological means for achieving your goal, penalties alone won't help.

[mpeg2tom]

At the surface, I totally agree

[malkin]

I'm concerned about what's happening to China's environment (and, in turn, the environment around them; their smoke is blowing all the way across the Pacific). Speed-industrialization comes at a cost, and they may have pulled their people out of poverty, only to ultimately kill them with poisoning or famine from environmental degradation. I'm hoping they didn't take too many shortcuts along the way, but I know how industrialization goes.

The trouble is that you can't abrogate a nation as powerful as China from their responsibilities to their people and the rest of the world, simply because they're experiencing a stage of massive growth. In as much as we still have superpowers, they are one of them. If we treat them like a developing nation, they have the ability to take liberties that are far too dangerous for a nation of their size and power to take.

That said, I agree with your criticism of Mugabe. He's the kind of guy who starts a dark age.