Kyoto Treaty

[tw]

Originally Posted by rkzenrage

Why does everyone speak of these tariffs as if we cannot just get rid of them in one day?
Just get rid of the damn things.

Dictators and those who love those dictators fear free markets and love the resulting corruption. A perfect example is the current president and those who share his political agenda. They talk lies. In reality, one can get too rich (ie Rush Limbaugh) and reap massive campaign funds (ie DeLay, K-street Project) by acting against the free market and in favor of corruption.

American ethanol can only exist with massive government socialism. We have serious citrus shortages and we want ethanol. Brazil could provide both in significant amounts. But because so many American now in power hate free market concepts (so love dictatorships and socialism), America has massive tariffs. This is also the reason why the Doha round of GAAT had failed – maybe the first international trade convention to fail.

[Hippikos]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

How does the Supreme Court get the authority to unilaterally alter the Geneva Convention?

I'm sorry if I confused you. Probably the correct word in this case should be irrelevant instead of incorrect.

What I was trying to say is that it's irrelevant whether al Qaeda has signed the Geneva Conventions or not, US Surpreme Court decide to give them the same rights as US soldiers.

[Undertoad]

Far more than previously acknowledged, the battle against global warming will be won or lost in China, even more so than in the West, new data show.

A report released last week by Beijing authorities indicated that as its economy continues to expand at a red-hot pace, China is highly likely to overtake the United States this year or in 2008 as the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

This information, along with data from the International Energy Agency, the Paris-based alliance of oil importing nations, also revealed that China's greenhouse gas emissions have recently been growing by a total amount much greater than that of all industrialized nations put together.

How fast they are rising:

While China's total greenhouse gas emissions were only 42 percent of the U.S. level in 2001, they had soared to an estimated 97 percent of the American level by 2006.

Does China give a shit: no, this article talks about how bad it is, and man it's really, really fucking bad:

A total of 16 out of the top 20 most polluted cities are in China. #1 on the list is Linfen City in Shanxi Province, China. "The whole city smells and is covered in smoke."

Plugging a cigarette into his mouth, He Shouming runs a nicotine-stained fingernail down a list of registered deaths in Shangba, dubbed "cancer village" by the locals. The Communist Party official in this cluster of tiny hamlets of 3,300 people in northern Guangdong province, he concludes that almost half the 11 deaths among his neighbours this year, and 14 of the 31 last year, were due to cancer.

Mr He blames Dabaoshan, a nearby mineral mine owned by the Guangdong provincial government, and a host of smaller private mines for spewing toxic waste into the local rivers, raising lead levels to 44 times permitted rates. Walking around the village, the water in the streams is indeed an alarming rust-red. A rice farmer complains of itchy legs from the paddies, and his wife needs a new kettle each month because the water corrodes metal. "Put a duck in this water and it would die in two days," declares Mr He.

So did China sign the Kyoto Protocol?

Yes.

Why?

As a "developing country", the Kyoto Protocol does not limit China's emissions.

It's OK though, India has found a solution to keeping cool after global warming:

Computer models show that air pollution over India could be preventing up to 15 percent of the sunlight from reaching the ground in the springtime, possibly causing temperature drops of up to 2 degrees Celsius.

So did India sign the Kyoto Protocol?

Yes

Why?

If you've read this far, I don't have to tell you.

[Ibby]

I swear I already have the lungs of a lifetime smoker.

Just from three years in Beijing.

[Aliantha]

I think we should just eat all the cows today

[xoxoxoBruce]

Since the vultures are dwindling rapidly, they have about 20,000 cattle carcases they'd gladly have to consume.

I wonder if the China numbers include the scores of underground coal fires they can't put out and are laying a path of soot across the Arctic snow?

[Hippikos]

While China's total greenhouse gas emissions were only 42 percent of the U.S. level in 2001, they had soared to an estimated 97 percent of the American level by 2006.

Well, not bad with 4 times as much inhabitants. Are you complaining that China is going to make as much greenhouse emissions as the US, doesn't that sound like pot and kettle?

And yes, Kyoto is a hoax.

[Undertoad]

I'm saying that, at the rate China's going, burning dirty coal and growing at 10% a year, they will make the rest of us look like pikers.

I'm told the worst pollution in the 1970s-80s was in eastern Europe. People who visited Poland said that the skies were gray and the river water was so foul it stank. The collectivists in China have no reason to keep their ass clean.

[Ibby]

There's a river right outside the place I used to live in Beijing that all the lao wais (fer'n'ners) named Chou He - literally, stinky river. It was about half raw sewage, a quarter chemical waste, and maaaybe, at best, a quarter actual water.

We all had to hold our breaths crossing it.

[Hippikos]

When inspecting goods I bought in NE China, I also inspected the galvanisation. The walls of the room, or better the dungeon, where this happened were completely galvanised, the operators worked there without any protection and the chemical waste was dumped directly in the little river behind the factory. Yet this company managed to obtain ISO 9001...

What this has to do with Kyoto, probably nothing...

[Undertoad]

If they care so little as to directly dump the shit in the river, they sure aren't gonna install scrubbers on their coal smokestacks!

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Hippikos

Yet this company managed to obtain ISO 9001...

Easy...besides the organizational crap, ISO 9001 is nothing more than, say what you do - do what you say. I'm going to dump the toxic shit in the river - I dumped the toxic shit in the river....no sweat.

[Hippikos]

I know how easy it is to get ISO through Shanghai.

Here's completely different in the "new" ISO 9001:2000 human resources and enviroment are very important and have to be documented all the way through.

[xoxoxoBruce]

That's wrong. The purpose of ISO was to guarantee your company had the capability, to complete a contract with acceptable quality, before you could place a bid. That's an admirable goal and makes it easier for companies to out source, when they are reassured the prospective supplier is qualified.

It also helps the little guy, the unknown bidder in that by being ISO qualified he can get into the game and compete against the big dogs.

But when they start adding environment and human resources it becomes political. When a good company in Alaska can't get ISO compliant because they can't find enough black and/or Puerto Ricans to make their quota, that sucks. If you think that is a preposterous example, then you're out of touch with today's corporate culture.

I should have expected it would not be practical for long before someone would start using it for social blackmail. The end justifies the means to these clowns regardless of harm. Damn them.

[bluesdave]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

If they care so little as to directly dump the shit in the river, they sure aren't gonna install scrubbers on their coal smokestacks!

You are quite correct UT. As I pointed out once in one of our earlier discussions on Global Warming, China and India are huge producers of greenhouse gases, and neither shows any serious moves towards cleaning up their industries. We had the results from models produced by other scientists that showed alarming predictions for the World, if these countries did not act now. China and India claim that we - the West - had our chance at economic growth, and it is only fair that they have their chance now. People from my own group tried to convince Chinese authorities the insanity of what they were saying, but they are determined to press ahead, and clearly do not care what effect they have on the Earth.

I should point out that it is not just greenhouse gases. They pollute rivers, land, anything that stands in their way.