Its Kyoto Day
Today (OK, its the 16th now, so yesterday) is apparently the start date for the Kyoto Treaty. You can find examples of my skepticism about the costs and benefits of the Kyoto treaty here. I won't go back over all that stuff here.
The Washington Post article linked above includes the usual misstatements about global warming, and is fisked here. I particularly liked this line (emphasis mine):
...by uniting the vast majority of the world's nations, Kyoto could equally be the harbinger of an international model that rewards pollution-cutting innovation and pushes countries and companies to pursue cleaner forms of growth
The implication being that the US is the odd man out of a global consensus. But then read further:
The pact, ratified by 141 nations, limits emissions from 35 industrialized countries
See the consensus problem? Yes 141 nations ratified it, but only because 106 of them didn't have to do anything and were exempt. In fact, they were exempted because the framers of the treaty knew that these countries would not ratify the treaty unless they were exempt.
I also enjoyed the implication in the article that America's withdrawal from the treaty is solely based on the stand of President Bush. You very seldom see any mention that the Senate voted 95-0 NOT to sign Kyoto until it was substantially amended, changes that have never been made to the treaty and never will be. This occurred years before GWB became president.
