Make up the difference how? and what penalty of 30%? We have to pay? To whom?

Originally Posted by dvy88

Beneficial? Pollution is killing people!

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/cbc/08060..._smog_deaths_9
http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2005/...mog050606.html

You'll note I said I DO agree with some environmental initiatives, such as toxic pollution.

What I do NOT agree with is Carbon Dioxide emissions being reduced. There are enough other environmental issues to deal with, without chasing after Global Warming alarmism.

I'll just copy and paste my thoughts on this matter from another site I commented on:

An article by the financial post explores the beneficial side of Greenhouse Gases (particularly Carbon Dioxide). Why isn't this side of things looked at more often? The hype and hysteria over environmentalism and global warming is sometimes overwhelming, and articles like this in the financial post is a breath of fresh air.

Some of the benefits:

"Over a period of almost two decades, the Earth as a whole became more bountiful by a whopping 6.2%. About 25% of the Earth's vegetated landmass -- almost 110 million square kilometres -- enjoyed significant increases and only 7% showed significant declines..."

"As summarized in a report last month, released along with a petition signed by 32,000 U. S. scientists who vouched for the benefits of CO2: "Higher CO2 enables plants to grow faster and larger and to live in drier climates. Plants provide food for animals, which are thereby also enhanced. The extent and diversity of plant and animal life have both increased substantially during the past half-century."

and some of the drawbacks of governmental action:

"If these governments are right, they will have done us all a service. If they are wrong, the service could be all ill, with food production dropping world wide, and the countless ecological niches on which living creatures depend stressed. The second order effects could be dire, too. To bolster food production, humans will likely turn to energy intensive manufactured fertilizers, depleting our store of non-renewable resources. Techniques to remove carbon from the atmosphere also sound alarms. Carbon sequestration, a darling of many who would mitigate climate change, could become a top inducer of earthquakes, according to Christian Klose, a geohazards researcher at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Because the carbon sequestration schemes tend to be located near cities, he notes, carbon-sequestration-caused earthquakes could exact an unusually high toll."

Another article highlighting the risks of unbalanced governmental action against Global Warming can be found at the Wall Street Journal. This article focuses substantially on the idea that liberals are using Global Warming as a platform to impose government control on the market, bringing us one step closer to a socialist economy. This article is also specifically relevant to the United States in terms of its content (US Senate/Congress Bills that are being debated), but has real relevancy to other countries as well.

"The Senate's global warming bill began by capping greenhouse gas emissions and reducing them each year, from 5.8 billion metric tons in 2015 to 1.7 billion in 2050. A Heritage Foundation study calculates that such reductions would cost more than 600,000 jobs a year through 2028 (900,000 in both 2016 and 2017), and the Environmental Protection Agency estimates the annual economic losses at $1 trillion to $2.8 trillion by 2050. Electricity prices would rise about 44% by 2030, and gasoline prices by more than 50 cents a gallon. Existing coal-fired plants, which provide about half of our electricity, would be shut down, requiring nuclear generation capacity would have to expand by more than 150%, to 1,982 billion kilowatt-hours from the current 782 billion, by 2050. That is a good idea--nuclear plants are virtually pollution-free--but doubling the number of them has zero chance of happening in a country that has not started construction of a new nuclear plant since 1977.

Then comes modern socialism: The government would offer "allowance" permits to emit greenhouse gasses. Initially about half the permits would be auctioned off to businesses, which Sen. Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) says would raise about $3.3 trillion by 2050--money the federal government would give away to favorite constituencies. There would be $190 billion for "environmental" job training, $228 billion for federal "wildlife adaptation" and $237 billion to the states for similar efforts. There would be billions for international aid, domestic mass transit, energy research and so on...

To make all this work, the bill would create massive new federal bureaucracies, beginning with a Climate Change Credit Corp., which would invest government money in private businesses, and a Carbon Market Efficiency Board, which could change the rules and alter the government demands on businesses.

Now, to be clear, I DO support the research and development going into alternative forms of energy, I DO believe we should invest the money to build more nuclear reactors and get more nuclear energy. If we can invent a car that will not emit smog and make the morning drive into your local city a complete haze, then GREAT we should do it! If we can improve our recycling infrastructure and re-use more resources, at a lower cost than harvesting new resources, then GREAT we should do it! But we should do it for those reasons, not because of Global Warming alarmism.

