Ezra's newest book Fight Kyoto

[Albertan]

I had the "pleasure" of visiting Russia in 1992. I visited a number of factories and my impression then was that the Russian industrial system was old, antiquated, high cost, and of extremely low quality. My impression was supported by a Russian economics professor who gave a speech to an assembly of factory workers at the very factory I was visiting and told them the same thing. The Russians were experiencing considerable economic stress at that time because Russia had lost eastern Europe as a market for its manufactured goods and were left with such markets as Cuba and Angola, who could only pay in rubles. ( Rubles had no value) . And the pollution emissions from these factories were unspeakable.

Fast forward to 2002, and all these old useless factories are closed along with their emissions. Let's be clear, the Russians closed these factories because no country would buy and pay for their sub-standard goods.

Fast forward to 2002 and Jean Chretien, PM of Canada suggests that Canada can do its part in fighting global warming by buying pollution credits from countries who have already met their Kyoto committments ("Russia"). Rather than do anything to reduce emissions in Canada, The PM proposes that we reward other countries who have done more than their fair share for emission control. Canada would pay Russia for Russia's leadership in this global issue rather than doing anything here at home. The PM proposes that Canadian taxpayers pay the Russian government for their leadersip in the handling of this global issue.

Am I missing something? Have I got this wrong?

[Trouble]

New cool Flash intro to Ezra's website.

[Jason Kauppinen]

29 days until shipping day!

[Daniel]

i understand this this whole board is full of right-wing "i love my job and screw the environment" types, so i'll try to be polite. but do you people seriously think that how much cash you have left at the end of the month is really more important than having breatheable air? what about the ancient architechture throughout europe? did you know that acid rain is slowly eroding these buildings that have been standing for centuries? massive flooding is overruning hundreds of poorer countries, and massive weather fluctuations are creating heat waves and horrible winters.

manitoba was encased in a giant dust cloud for over a month due to the severe drought, ontario was pummeled by devestating heat wave this past summer and every year, people DIE from the lack of descent air quality in cities like chicago and toronto!

does the idea of an "air quality index" really not bother you? have you SEEN the whole in the ozone layer? do you really like skin cancer? will new york city have to be flooded before you people will listen? or will you just build a big concrete wall around the city and blame it all on el nino?

environmental change is hard, and expensive. but the alternative is just not an option. money can be made here though. there's hundreds of different technologies that have been waiting for this day to come. cars have been sucessfully built that use compressed air and fuel-cells for propulsion instead of gasoline. wind and solar power have been only partially explored and are avenues for truly exceptional profit. geothermal energy has been completely ignored and nuclear fusion, while still experimental, is currently being researched throughout europe.

wake up and taste the smog. look at your kids and think about what they'll look like 30years from now when companies have developed stylish gas-masks and skin protectant. the internal combustion engine is over 100years old and should have died out long ago. oil and coal were excellent fuel sources for their time, but their time has passed and if we continue to use them, we'll wish we hadn't.

[Jason Kauppinen]

When was the last time you admitted that you were wrong about anything Daniel?

What exactly lead you to change your mind?

[Thistle, Shamrock, Rose E]

Isn't it interesting how we conservatives offend liberals, while, more often than not, they make us laugh

[hiti]

Who in North America reduced the acid rain and persuaded the USA to also reduce acid rain? Why it was one of those right-winger conservatives during the 1980's!! < gasp >

Daniel, how would you like some facts on the Coyoto junk science?


The Kyoto pact was flawed through and through.

Its purpose was to cut so-called greenhouse gases that some believe are responsible for global warming.

But no one has any hard evidence that carbon emissions contribute very much to global warming.

It's just one of any number of theories.

Furthermore, the idea of cutting emissions to almost 7% below 1990 levels by 2010 falls apart when it's now estimated that, because of economic activity by 2010 the emissions will be 34% higher than they were in 1990. To strangle this economic activity would toss millions out of jobs.

Another major flaw in the Kyoto pact was that most so-called "developing" nations were exempt from the regulations.

