The Kyoto Global Warming Treaty: Environmental Quackery and Economic Suicide The picture at right (a steel mill that has achieved zero greenhouse gas emissions) shows what the Kyoto Treaty will do for the entire United States if the Senate ratifies it. Al Gore's latest (humor) Al Gore thinks global warming at the North Pole will thaw out the Blob, which was dropped there after characters portrayed by Steve McQueen and others froze it with carbon dioxide fire extinguishers. Al Gore proposes steep carbon taxes on fossil fuels. These would pay for giant (fifty-story) refrigerators to be operated with their doors open to cool the environment.

Genuine Zero-Emission Steel Mill

California's recent attempts to back-door implement the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty are an even better reason for workers and businesses to stay out, or even get out, of that state. Greenhouse gas regulations have no upside, and plenty of negatives, for manufacturers and for the United States.

The location of a new plant is largely determined by the cost of its power and the price at which it may make and ship goods to a given territory…
Our civilization— such as it is— rests on cheap and convenient power. … The source of material civilization is developed power.

—Henry Ford, Today and Tomorrow

Anyone who supports the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty (Kyoto Protocol), carbon dioxide emissions trading, and other carbon dioxide regulations needs to read the above statement carefully. Energy costs were (and are) a paramount consideration in siting a manufacturing plant and the high-paying jobs that go with it. The Kyoto Protocol would therefore encourage investors to move the smokestacks, all their carbon dioxide, and the jobs underneath the smokestacks to other countries.

1. It has not been proven that man-made carbon dioxide is contributing to global warming. Earth got out of the last Ice Age just fine, thank you, with at most the help of a few cavemen's camp fires. The current warming trend might be part of a natural cycle.
2. Even if man-made carbon dioxide is contributing to global warming, the Kyoto Treaty will do absolutely nothing to solve the problem. Third World nations like China are not subject to the treaty's carbon dioxide limits. Enactment of Kyoto (or legislated limits on carbon dioxide, as contemplated in California) will simply encourage businesses to move even more manufacturing jobs offshore, thus destroying American jobs. The jobs will go to places like China, which will pump not only the same amount of carbon dioxide up their smokestacks, but also toxic pollutants that American companies do not emit.
3. Some of the treaty's most vocal advocates are from South American countries that burn down rainforests to clear land for agriculture. Their rampant destruction of "the world's lungs," as some call these rainforests, is prima facie evidence that many of Kyoto's most ardent supporters do not consider global warming a serious threat.

Far more dangerous is the chance of an asteroid striking the earth, as portrayed in Armageddon and Deep Impact. Geological evidence, and places like Crater Lake, shows that this has happened in the past. A large meteor struck Siberia in the early 20th century with force comparable to a nuclear weapon's; fortunately, the place was largely uninhabited. Furthermore, Earth's weather erases the evidence of such impacts, which would otherwise leave our planet looking a lot like the Moon. It would be indeed worthwhile to develop the ability to detect such objects well before they hit, along with nuclear-tipped surface-to-space missiles to deal with them. We don't have to blow the asteroid apart, we simply have to deflect it from its collision course. If the missile's warhead vaporizes thousands of tons of material and throws it off the asteroid along vector X, the reaction will push the asteroid in the direction -X. If done far enough away, this will cause the asteroid to miss.

The Kyoto Treaty also poses a clear and present danger to the economic and military security of the United States, as shown by these examples:

On "voluntary" greenhouse gas emission trading
An entrepreneur, upon learning that the government paid farmers not to raise hogs (to avoid an oversupply and low prices) decided to go into the business of not raising hogs. He asked the Department of Agriculture what kind of hogs were best not to raise, and so on. Then he began to wonder if he could earn twice as much money by not raising twice as many hogs.
National wealth and prosperity do not come from reselling electricity, "not raising hogs," or trading emission credits, baseball cards, comic books, or other collectibles. They come only from getting raw materials or adding value to those materials through manufacturing. Carbon dioxide emissions trading is simply a dysfunctional performance driver that might appeal to financiers and politicians, but is simply a diversion from the nation's business.

