The Gr8 G8 Deb8

[Ghoulish Delight]

So it begins.

And, well, it's predictably pathetic. The good news: Bush has suprisingly made a smidgeon of a concession. It ain't much, but he's gone on record as saying that green house gasses contriubte to global warming. Unfortunately, he's not excatly jumping to do anything significant about it. I suspect he'll still put more money and effort into sucking Alaska dry than towards ending our dependence on fossil fuels. But maybe this is the first step in the right direciton.

The bad news: In the same vein as Bush's "compromise", there doesn't seem to be as much compromise as wussy non-action and leaders being too wimpy to take a stand. All the language in everything they've come up with has been watered down to near meaninglessness.

Par for the course (hah, get it...'cause they're at a golf course!) for G8, I suppose. But, while I never expected any of the initiatives to make it through in the form they existed in coming in, it would have been nice to at least have those oficially tabled instead of just capitulating to Bush before he even arrived. Bunch of pansies, I say.

[scaeagles]

I have done a lot of research over time on global warming.

Do I think mankind has contributed to greenhouse gas buildup? Certainly. Do I think the natural processes of the planet - such as volcanic eruptions - do far more? Absolutely. Do I know that huge climate shifts have occurred un the past without anything mankind has done to contribute to it? Of course.

Climate change happens. Ice ages. Periods of warming. I honestly do not think that there is anything man can do to prevent it.

Kyoto has always bothered me in a few ways - developing nations, such as India and China, huge polluters in that they primarily get all their power from coal burning, are exempt. Also, I have read that Europe, in attempting to comply with Kyoto goals, actually increased their production of greenhouse gasses by 1.1 percent over the last few years, a far cry from any reduction.

Here is a link that I find interesting, from a source that I find it odd to be citing based on my politics, but it is certainly a different idea and seemingly feasible. The idea is to extract excess carbon dioxide from the air and sotre it.

http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2005/04/kyoto_will_not_1.html

The only chance we have of reducing emissions is to go nuclear. If we powered as much of our eletrical needs from nuclear power as France does (79%), that would drastically reduce emissions from coal burning.

Anyway.....like I said, climate change happens, and I don't think man did anything to cause it before, and I don't think we could ever do anything to stop it. It's the way good old earth has worked for a long time.