Most of these nations, in Africa, Asia and South America -- are worse polluters than any nation in the G7 democracies.

Yet they were going to get a free ride.

Under Kyoto, while we were strapping our economies, forcing cutbacks in production or drastically higher prices, the developing nations could have turned on their economies full-steam, undercutting our manufacturing costs.

The result would be a dramatic transfer of wealth -- and jobs -- from the western industrialized world to the 'developing' world.

We would become substantially poorer, and they substantially richer. What responsible western politician could condone that strategy?

It would be madness.

Chretien may have played golf with Bill Clinton and told us how Clinton looks to him as a father figure -- laughable -- but we all know Chretien has no inside track with Bush.

Which, in a very real way -- and especially on this issue -- is good.

Good for Canada, and good for the Canadian people.

Fred Singer doesn't think so. As a distinguished scientist and first director of the United States Weather Satellite Service, he maintains there is no scientific basis for justifying the economically crippling carbon dioxide cutbacks required by the Kyoto agreement.

In this year's Nurenberg lecture at the University of Western Ontario, Singer explained temperature data do not support the theoretical models of climate change underlying the global warming scare. "My basic theme," he said, "is that the balance of evidence suggests no appreciable global warming since 1940 -- the last 60 years. So when you hear a UN report about the warming of the last 50 years, please disregard it. It's simply a selective use of data. The balance of evidence, the preponderance of evidence, suggests no appreciable warming."

Singer concedes a sharp increase in global temperatures did occur between 1890 and 1940, but says there is nothing unusual about such climate shifts. A temporary decline in global temperatures during the 1970s had many of the same environmental zealots who fear global warming today decrying the imminent onset of a new ice age.

Singer has well summarized the conflicting data on recent changes in global temperatures in his book, Hot Talk Cold Science: Global Warming's Unfinished Debate. He points out that, while rising temperatures have been recorded by ground weather stations located near growing urban areas, data collected by rural weather stations, satellites and balloons show no significant change over the past 60 years.

Proponents of theoretical models of global warming argue there must be something wrong with the satellite and balloon data that fail to show any significant change in global temperature. Scientists like Singer take the view that, since the most reliable data show no global warming, there must be something wrong with the theory.

This is not to suggest Singer doubts the warming effect of increasing greenhouse gases. He argues only that their global impact is so slight as to be undetectable.

Does Singer think Ontario Hydro can safely dismiss concern about environmental pollution and start operating its cheaper coal-fired generating plants full tilt? Not at all. He supports determined efforts to curb real pollutants like nitrogen oxide and sulphur dioxide which generate acid rain and other toxic substances such as mercury.

Carbon dioxide is different. Singer points out it is not a pollutant. It's a natural constituent of the environment and a plant food.

"The more carbon dioxide we have in the atmosphere, the faster plants will grow," he notes. "People who operate greenhouses know this and introduce more carbon dioxide into greenhouses to stimulate plants to grow faster. And many agriculturalists suspect that part of the reason for our improved crops in the past decade has to do with the increased level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thanks to the burning of fossil fuels."

Adopting the carbon dioxide cutbacks of the Kyoto agreement would require severe cutbacks in energy production and bring on a global economic recession. Singer contends those who would suffer the most are impoverished peoples in the least developed countries.

What about rising sea levels? Singer acknowledges the world's seas are rising by about 18 centimetres a century, but argues this phenomenon has nothing to do with global warming. It's the still ongoing and inevitable result of retreating ice shields stemming from the end of the last ice age -- about 20,000 years ago.

Like the United States, Canada has no intention of fulfilling the Kyoto agreement. Yet instead of saying so frankly, the Chretien government insists the carbon dioxide absorbed by Canadian forests offsets increasing industrial carbon dioxide emissions by Canadian industry.

Canada should drop this hypocritical stance and join with the United States in candidly disavowing the scientifically unsound and environmentally unnecessary elements of the Kyoto agreement.