Kyoto supporters now want to limit U.S. family sizes, and curtail immigration

Bette Hileman, "Greenhouse Gases: U.S. population growth complicates CO2 reduction and policy decisions," Chemical & Engineering News, 16 September 2002, page 21. Here are the highlights of the article's opinion on the source of the "problem," and some of its proposed "solutions."

1. Americans should drive dangerous, low-performing economy cars and live in shoebox apartments
• The article complains that the fuel economy of American passenger vehicles has gone down during the past decade, and "...the average size of single-family homes has risen greatly since the 1970s."
2. American population growth is the "problem."
• "...every year, the U.S. must provide transportation and heating and electricity for the equivalent of another large city, all of which add to its burden of greenhouse gas emissions. ...if the U.S. is ever to get serious about reducing its greenhouse gas emissions, an important part of the public policy debate will have to be about the consequences of immigration and fertility rates."
3. The government should use noncoercive-- that depends on what you mean by "noncoercive"-- policies to discourage large families. Noncoercive in comparison to China's one-child-per-family policy (enforced with abortion of subsequent children), perhaps.
• "It [the government] could curtail or zero out dependent tax exemptions for families with more than two children. It could cut off college aid for large families. It could take many other less drastic measures to encourage people to have small families." Note that doing this, however, would bring about the collapse of the Social Security pyramid scheme even sooner.
4. Immigration should be reduced
• "Politicians who dare to advocate a sharp cutback in immigration or incentives to motivate families to have fewer children would be stepping into a minefield. ...But a national debate over these issues is necessary..."

* In Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, Earth limited families to two children, with "Third" (often shortened to a four-letter word for excrement) being a highly offensive pejorative. The hero, Ender Wiggin, was allowed to be born as a third child because the government thought his family had special abilities that would be useful in a war with an insect race. This is, apparently, the brave new world that Kyoto's advocates would give us.

We suggest that Asia remove the toxic pollution log from its own eye before pointing to the carbon dioxide mote in ours.
"Do as I say, not as I do," say the Mainland Chinese:

Russia calls Kyoto "Economic Auschwitz," and rightly so

http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=43814 "Top scientists tell Putin to kill Kyoto"
"The Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases has no scientific basis and puts the Russian economy at risk, Russia's leading scientists said in official advice to President Vladimir Putin. In the document, obtained by Reuters on Monday, the Russian Academy of Sciences said the global treaty would not stabilise greenhouse gases even if it came into force."

"...Russia has vacillated over whether to agree to voluntarily limiting its emissions, and the Academy said there would be no point since the treaty would not halt global warming anyway. "The Kyoto Protocol is ineffective for fulfilling the aims of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, which it was created to fulfil,"

http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnewswire.shtml?nw=42650#n42650 Andrei Illarionov: Kyoto Protocol is economic 'Auschwitz' for Russia
"Russian Presidential Advisor on Economic Issues Andrei Illarionov has described the Kyoto protocol as an 'economic Auschwitz for Russia.' ...'Ratifying this protocol would transform Russia into an economic dwarf or baby whereas at present it is just beginning to grow into adulthood.'"

http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=43326 Kyoto protocol is discriminatory against Russia
"Illarionov also stressed that the Kyoto protocol was not a universal instrument, as more than half of all countries around the world have taken no obligation to limit emissions of greenhouse gases. The economies of countries that have ratified the protocol grow at a slower pace, as the Kyoto protocol sets substantial restrictions on economic growth, he added."

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41561 Putin adviser says Kyoto 'smoke screen': Treaty will create Soviet-style 'monster' threatening freedom
For most of the world, writes Andrei Illarionov in the Financial Times, the protocol, set to become an international treaty next year, is "bad news."
"Like fascism and communism, Kyotoism is an attack on basic human freedoms behind a smokescreen of propaganda," he said. "Like those ideologies of human hatred, it will be exposed and defeated."

The Fuel Cell: Intelligent Environmentalism

Economic driving forces do support energy efficiency. As an example, the fuel cell bypasses the limitations of thermal power cycles (e.g. Carnot, Rankine, Otto internal combustion). Thermal power cycles recover only about 35-45 percent of the fuel's energy content. The fuel cell converts the fuel directly into electricity, which is roughly equivalent to mechanical energy, with around 80 percent efficiency.

