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March 15, 2005
Greening America
In an interesting riposte to those in Europe who whinge about the US refusing to sign up to the nonsense in the Kyoto Treaty, there is a series of measures currently before the House and the Senate to reduce Carbon Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide, and several other "greenhouse" gas emmissions in the electrical industry, here. The reductions targeted actually exceed what would be required under Kyoto and are actually sustainable, where those of Kyoto are not. From where I am sitting this seems to me a much more sensible approach than to simply pluck nonsense numbers from the air and then demand everyone (except the world's really big polluters, China, India, and the "Tiger" Economies) sign up to them.
Kyoto would do the US economy serious damage. It would also do serious damage to the American people's prosperity, but then, perhaps that is what the liberal left and the closet communists of the Socialist Champagne set really want. It sometimes seems that they would do anything to bring the US down - even if it means destroying western democracy by destroying the powerhouse of its economy. Already the critics of the US government are whinging that "it is not enough" and too slow; well, perhaps they ought to take a closer look at their charges against the US and Australia as "the world's biggest polluters".
What exactly is that charge based upon?
The charge is based on a crude calculation of "emmissions per head" - so by simply dividing the output of pollutant gas by the heads of population for a country we have a convenient number which allows someone to attach a label. Because the US citizenry and the Australian citizenry own more cars with larger capacity engines than anyone else - they are labelled the world's biggest polluters. In this same stupid measure, we find that the US's output of Carbon Dioxide, when divided by the total population, gives a number higher than that achieved by the population of China, which is the worlds biggest producer of Carbon Dioxide and several other even nastier gases such as Methyl Bromide - banned in all Western Countries! But, we find that the Socialist cretins who wrote Kyoto also gave their communist Chinese chums a let-out - China need not meet its Kyoto commitments for another two decades, but the US must destroy its economy immediately.
Sorry, folks, but that is not going to happen, and the good folks of the US, who have more than proved themselves by their generosity even to those who have sworn to destroy them, are way ahead of the Kyoto crazies. At this moment the US automobile industry is exploring a range of fuel-saving and pollution-reducing options, including hydrogen fuel cells, "dual-fuel", and LPG powered vehicles. Some of these are already in service, and more efficient and cleaner engines already in service here mean that the pollutant figures on which Kyoto is based are already out of date. Once again the US is responding in its own way and showing the handout fanatics of the left that the real way forward is investiment in real development, not in trying to create some sort of socialist nirvana run by idiots and bureaucrats.
Europe would do well to look carefully at the US legislation; it may well prove to be far more effective than the Kyoto mishmash.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 15, 2005 10:23 AM