The UN's report on climate change, issued in January, insists that the 20th century was the warmest in the last millennium. But it measures the 11th to the 19th centuries with one system (tree ring samples) and the 20th with another (thermometers). The resultant graph looks like a long bungalow tacked on to the side of the Empire State Building - but only because the UN is using incompatible sets of data. That's why, according to their survey, most of the alleged warming occurred in the early 20th century, when America was a predominantly rural economy: if the UN report proves anything, it's that, as soon as folks got off their horses and starting buying automobiles, the rate of global warming slowed down.

Besides, the European Union has been totally dishonorable in the negotiations to date. In Bonn, Germany last November, the U.S. made concession after concession, but the EU refused to take yes for an answer, thereby scuttling the talks. The EU blamed U.S. negotiators and accused them of endangering the planet.

In truth, the EU's green sympathies are a façade. European economies have stagnated for several years under the weight of onerous economic regulations and taxes, including heavy energy taxes. As a result, U.S. companies are out-competing their companies. Rather than deregulate, the EU has sought to level the playing field by saddling U.S. companies with similar restrictions through the Kyoto Protocol.

The EU's commissioner for the environment, Margot Wallstrom, said as much when President Bush decided to forego domestic CO2 regulations. "This is not a simple environmental issue where you can say it is an issue where the scientists are not unanimous. This is about international relations, this is about economy, about trying to create a level playing field for big businesses throughout the world. You have to understand what is at stake and that is why it is serious."

Global warming is not an urgent matter. The current energy crisis is, however. President Bush would do well to refrain from further negotiations that would only harm this country's economic future and that of the rest of the world.
http://www.microtech.com.au/daly/index.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/

http://www.sepp.org/



THE RIGHT HONOURABLE JOE CLARK ASKS THE PRIME MINISTER ABOUT HIS KYOTO INTENTIONS
For Immediate Release
OTTAWA, Wednesday, January 30, 2002 - The Right Honourable Joe Clark, Leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada wrote to the Prime Minister today to ask his intentions on Kyoto and for clarification on some matters.

The following is the text of that letter:
"Dear Prime Minister,
Last week, the Minister of the Environment, stated in a meeting with the editorial board of the Calgary Herald that your government intends to ratify the Kyoto Protocol either before the G8 Summit in Kananaskis in June or the United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg at the end of August. The Minister also stated that the drafting of regulations relating to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol would begin in the next two months.

The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions on a global scale is an essential element of any sustainable development plan, and a goal Canada should actively pursue. However, the policy instruments Canada will choose to meet that goal will have significant implications for important sectors of Canadian industry as well as for provincial governments, whose support is essential to our successfully meeting our Kyoto targets. I therefore seek clarification on a number of issues.

First, will you commit to publishing your government's impact analysis as well as the regulations relating to implementation well prior to ratifying the agreement? Canadians deserve a full and informed public debate on our climate change strategy, one that considers not just the objectives but also how we intend to reach them.

Secondly, your minister insisted that no single industry would bear the brunt of emissions reductions and that, in fact, it was quite likely that the oil and gas industry would continue to expand. Will you therefore commit to publishing, well prior to any ratification, a breakdown of the reduction targets on a "per province" and "per industry" basis?

Finally, any implementation plan will need the support of your provincial partners if it is to have any chance of success. Will you commit to seeking the agreement of provincial governments, either through a First Ministers' Conference or a meeting of the ministers of the Environment, to your government's implementation plan prior to ratification?

In closing, I would like to reiterate my party's commitment and my own personal commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. As you know, the devil is always in the details. If Canada is serious about meeting its targets, we must ensure that Canadians have the information they need to make an informed decision. I look forward to your response at your earliest convenience."
-30-
For further information: Marie Chantale Lépine (613) 290-2236

[Jason Kauppinen]

Fred Singer is on the Greenies hit list.... along with Bjorn Lomborg...
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HALL OF SHAME

Keeping track of the journalists and academics who promote their careers by denying climate change.