So why not pass a lot of mandates to compel automakers and power generators to use fuel cells? At present, fuel cell technology is just becoming economically feasible. Several years from now, no mandates will be necessary to get businesses to use them because they will provide cheaper power. If it's possible to put a fuel cell in a car that will deliver even 60 percent efficiency (versus, for argument's sake, 40 for internal combustion) with no loss in mileage or performance, no one will want to buy a car that has an internal combustion engine. Who wouldn't want a sport utility vehicle that gets 24 instead of 16 miles per gallon with no loss in safety (due to size and weight), performance (acceleration), or mileage? What power company would burn coal to make electricity when it can use a fuel cell to make 50 or even 100 percent more electricity from the same amount of fuel? (The reaction of coal with steam produces hydrogen, which is an ideal fuel for fuel cells.)

The lesson here (as Henry Ford could have told us a long time ago) is to stop trying to legislate solutions to technological problems. Let industry and the free market do their jobs, and they will deliver a solution naturally.

If the Cap Fits: Why our CEOs are warming to Kyoto.
Wall Street Journal ^ | 1/26/07 | Kimberly Strassel

Democrats want to flog the global warming theme through 2008 and they'll take what help they can get, even if it means cozying up to executives whose goal is to enrich their firms. Right now, the corporate giants calling for a mandatory carbon cap serve too useful a political purpose for anyone to delve into their baser motives.

The Climate Action Partnership, a group of 10 major companies that made headlines this week with its call for a national limit on carbon dioxide emissions, would surely feign shock at such an accusation. After all, their plea was carefully timed to coincide with President Bush's State of the Union capitulation on global warming, and it had the desired PR effect. The media dutifully declared that "even" business now recognized the climate threat. Sen. Barbara Boxer, who begins marathon hearings on warming next week, lauded the corporate angels for thinking of the "common good."

...DuPont has been plunging into biofuels, the use of which would soar under a cap. Somebody has to cobble together all these complex trading deals, so say hello to Lehman Brothers. ...GE makes all the solar equipment and wind turbines (at $2 million a pop) that utilities would have to buy under a climate regime. GE's revenue from environmental products long ago passed the $10 billion mark, and it doesn't take much "ecomagination" to see why Mr. Immelt is leading the pack of climate profiteers.

...For example, China makes a great deal of money trading carbon emissions credits, a creation of fiction for money from the U.N.
Strong cut and ran from the U.N. in 2005 when U.S. investigators discovered that he had taken a check for almost $1 million in 1997, while serving as a top adviser to then U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. The money came directly from Saddam Hussein.
..Ironically, while Beijing cashes in using U.N. emissions monopoly money it is the world's biggest producer of industrial pollution. In addition, for a program intended to re-distribute the wealth it would seem that all too many rich Chinese Generals and PRC officials are the singular beneficiaries. So much for saving the planet.
Strong has also been linked in press reports to planned attempts to market Chinese-made automobiles in North America. Again, ironically, many of the Chinese made autos to make it to the shores of the U.S. are, enviromentally speaking, gas-guzzling antiques with poor milage and even poorer performance.
...While many consumers may gasp at the price of energy these days, some like El Paso and Maurice Strong seem to want to add more of a burden on you. More taxes, more price hikes generated by bureaucrats, greedy corporate executives and corrupt politicians.
The criminal cost of doing business comes out of your pocket. The "corruption, collusion and nepotism" so well documented needs to be cleaned up.

Kyotoists force Mexico to reintroduce Aztec human sacrifices

Tortilla Facts

Mexican President Felipe Calderón has been making an all-out effort to fight the U.S. war on drugs. But now he will have to redeploy forces against a new brand of Mexican criminal: the corn hoarder. Anyone caught stockpiling the ancient Mexican grain can get 10 years in jail.

...The sharp increase in Mexican corn prices, which fueled the tortilla price spike, followed big price increases for corn on international markets over the past year. The main cause, according to most commodity analysts, was the U.S. decision to subsidize ethanol made from corn. Growers who previously marketed their harvests to food and livestock companies suddenly have new demand from ethanol producers, who are also armed with a subsidy to make their bids more attractive. The increase in demand from government-subsidized ethanol producers pushed up prices.

