Global Warming Treaty Suffering from Meltdown

Global warming is all the rage recently, spending almost as much time in the headlines as President Clinton spends aboard Air Force One traveling around the world. Unfortunately, the global warming horror stories are based on data that is neither scientific nor accurate, but rather is contrived and manipulated with a political agenda in mind. Even so, the last global warming meeting in the Hague, Netherlands in November suggests that the global warming treaty, the Kyoto Protocol, is headed for a meltdown of its own.

The global warming controversy

In theory, global warming, otherwise known as "the greenhouse effect", is caused when greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) build up in the atmosphere and trap heat from the sun which causes the planet to warm up. The offending gases are supposedly spewed into the atmosphere by human activity, burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, and natural sources as well. Chlorofluorocarbons are also considered a contributing factor, by damaging the earth's ozone layer and consequently permitting more of the sun's rays to penetrate the atmosphere.

The ground temperature measurements of the earth compared to the satellite measurements. The dashed lines illustrate the trend lines for the data. The ground temperatures show warming, the satellite measurements do not. While the ground measurements are subject to "heat island effects", which happens when cities grow around the once rural ground weather stations, the satellite data are not subject to that type of error. In fact the satellite data has been found to be accurate to within 0.01o C. Most scientists now believe that solar eruptions and storms account for much of the earth's temperature variation.

Just how did global warming get to be such a "crisis" anyway? The big, green ball started rolling back in 1988 when Dr. James Hansen, head of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, announced that global warming was, in fact, a very real threat to our environment. The alarm generated by this news was one factor that led to the Rio Earth Summit gathering in 1992, the birthplace of Agenda 21, The Convention on Biological Diversity, and The Framework Convention on Climate Change (FCCC). The next major milestone came from Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 where the Kyoto Protocol emerged as evil offspring to the FCCC. This global warming treaty would set the stage for proposed regulations which, if implemented, would severely impact the world's economy.

Countless people around the world chose to completely ignore this fact, and instead focus on weather changes- placing an automatic "global warming tag" on anything out of the ordinary. El Nino, La Nina, and now the floods in Europe have all been blamed on global warming. Prince Charles added fuel to the fire in a Daily Express story on November 7 by saying that mankind is to blame for the devastation of recent weeks: "Some recent occurrences - such as the BSE disaster and even perhaps, dare I mention it, the present severe weather - are, I have no doubt, the consequences of mankind's arrogant disregard of the delicate balance of nature."

As environmentalists project their doomsday scenarios on a daily basis, scientists, politicians, and even everyday citizens still have not reached a consensus on whether global warming is really happening, and if so, what causes it. Most of the fingers tend to point to humans, but on Tuesday November 14, Reuters ran a story detailing other factors that could contribute to global warming. Melvin Wallace of Weather Action, a long-range forecasting service, was quoted as saying "...scientists argue that rising temperatures are a natural phenomenon that have been historically documented. It is part and parcel of the cycles of climates."

Nigel Calder, British physicist and science writer agrees with the theory that global warming is more natural than man-made. "It could perfectly well be that carbon dioxide is not rising because of what we're putting into the atmosphere, which is relatively small compared with the natural turnover (of CO2) between the oceans and green plants and the atmosphere each year,'' he said. Calder believes that the sun is the real culprit. (note: Discerning the Times has long held that normal solar cycles are the main factor in any temporary warming trend.)

The most devastating piece of evidence against human-induced global warming came from the very source where the scare originated in the first place. On Tuesday August 15, The Electronic Telegraph revealed statements by global warming expert Dr. James Hansen claiming that warming over the past century was not mainly caused by carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, but by other gases, such as methane and chlorofluorocarbons. He injected some optimism into the fray when he said it should be "more practical to slow global warming than is sometimes assumed." The fact that the growth rate of these non-carbon dioxide greenhouse gases has declined in the past decade "could lead to a decline in the rate of global warming, reducing the danger of drastic climate change," he added.

Not one to let scientific facts get in the way of his agenda, President Clinton issued a grave warning on Monday November 13 over the Internet on Associated Press. Clinton released a "scientific analysis" that he said "paints a sobering picture of the future," and "makes clear that this projected warming threatens serious harm to our environment and to our economy" if it is not curtailed. Although he argues that "the scientific consensus is clear," anyone who has access to a computer and does not have his head stuck in the sand can see that the consensus is murky at best.

That became especially obvious as representatives of more than 150 governments gathered for two weeks in the Netherlands in November for a new round of negotiations on the United Nations' convention on climate change. In what is considered by many to be the last chance to implement a world-wide climate policy, the Sixth Session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 6) UN FCCC is attempting to finalize details of the Kyoto plan, but without much success.

BBC reported on November 13, 2000 that the blame is falling squarely on the shoulders of the United States. Sir Crispin Tickell, the former British ambassador to the UN, said that success or failure at The Hague would depend largely on which direction the US decides to move. "We have a real problem in so far as the biggest industrial country in the world has not even submitted the agreement to Congress," he said. "The Americans in this area are very much the villains of the piece. They've not gone along with Kyoto and yet they are unquestionably the largest polluter with 4% of the world's population and 25% of greenhouse gas emissions."