One would think that no one could continue to seriously deny our addiction to fossil fuels is damaging the world's climate systems. Who could be arrogant enough to ignore the consensus of 2,000 climate scientists and all the world's scientific institutions; blind enough to miss the melting permafrost, the shrinking glaciers, the regular freak weather?

Yet, as always, there is a small group of people happy to distort the truth to promote themselves and build their careers. Some are directly funded by the fossil fuel industries. Some are self promoting egotists seeking attention. Some just want to be controversial and fill a newspaper column.

Their arguments also differ. A declining number claim that there is no climate change at all. Some accept climate change but say that it will be beneficial. Most say that there may be some small change, but that it has been exagerated for political reasons. The claim that the causes are still unknown and that it is probably a natural cycle.

All of the deniers- we refuse to grace them with their chosen name, "skeptics"- are dangerous for they create a false debate around the existence of climate change and divert attention from the real debate: "What are we going to do about climate change?".

On this page Rising Tide keeps a regularly undated record of these deniers. We believe they must be made accountable for the damage they cause.

This page is work in progress. We welcome more information or clarifications. More information on the international climate deniers can be found on the site www.heatisonline.org

UK CLIMATE CHANGE DENIERS

ACADEMICS

PHILIP STOTT.
Stott, a gifted self-publicist, is grooming himself to be Britains leading climate change denier. Trading on his academic credentials as a professor of geography at the University of London, Stott appears regularly on radio and television programmes citing carefully selected contradictory data and studies to undermine the IPCC consensus.

DAVID UNWIN.
Unwin is a Professor of Environmental Science at Birbeck College. He has been quoted in the media claiming that the uncertainties are too huge to draw firm conclusions and that the IPCC is obsessed with reducing CO2. He regards adaptation as a better strategy.

FRED HOYLE
Despite his credentials as past president of the Royal Astronomical Society, Sir Fred Hoyle is not above promoting himself with some pure conjecture. In April 2001 he co-authored a report in Astrophysics and Space Science Journal that claimed that human induced global warming is vital to counter another ice age. His co-author, Professor Chandra Wickramasinghe of the University of Cardiff, was quoted as saying: "Perhaps we should be stepping up rather than decreasing our greenhouse gas emissions".

PIERS CORBYN.
Corbyn is director of Weather Action, which claims to provide long term weather forecasts to British industry. He also claims to lectures at the South Bank University in London. Corbyn has been actively promoting himself and his organisation with claims that global warming is largely a product of "natural" changes in solar radiation and magnetic fields. Like many deniers, he claims that there is a vested interest by the IPCC scientists to play up the problem to obtain research grants.

JOURNALISTS

MELANIE PHILLIPS
A right wing controversialist, Phillips titled her 15th April 2001 "Comment" column in the Sunday Times "the myth of global warming endangers the planet". She claimed that "there is no conclusive evidence to support the global warming theory". Apparently "thousands of scientists are dismayed by the falsehoods of Kyoto", though she only names arch denier Richard Lindzen (see below). The report of the IPCC she says is "more akin to a religious icon than a piece of scientific reasoning". The "myth" of climate change has been created by "those who wanted a stick to beat western capitalism, America and globalisation". The article was reprinted in the International Herald Tribune.

PETER HITCHENS
Peter Hitchens, like Melanie Phillips a provocative right wing journalist, is keen to promote denial arguments. In his column in the Mail on Sunday he clained that there is still "no evidence" to support global warming. In a reply to a complaint about this article he reiterated that all the existing scientific data are "suppositions, allegations, predictions. Numbers prove nothing"

JULIAN CHAMPKIN
Champkin wrote an article of December 6th 2000, in the Daily Mail titled "Whatever Happened to Global Warming". The double page article showed photos of floods claiming them as proof that the scientists who, it said, had predicted hot dry weather, had been wrong all along. No scientific opinion was sought in the article.