Scientists should do researches on all aspects of the Greenhouse issue, and not simply tow-the-line when it comes to Global Warming. Scientists with valid points to make about the issue should not be silenced and ostracized by the media. Most importantly, the government should not use the threat of Global Warming as a platform to impose stringent controls on energy consumption and which companies get government aid, or any other facets of our lives for that matter.

Originally Posted by rlevitin

Make up the difference how? and what penalty of 30%? We have to pay? To whom?

Make up the difference = fufill our pledged target for 2008-2012. Make up for all emissions we have failed to reduce.

Again, a penalty of 30% will incur on all emissions we have failed to reduce, which we will have to make up for in the 2nd commiment period (2012-)

As of the present government, I really don't see us meeting our targets for Kyoto. Somewhere down the line, we are probably going to end up buying carbon credits from other countries, which means money down the drain.

By the way, green groups are going to court with the current conservative government. After all, even the government cant pick and choose which laws to follow.

"We want the court to make a declaration that the government is bound to comply with this law," he said. "This law quite clearly states the government must put in place measures that ensure we make greenhouse gas cuts that comply with the Kyoto Protocol."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/...o-lawsuit.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environmen...imate change1

Alright, I will agree that the government is not above the law, and since it has been ratified, it should be followed... however, I do not think it should have been signed in the first place.

As to the penalties. If we do not follow the commitments now, what difference would increasing commitments make to us... we just wouldn't go through with those either.

Will there be some sort of global-concerted effort to isolate the evil environment-destroying canadians?

Originally Posted by rlevitin

As to the penalties. If we do not follow the commitments now, what difference would increasing commitments make to us... we just wouldn't go through with those either.

That, my friend, would be breaking the law... pretty much what is happening now. You can't just ignore laws and pretend a problem doesn't exist.

Originally Posted by rlevitin

Will there be some sort of global-concerted effort to isolate the evil environment-destroying canadians?

This will have to be discussed in further Kyoto meetings. However, breaking international law doesnt make us look so good on the world stage... after all, Kyoto is a collaborative effort. As posted before, many countries have either met or are close to meeting their targets (France, UK, Russia to name a few).

Getting back on topic, check out this story from Perez Hilton: http://perezhilton.com/2008-06-18-te...against-racism

Uh hello War Drafting. Bye young people.

I wonder how many of the people in here voted in our recent election.

I think more people were interested in voting in the American election than in the Canadian one. I voted for the Canadian one. But I wish our candidates did something cool... like... acting like humans.. making mistakes (before becoming PM). I don't know maybe we can have Britney Spears advertise and write songs encouraging us to vote in Canadian elections so we don't waste our time on Americans.

I think some of our voter apathy is due to the way we vote in Canada vs the US. They vote for their President AND their Congressperson. We vote for an MP; and whichever MP party has the most votes gets the job as Prime Minister.

I honestly think Harper wouldn't be in power if our system was like the US's

Ya, it would be interesting to see. In that sort of system I'd expect someone like Jack Layton or Elizabeth May to do much better. Their parties aren't so popular, but they are likeable and are viewed to have strong leadership skills.

Meanwhile the Liberals and Conservatives have solid parties, but neither (at least this year) had inspiring leaders.

In terms of fairness though, the US system is hardly better then ours. Their first-past-the-post system is like hours but much worse considering they base it on entire states rather than small ridings. Remember when all Gore beat Bush by 500 000 votes but didn't win the election? That's at least less likely to happen in Canada.

Originally Posted by Slania

Uh hello War Drafting. Bye young people.

What is that supposed to mean?

Originally Posted by Alistair

What is that supposed to mean?

Maybe that person saw one of the many ridiculous forwarded e-mails about how Obama is a socialist/communist/sleeper agent/terrorist/anti-freedom nut etc, etc, etc and just extrapolated from there.....

you guys know his race is a distraction. the u.s. government is worse than the nazis ever were.

Originally Posted by buddafucco

you guys know his race is a distraction. the u.s. government is worse than the nazis ever were.

Really, that's your first post?