The Kyoto Protocol will have a huge impact on the U.S.

What they neglect to mention is that: #1) The United States also requires more energy to feed much of the world's population; and #2) the U.S. also has the most to lose in the deal. In order to lower CO2 emissions to 7 percent below 1990 levels, Americans will have to reduce their energy use by 30 percent! Personalize these figures by picturing the resulting hardship on your own family if you cut your gasoline and home heating oil consumption by a third. Now imagine the impact on the country if that is multiplied to include millions of families and industries! In fact, these statistics from WEFA, an international consulting firm who analyzed the Kyoto Protocol in 1998, show that meeting the Kyoto target would:

	Nearly double energy and electricity prices, and raise gasoline prices an additional 65 cents per gallon.
	Cost 2.4 million US jobs and reduce US total output $300 billion (1992$) annually, 3.2 % below baseline GDP (Gross Domestic Production) projections, an amount greater than the total expenditure on primary and secondary education.
	Harm U.S. competitiveness, as developing countries will not need to raise energy prices (or product prices) to meet mandatory greenhouse gas targets.
	Reduce the average annual household income nearly $2700, at a time when the cost of all goods, particularly food and basic necessities, would rise sharply.
	Reduce state tax revenues by $93.1 billion due to job and output losses attributable to lost US competitiveness in the global market and higher energy costs.

The administration has argued that new technology can drastically reduce the costs of implementing the Kyoto Protocol. WEFA has carefully assessed the ability of technology to reduce costs over the time period in question, and without very powerful price incentives, such rapid technology improvement is extremely unlikely. It may soon be cheaper for Americans to heat their homes by burning wads of dollar bills than to purchase fuel oil.

Environmentalists dictating US policy?

Clinton was accused in a CNSNews article on Thursday November 2 of letting environmentalists dictate U.S. energy policy. The chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee charged the Clinton-Gore administration of letting environmentalists make decisions leading to higher gasoline prices and lower crude oil supplies. With all the confusion in distinguishing between environmental fact, fiction, and folklore, it is rather easy to imagine that many of the current environmental policies were formed as leaders sat around a large conference table playing "rock, paper, scissors".

Take, for instance, the current stalemate taking place at the climate change talks in The Hague. On November 20, WorldNetDaily included a commentary by Henry Lamb which stated that "For nearly three years, now, these same conferees have been meeting in various cities around the world several times each year, negotiating answers to these unanswered questions." Questions, incidentally, such as "What is a forest?"

Another perplexity facing conference participants is what to do about "carbon sinks". This was supposed to be the United States' "ace up the sleeve". A carbon sink is the term used to describe plants, soil and trees that absorb airborne carbon, thus reducing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. In order to meet the stringent criteria of the Kyoto Protocol, the United States is advocating that countries be allowed to accrue emissions credits for sinks, counting them against the amount of greenhouse gases they are committed to reduce under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Carbon credits could be earned not only through new areas of forestation, but by preserving existing vegetation as well. On Thursday November 16, The New York Post reported that the UN and environmentalists firmly opposed using such loopholes.

Perhaps that would explain the timing of a report by Reuters on Thursday November 9 stating that trees are no longer the solution, but might actually be aggravating the global warming situation. What a quagmire this creates for earth worshipers! How do they continue to preserve the earth by saving the trees, if the process they risk destroying the earth by global warming caused by those same trees? That illustrates one tried and true environmental method of manipulation: "If scientific evidence does not support what we want people to believe, then we'll just create a new report with updated 'evidence' that supports our position." Strangely enough, that tactic has served them well for many years.

Another proposed "flexibility mechanism" in meeting Kyoto's target is the use of "clean air credits". A large, industrialized country like the United States who needs to lower their CO2 emissions in order to avoid Kyoto sanctions, could purchase clean air credits from a smaller country who falls well within the guidelines of the treaty. Of course this would do nothing about air quality, but would in actuality amount to the greatest income redistribution scam of all time. The real goal of the Kyoto Protocol is not to minimize any perceived global warming or ozone holes, but to minimize the sovereignty of wealthy countries such as the United States.

Kyoto Protocol now dead or will resurrection occur?

According to an article in the Washington Post on Monday November 13, and in BBC on Tuesday November 21, the global warming debate in The Hague is really heated up, but at the conclusion turned out to be nothing more than "hot air". Henry Lamb reported in WorldNetDaily on November 27 that the delegates failed to reach any agreement. This does not stop the process, however, but only opens the door for the UN to write their own version of an "agreement". Lamb says "...such an agreement will be nothing more than the empowerment of a U.N. body to do what the representatives of 180 nations could not do -- write the procedures through which the United Nations can dictate the energy policies of 38 developed nations." Thus, a new "golden rule" is born: "Do unto others what they cannot do for themselves."

Maybe when all the hot air in The Hague dies down, greenhouse gases will diminish somewhat. The global warming issue is not dead, but neither is the One who designed this globe in the first place. The same Lord who created our environment--the earth, sky and seas--can surely be capable of protecting us in the middle of any real or imagined global catastrophes. "I lift up my eyes to the hills- where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth." Psalm 121:1 V bm