THINK TANKS

MARK ADAMS-SCIENTIFIC ALLIANCE
Mark Adams is a former Private Secretary to John Major and Tony Blair who left to set up a career as a lobbyist, public relations consultant and denier of climate change. In 2000 Adams set up a web site (http://www,scientific-alliance.com) to "use scientific fact to counter scare-mongering by the so-called green lobby". The site quotes the usual tiny handful of deniers and links to the US right-wing anti-environmental think tanks (Cato Institute, George C Marshall Institute described as having a "rigorous unbiased analysis"). The organisation purporting to be behind the website, the SCIENTIFIC ALLIANCE, does not involve any scientists or indeed exist in any formal sense. It is a public relations vehicle modeled on the US think tanks based out of Adam's Westminster office and created by Robert Durward, the director of the anti-environmentalist lobby group, the British Aggregates Association.

EUROPEAN DENIERS

BJORN LOMBERG
Lomberg's book "The Skeptical Environmentalist" has received endless coverage in the right-wing media, and Lomberg has built a lucrative career as a public speaker. Like most deniers, Lomberg plays on his academic credentials, as an Associate Professor of Statistics at the University of Aarhus in Denmark, and makes constant reference to his former membership of Greenpeace. Lomberg's usual strategy is to claim that he takes a reasonable middle ground- yes, there is a problem but it is nothing like as bad as is claimed. So he accepts that there is climate change, but claims, with no evidence, that it "will not decrease food production; nor is it likely to increase storminess, the frequency of hurricanes, the impact of malaria, or cause more deaths". He says that we should do nothing directly about CO2 emissions- that it will cost $1 trillion (a figure with no justification) to implement the Kyoto protocol and that it is cheaper to maintain business as usual and invest in renewable energy. There is a web site dedicated to dismantling Lomberg's arguments at www.anti-lomborg.com

EUROPEAN SCIENCE AND ENVIRONMENT FORUM.
The Forum is a talkshop for climate deniers created by the George C Marshall Institute to undermine the IPCC in Europe. The Forum consists of the usual small band of deniers and right wing zealots among them JOHN SCHLESINGER, former head of the CIA, RICHARD LINDZEN, RICHARD COURTNEY and PHILIP STOTT. A report published February 2002, "Climate Science and Policy: Making the Connection" contains many of the Institute's main arguments- that the science is too uncertain, that the IPCC findings "have become politicized" and do "not demonstrate any genuine human influence on global climate."

AUSTRALIAN DENIERS

LAVOISIER GROUP. The group was created by Hugh Morgan, managing director of a mining company WMC. Morgan believes that environmentalists "threaten our survival" and has supported several other influential Australian right-wing groups. The group argues that there is no evidence of global warming, and that the Kyoto protocol will undermine Australian sovereignty which it compares to the planned invasion of Australia by Japan. It uses similar language to oppose even carbon trading, calling federal government discussion papers proposing carbon trading Nazi propaganda, "Mein Kampf Declarations".

LARRY MOUNSER, lecturer in Mass Media at the University of New South Wales, wrote a typical denial article for the Canberra Times in December 2000, claiming that global warming was a "creed" not science, that extreme weather events are natural, but manipulated to look like climate change by the media in search of a scare story.

AMERICAN DENIERS

US ACADEMICS

RICHARD LINDZEN. As a Professor of Meteorology at the credible Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Lindzen is the most reputable academic among the US climate deniers. Lindzen trades on his qualifications constantly to gain access to top level discussion in the US government or scientific institutions. His arguments, though, are identical to the other deniers. In an article in the Wall Street Journal (June 11 2001) he claims that "there is no consensus, unanimous or otherwise, about long-term climate trends or what casues them" and "we are not in a position to confidently attribute past climate change to carbon dioxide or to forecast what the climate will be in the future". Lindzen works closely with other deniers, such as Fred Singer and the George C Marshall Institute.