It was January 15, midwinter in early 2004, when the man turned aside from the main Northeastern USA trail. The Hudson River lay a mile wide and hidden under three feet of ice. His mittens made it hard to work and the display of his palm computer was frosted over but he wanted something to read, so he clicked on MoveOn.org.
As he turned to go on, he spat speculatively. There was a sharp, explosive crackle that startled him. He spat again. And again, in the air, before it could fall to the snow, the spittle crackled. It seemed strange that Albert Gore, former Presidential candidate and author of Earth in the Balance, was giving a speech on global warming.
"In essence," Gore was saying, "these scientists are telling the people of every nation that global warming caused by human activities is becoming a serious threat to our common future. I am also troubled that the Bush/Cheney Administration does not seem to hear the warnings of the scientific community in the same way that most of us do."
At the man's heels trotted a dog, a big Siberian Husky. The animal was depressed by the tremendous cold. It knew that it was no time for travelling.  It didn't understand when the man read from Gore's speech, "I don't think there is any longer a credible basis for doubting that the earth's atmosphere is heating up because of global warming. The evidence is overwhelming and undeniable. Global Warming is real. It is happening already and the anticipated consequences are unacceptable." The dog, despite its thick Arctic-grade fur coat, felt overwhelming and undeniable evidence to the exact contrary. It couldn't figure out what was unacceptable about a little warming; it had learned fire, and it wanted fire, or else to burrow under the snow and cuddle its warmth away from the air.
"Yet in spite of the clear evidence available all around us, there are many who still do not believe that Global Warming is a problem at all. And it's no wonder: because they are the targets of a massive and well-organized campaign of disinformation lavishly funded by polluters who are determined to prevent any action to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, out of a fear that their profits might be affected if they had to stop dumping so much pollution into the atmosphere." The man was so engrossed in reading Al Gore's speech at MoveOn.org on his palm computer that he wasn't paying attention to where he was putting his feet. And then it happened. At a place where there were no signs, where the soft, unbroken snow seemed to advertise solidity beneath, the man broke through.The water underneath was not deep but he wetted himself half-way to the knees before he floundered out to the firm crust.
It was as though he had just heard his own sentence of death. He had to build a fire and there could be no failure. Even if he succeeded, he would most likely lose some toes. His feet must be badly frozen by now. The irony of Gore's words, "The problem is that our world is now confronting a five-alarm fire that calls for bold moral and political leadership from the United States of America" could not be more cruel. A five-alarm fire, or any fire indeed, would be very welcome right now.
A certain fear of death, dull and oppressive, came to him. This fear quickly became poignant as he realized that it was no longer a mere matter of freezing his fingers and toes, or of losing his hands and feet, but that it was a matter of life and death with the chances against him. This threw him into a panic, and he turned and ran up the creek-bed along the old, dim trail. The dog joined in behind and kept up with him.  And at the same time there was another thought in his mind that said he would never get to the camp and the boys; that it was too many miles away, that the freezing had too great a start on him, and that he would soon be stiff and dead. "With such leadership, there is no doubt that we could solve the problem of global warming," Gore's MoveOn.org speech continued.
Wait! What was that next to the trail? The truck's radiator had frozen and the driver must have abandoned the vehicle and hiked to safety, but several cartons had spilled from the trailer. The man had trouble opening them because his hands were mostly frostbitten but the contents spilled out: dozens of copies of Al Gore's book Earth in the Balance and a complete press run of the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty.
All right; the man's hands were frostbitten, but he still had his mouth and he was determined to stay alive to vote against John Kerry in November. He got the stick of a strike-anywhere match between his teeth, rubbed the tip across the box, and let the burning match fall. It landed among several crumpled copies of the Kyoto Protocol, which promptly burst into flame. Soon the entire consignment of Earth in the Balance was burning as well.
The Siberian Husky nestled comfortably against the man as he thawed his frostbitten limbs and watched the carbon dioxide from Earth in the Balance and the Kyoto Treaty spiral merrily upward toward the clouds.

Global Warming, 14 February 2007