Reducing Emissions Without Signing Treaties
By dpayton Posted in User Blogs — Comments (13) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
If it was proposed that the United States reduce the following pollutants (based on 1970 levels)...
- Carbon monoxide by half
- Particulate emissions by 80%
- Sulfur dioxide emissions by half
- and virtually eliminate lead emissions
...would you consider that a reasonable proposal and ask the government to sign it? If we didn't sign it, would you consider it proof that we don't care about the environment? Do you believe that the free market or our own legislation couldn't possibly do this without an international treaty?You'd be surprised (or not). That's exactly what we have done, all without the Kyoto Protocol. The Wall St. Journal covered
the "Index of Leading Environmental Indicators", which is published annually around Earth Day and it has its own web site as well.
The WSJ reminds us that the dire predictions of today are coming from the same people and groups that have a poor track record.
This year, for example, Vanity Fair has inaugurated an "Earth Issue," comprising 246 glossy, non-recycled pages of fashion ads, celebrity worship and environmental apocalypse. Highlights include computer-generated images of New York City underwater and the Washington mall as one big reflecting pool. The magazine also includes a breathless essay by U.S. environmental conscience-in-chief Al Gore. The message is that we are headed for an environmental catastrophe of the first order, and only drastic changes to the way we live can possibly prevent it.
If arguments were won through the use of italics, Mr. Gore would prevail in a knockout. But as Mr. Hayward notes in his "Index," the environmental movement as a whole has developed a credibility problem since the first Earth Day 36 years ago. In the 1970s, prominent greens were issuing dire predictions about mass starvation, overpopulation and--of all things--global cooling. Since then, population-growth estimates have come way down, biotechnology advances have found ways to feed more people than the doomsayers believed possible, and the global-cooling crisis has become the global-warming crisis without missing a beat.
The democratic process, the free market and scientific advancement really don't get enough credit in all of this. Treaties from on high that try to micromanage the process are a type of environmental socialism that has been shown not to work so many times in other ares of human behavior.
Make a speech instead of lead. Saves a lot of effort, especially if you are a bozo.
epecially since the Kyoto protocol has nothing to do with any of the substances you mentioned. Carbon monoxide is close, but you're missing an oxygen atom.
Did you know I stopped smoking... but I have a little secret - my herion habit has gone through the roof! I tell my doctor not to worry, cause I'm making amazing progress.
PS global cooling was predicted by scientists in the 1970's neglecting human influence and over the next 20,000 years. This is very different than the warming predicted for the next 100 years.
environmental socialism - you should put a stop to this craziness!
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000100&sid=atNDDfPMAanE&re
fer=germany
U.S. companies including General Electric Co. and Duke Energy Corp. have come out in support of national limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-gas emissions that scientists say contribute to global warming. They are now being joined by Republican lawmakers who have parted company with President George W. Bush on the issue.
so as long as the legislation originates in our borders (although much of Kyoto did as well) - it's democratic, but anywhere else and it's socialist - even though they do essentially the same thing?
...rather inside the democratic process. Some of the ideas of Kyoto may have been thought up here, but not debated by the peoples' representatives.
We fought a revolution over representation. I'd like to continue to have it even in areas outside taxation.
then I suppose the Byrd-Hagel Resolution passed by the Senate to oppose the Kyoto Protocol was not debated beforehand. The people's representitives had their hands bound and couldn't even speak of the Protocol - right? Guess you weren't around in the late nineties, when that's all they were debating, aside from Monica Lewinsky.
Kyoto was a "from each according to his means, to each according to his needs" kind of socialism. I'm very happy that such a resolution was debated and passed. What I'm saying is that the implementation of such measures ought to come out of a free market, democratic method. Kyoto was not that.
As the original post notes, we're doing quite well in a number of areas without the need for Kyoto, and probably better than most nations on the planet. But we're doing it in a free market manner rather than in a fed-imposed manner, which is better for everyone.
Oh, I see - now you're not upset that Kyoto wasn't debated (when it was), even though you said you were...and now you're upset about the implementation is fed-imposed, even though in your above original response to my comment you said a federally imposed solution was democratic and also that it was no problem...
What an impressive amount of self-contradiction in only 3 comments...keep up the good work!
What happens when the free market (i.e. GE and Duke Energy) comes out in favor of federally mandated carbon restrictions? That must really make your head explode!
The Kyoto Protocol, in my opinion, is, as I said, a type of environmental socialism. I don't think we need it, as we're doing amazingly well in a number of areas without having to deal with international treaties. The free market is working.
Were it implemented in our country, I would certainly not want it imposed, say, as an Executive Order, as Clinton did with arsenic levels just before he walked out of the White House. I would prefer it be democratically decided. As you pointed out, it has, in fact, been debated and the Senate didn't like the idea. If they had, I would have been fine with the process, but it would still have been democatically-passed socialism (not an oxymoron, mind you; we do it incrementally all the time in the US).
If private individuals or corporations lobby for it, bully for them. Again, that's the kind of process I would want, where the pros and cons can be debated.
In summary, I want free market solutions (implementation) to environmental issues worked out in a democratic fashion (process). No contradiction, and better yet, it's proven to work.
Your point about executive order is not relevant here. Because Kyoto is an internationally binding treaty, it is not possible for the president to enact it on his own, but instead it has to be ratified by the Congress, which it wasn't. The democratic process in full swing here.
Even if laws are imposed through executive order, the Congress has the power to enact laws that overturn them, executives can be voted out of office, Congress can refuse to fund the order etc. Your fears about internationally imposed socialism are a bit overblown. Didn't Bush rescind the arsenic order?
Alright, let's go back to your assumption that the free market goodie-goodies have reduced all of these pollutants over the last few years. In fact, what the WSJ failed to mention is that most of the reductions of the pollutants you mentioned (again none of them mentioned in Kyoto) are due mainly to the Clean Air Act of 1970 - a federally mandated program that, among other things, forced automobile manufacturers to start making cars with catalytic converters and use unleaded gasoline - against their wishes. Had the free market been allowed regulate itself, I highly doubt such progress would have been made.
But the Clean Air Act was something we voted on and enacted ourselves. Still no international treaties, with an eye on sticking it to the US, were required.
I think, by the way, that the free market would have done as well or better. Without price controls over the years or other micromanaging by state and federal governments, the price of gasoline alone would have given us, I think, the hybird cars we're seeing now much sooner. Just notice how much they're selling now with $3+/gallon at the pump. Artifically lowering the prices (i.e. the state trying to control the economy) will slow the demand for such efficiencies as I believe they have over the past 30 years. Yes, yes, this is just one area of air quality, but it's an example of what I think would happen all over if our politicians didn't try to make points by "doing something" when prices got uncomfortable.
If the market wants it, it'll get it.
Former Vice President Al Gore fails to mention that the legislation establishing the Environmental Protection Agency was signed by Republican President Richard Nixon, and the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 were signed by Republican President George H.W. Bush.
Since the first Earth Day 36 years ago, the only environmental regulations imposed by Democrats were not legislated, but imposed by President Clinton by Executive Order on his last day in office. Since the incoming Bush Administration had no idea of their scientific validity, they were rescinded by a Bush Executive order for further study by the EPA.
If Al Gore was such a friend of the environment, what was HE doing for eight years as Vice President?