FRED SINGER. Like Richard Lindzen, Singer is a leading denier who trades on his academic credentials as a Professor in the University of Virginia and a former director of the US Weather Satellite Service. Despite this he has not had a single article accepted for any peer-reviewed scientific journal for 15 years. Singer's main line of argument is that satellite temperature measurements show no increase in global temperatures. He shows no interest in accepting recent explanations for this discrepancy. He admits to having received direct funding from Exxon, Shell, Unocal and ARCO. Exxon is also among the funders ($10,000 in 1998 alone) of his academic sounding front organisation the "The Science and Environment Policy Project". Singer also has close links with the Rev Moon (leader of the Moonie cult) and his rabid right wing newspaper the Washington Post in which his articles regularly appear. He also writes for the far-right climate denying Hoover Institute, and the New American, journal for the extremist John Birch Society.

PATRICK MICHAELS
Dr. Michaels is a Senior Fellow of the Cato Institute's Environment and Natural Resources Program. His research has received direct funding from, among others, Western Fuels ($63,000) German Coal Mining Association ($49,000), Edison Electric Institute ($15,000), and Cyprus Minerals (440,000), a major funder of anti-environmental campaigns. Tom Wigley, one of the leading IPCC scientists, describes Michaels work as "a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation". Michaels produces a newsletter "World Climate Report" sent free to every member of the Society of Environmental Journalists.

ROBERT BALLING. Dr. Balling published an influential denial book "The Heated Debate" in 1992 which was translated into Arabic and distributed to the heads of OPEC. Between 1991 and 1995 he (and his accomplice Dr Sherwood Idso, see below) received $300,000 in funding from coal and oil organisations, amongst them the British Coal Corporation ($75,000), the German Coal Mining Association ($80,000) and the Kuwaiti Foundation for the Advancement of Science ($48,000)

ROBERT MENDELSOHN. Dr Mendelsohn is an economist at Yale University School of Forestry and Environmental Studies who has built a public profile from arguing that in the US and globally the costs of climate change will be outweighed by the benefits. In his book "Global Warming and the American Economy" he argues that global warming will be good thing for the US economy. Agricultural yields will increase from longer growing seasons and increased CO2. He admits there will be costs, especially for poor people in the tropics, but, like Bjorn Lomberg, he argues that the best strategy is business as usual and using economic growth to pay for any costs.

US MEDIA

WASHINGTON TIMES- although happy to be confused with the venerable Washington Post newspaper, the Washington Times is an aggressively right wing tabloid and soap box for the most rabid anti-environmentalists. The editorial line of the Times is that climate change does not exist and is the invention of people who want to subvert capitalism and the American way of life. The Times is funded by "Reverend Moon" founder of the Moonie cult.

US INDUSTRY GROUPS

GLOBAL CLIMATE COALITION
The GCC was founded by fossil fuel producers and car manufacturers to lobby against any international initiatives that would impact its members profits. By March 2000, though, its refusal to recognise the legitimacy of the scientific consensus (and a feisty campaign in the US) forced the resignation of British Petroleum, Shell, Ford, Daimler-Chrysler, Texaco, and General Motors. In February 2002 the GCC was formally disbanded having achieved its primary goal of pulling the US out off the Kyoto Protocol. http://www.globalclimate.org

WESTERN FUELS ASSOCIATION
The WFA is an association of $400 million of US coal producing interests. The WFA is one of the most powerful forces in the US actively denying the basic science of climate change. One of its greenwash offshoots is the Greening Earth Society- on the board of which is Dr Patrick Michaels.

AMERICAN PETROLEUM INSTITUTE
The API, whose members include all the major oil companies (including BP), has consistently tried to prevent the US ratifying the Kyoto Protoocol. The API works closely with Fred Singer and Frederick Seitz, both of whom worked with the API 1998 for a $5 million advertising campaign denying the climate science.

EXXON MOBIL
In addition to its involvement in many of the lobby groups and think tanks mentioned above, Exxon Mobil has frequently gone it alone in its crusade to deny climate change. In 2000 it funded an ad undermining the IPCC's consensus titled "Unsettled Science" which appeared in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. The ad's key evidence was taken, without permission, from the work into ocean currents by Lloyd Keigwin, a legitimate scientist. Keigwin publicly said he was annoyed with the advert, and distanced himself from its findings.

