Re: [asa] Bali

"Was the US move significant or a minor gesture?"

I think all gestures at Bali (and at Kyoto) in the direction of limiting greenhouse gas emissions are minor and constitute little more than mere gestures. Among other things, I hear time and again that Kyoto signatories have reined in their emissions not at all, and that emissions for many of their key nations, as well as for all signatories combined, have increased at a much higher rate than have emissions of the chief of sinners (USA). Setting goals is one thing, living up to them is quite another.

We're up against a fundamental human problem: People have a hard time sacrificing for the future, especially someone else's future, especially if that someone else is someone they may not care for. Contemporary Americans may be the worst sinners in this respect. They go into debt at record pace, not even sacrificing for their own future. There are obvious long-term problems with Social Security, Medicare, etc., but no one in power has the will to force people to make the necessary sacrifices to solve those problems.

At the moment many Americans pay lip service to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Wait until they have to start paying for those reductions--if in fact anyone ever succeeds in implementing them. When fuel mileage restrictions forced cars to get smaller, Americans bought less strictly regulated SUVs. And who believes the Chinese and Indians will sacrifice their economic surges for the sake of a nebulous future benefit mostly for someone else?

Not long ago Business Week exposed carbon cap-and-trade schemes as something like 95% economically fraudulent.

People are capable of making sacrifices for the future. The American response to World War II is a superb example of that. Americans acknowledged a clear and present danger, and they united against it and made great sacrifices to defeat it. But this was a danger that came with sounds of exploding bombs and unprecedented destruction and death. It was a danger they could feel.

The danger of climate change is not even recognized as a danger by many intelligent and informed people. If they acknowledge it at all, they consider it instead a challenge. For such development it's not likely the country's leaders will be able to persuade a majority to make significant sacrifices.

Don

  ----- Original Message -----
  From: Randy Isaac
  To: asa@calvin.edu
  Sent: Monday, December 17, 2007 6:42 PM
  Subject: [asa] Bali

  What did you all think of the Bali meeting? Was the US move significant or a minor gesture?
  Was there anything new in the denier letter at http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=164002 ?

  Randy

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Received on Tue Dec 18 17:49:15 2007