US THINK TANKS AND CONSULTANTS
GEORGE C MARSHALL INSTITUTE
The Institute, led by Frederick Seitz, is a very well funded far right think tank which maintains that climate change is a liberal plot to undermine the US economy. The Institute specialises in creating a veneer of scientific credibility for its views, constantly pointing out that Seitz was once president of the US National Academy of Sciences. In March 1998 the Institute went one step further with a typical report attacking the international climate negotiations as intellectually and scientifically flawed. The format of the report was nearly identical to that used for Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Academy issued a statement discrediting the report and distancing itself from its conclusions.

CATO INSTITUTE- another far right think tank- similar in its views to the George C Marshall Insititute.

FRONTIERS OF FREEDOM INSTITUTE
Another far right think tank, funded, by Exxon Mobil amonst others. Fred Singer is on the staff.

TECHCENTRALSTATION.COM
This website is an offshoot of American Enterprise Institute, It is hosted by JAMES GLASSMAN, a professional climate denier who is frequently published in the US, and KEN HOLME. Holme was Director of Arms Control in the Reagan administration In an article in May 2001, Holme claims that unnamed "top scientists" believe that the evidence of climate change is insufficient to take any action. He compares the "liberal" Kyoto Protocol with the lack of science in the "liberal" campaign for breast feeding- which he voted against whilst in the UN. See http://www.techcentralstation.com

CHRISTOPHER C HORNER attorney for the COOLER HEADS COALITION- yet another right wing think tank. A regular contributor to the Washington Times. In an aggressive and facile article in April 2001 he debunks the science, demanding to know "did my Land Rover chase the dinosaurs to oblivion?"

SHERWOOD, CRAIG AND KEITH IDSO
The Idsos all work through their front organisation, the academic sounding Center for the Study of Carbon Dioxide and Global Change. In their publications, such as "Carbon Dioxide: Friend or Foe" they argue that increased atmospheric CO2 will produce net benefits and improve agricultural output. Their video, "the Greening of Planet Earth", which claims that global warming is a net benefit for the world, received $250,000 in funds from the Western Fuels Association and was used intensively to lobby congress.

HENRY LAMB Lamb edits World Concerns, a magazine for SOVEREIGNTY INTERNATIONAL, an anti-United Nations think tank. He claims that freedom is a "gift from the Creator". Cheap and plentiful energy is a "friend of freedom" which is threatened by the Kyoto Protocol. The answer, he says, is to remove all legally binding requirements from the protocol. www.freedom21.org.

BILL HAMMOND is President of the Texas Association of Business and Chambers of Commerce. Hammond has been mobilising Texan businesses to lobby the government, claiming that implementation of Kyoto would shutdown 25% of US power plants leading to "a crisis of energy shortages and skyrocketing prices".

http://www.risingtide.org.uk/pages/hall_shame.html

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So if Daniel has been told that Fred Singer is full of baloney.... would he believe otherwise?

[Trouble]

Ezra Levant's new columns in the Sun.

http://www.freedominion.ca/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=7911

[Reason]

It always disturbs me to read a post that is so filled with vague, disjointed ideas, that I am left to believe that the poster really has no clue about what they are talking about.

Daniel,

In your brief post you managed to mention air-pollution, acid rain, flooding, heat waves, devastating winters, dust storms, drought, the ozone layer, and skin cancer. Somehow you try to link all of these ideas together under the banner "fossil fuels are bad". You are a walking poster child of everything that is wrong with the incoherent babbling of the anti-globo crowd.

The signing of the Kyoto Accord by JC will not do anything to improve any of these issues. It isn't intended to address air-pollution or acid rain (which are primarily caused by nitrous oxides and sulphur dioxides), it won't have any effect on global climate patterns, it won't prevent floods from happening, it won't stop blizzards, and it won't patch the ozone hole.

There are a number of pressing environmental issues that need to be dealt with by various levels of government. The Montreal Protocol of 1987 shows that direct action taken against a clearly identified environmental threat can be dealt with effectively. All the Kyoto Accord will do is create a wealth transfer mechanism from Canada to Russia and will cripple the economy by forcing companies to move businesses out of Canada because of spiralling energy costs.

[Trouble]

Welcome to FD Reason!

I think it is safe to say you are Free Dominion's first member residing in Sweden!

[Federal 1/2 Slave]

Daniel do you know why "tree huggers" constantly say that the planet has not been this warm in 650 or 700 years? Its because 750 years ago it was warmer! Selective information? Perhaps. Search the web for "the flat earth society" or "The hollow earth society". Just try it ... really. You Cannot belive everything you read, even on the web.
Count the vinyards in england today vs. 1300 years ago. Go figure.
I rest my case.

[WestViking]

i understand this this whole board is full of right-wing "i love my job and screw the environment" types, so i'll try to be polite. but do you people seriously think that how much cash you have left at the end of the month is really more important than having breatheable air? what about the ancient architechture throughout europe? did you know that acid rain is slowly eroding these buildings that have been standing for centuries? massive flooding is overruning hundreds of poorer countries, and massive weather fluctuations are creating heat waves and horrible winters.

Apologizing before you insult us is unacceptable sleaze. Your rant is berift of any supporting evidence.

Kyoto has nothing to do with environmental protection. Read over the wording of the Kyoto accord. Then return and show us how Kyoto provides for:
<li> environmental cleanup of contaminated sites;
<li> protection of wetlands and forests;
<li> protection of our groundwater;
<li> provisions for ensuring safe drinking water;
<li> protection against urban sprawl;
<li> maintaining clean lakes and rivers;
<li> effective contol of industrial pollutants;
<li> enforcable standards for wast disposal;
<li> worldwide, enforcable standards for safe sea transport of petrolium products;
<li> worldwide, enforceable standards for contol of carbon dioxide, methane and other alleged causes of global warming.

You have lept to an incorrect and unsupportable conclusion and have the gall to chastize us for avoiding the same trap.

does the idea of an "air quality index" really not bother you? have you SEEN the whole in the ozone layer? do you really like skin cancer? will new york city have to be flooded before you people will listen? or will you just build a big concrete wall around the city and blame it all on el nino?

There should be no need for an air quality index. Hoever, in your fine rant, you ignore cities as the worst enviornmental offenders in the world. Apparently access to theater tickets and chic shopping malls are far more important than health children, risks of skin cancer or simple choking on your collective garbage.

wake up and taste the smog. look at your kids and think about what they'll look like 30years from now when companies have developed stylish gas-masks and skin protectant. the internal combustion engine is over 100years old and should have died out long ago. oil and coal were excellent fuel sources for their time, but their time has passed and if we continue to use them, we'll wish we hadn't.

No, Daniel, you wake up and taste the smog while you choke on the fumes you and your neighbours generate. Don't bother telling me it will be very expensive for me to support the lifestyle you choose or that Kyoto will address any of the environmental issues you raise. It doesn't.

You appear to be an evironmental fraud who lacks the common sense to flee an unhealthy urban life and expects someone else to foot the bill to give you clean air. You seem to be standing waist deep in a cesspool complaining of the smell.

[Dartman]

Take THAT !!

[Liam O'Brien]

Good show, Ezra!!! This is one book that will be welcomed.

The only bone I have to pick with you Ezra, is that you are involved with the wrong political party.

Well, Hiti, There should only be a single national conservative party. If one side or the other had the maturity and guts (I'm not sure eitehr does), they'd get to work building that single party instead of fighting a war of attrition and dancing back and forth in the 10-18% range each.

Ezra isn't involved with the "wrong" political party. It's just that, thanks to the pettiest personality politics, the right policital party no longer exists and does not exist and will not exist.

Still a Big to Ezra! A superb idea for a book!