Is Kyoto Japanese for Hypocrisy?

[Redleg]

No, that won't fly. With the U.S. being unwilling to participate it had insufficient support to work. Saying what makes you feel good about our nation's irresponsible approach is not gonna work.

Again you are incorrect. If the particpants of the treaty wanted it to work they would of ensured it was correctly implemented in their nations and monitored. It seems that even the signators of the Kyoto Agreement could not decrease their own emissions to the agreed upon limits - and some even increased their emissions. Blaming the United States for the failure of the Kyoto Accords does not fly when one looks at the facts and not just the hyperbole involved.

The fact that Americans have stuck their heads in the sand on the issue is not Clinton's fault. It does illustrate the intellectually dishonest approach of my countrymen on the matter.

Clinton refused to send it to Congress after he signed the treaty, which I argee is a intellectually dishonest approach and a violation of the constitution by the way. The President must send all treaties entered into to congress or it does not carry. The fact that Clinton refused to send the treaty for ratification is Clinton's fault, which helped along the stuck in the sand approach of Congress in relationship to the treaty.

It would have provided the political leverage to do so. Things like this must be done in steps. If you don't take the first step, you go nowhere (which is what has happened.) As I've maintained for many years, our best interests are to set a tone that gives us some authority in encouraging energy conscious development. If you won't do it at home, it won't happen abroad.

The Kyoto Accords did not provide any political leverage to do so - nor was it being discussed in the initial rounds that a successful complaince with the Koyoto Accords would lead to developing nations coming in line. The Kyoto Accords was an attempt only by the developed nations to curb what some believed to be the cause of Global Warming, one in which they could not agree on completely even among the nations that signed the accords.

If memory serves it would have been July or August of 2003 as we were doing our strategic planning for 2004, 2005 and beyond. I reviewed the industry projections and found them to be uniform, and bogus. They were typical conservative oil industry documents, telling industry what they wanted to hear (and thereby discouraging energy conservation projects.) Industry accepted them, because they were what they wanted to hear. In a nutshell prices were predicted to drop to $25/bbl for 2004, and rise about 4-6% per year for the next ten years or so. How they thought prices would fall when at the same time we were emerging from recession, and demand historically increases when that happens...it's called wishful thinking in the absence of contrary historical data.

Anyway, I was looking at it considering whether or not we should be making plans for an investment of several hundred million dollars to get a permanent leg up on the competition by switching to a much cheaper feedstock (even then, with oil at $28/bbl!) Not surprisingly, the conservative execs had no interest in anything innovative because of risk potential. So they lost any potential initiative and lead on a long development project. Those of us who had an interest in such things along with the expertise and mindset to make them happen instead left the company or retired (or both.)

These execs were the same clowns that took several months and tons of justification to decide on spending less than $20,000 to save over $200,000 annually on one of my projects just a few months before. In frustration I broke the impasse by telling them I would loan them the money out of my own savings for just a few percentage cut of the longterm benefits from such a pissant expenditure.

Fair enough - but again fossil fuels are only part of the ecology crisis facing many nations. The failure of the Kyoto Accords is that it asked only the developed nations to reduced - and provided no suggestions to developing nations.

No you cannot, becaust that is 100% false logic. Whether or not you address one source does not mean that it has no effect. That's like saying if I reduce my discretionary spending I won't see a net improvement in my savings because my wife does not. I might not see as much improvement as I want, but I will see an effect. Pointing the finger at the other guy is a dishonest approach.

You seem to be only discussing the emissions of Developed Nations in this discussion, and pointing the blame of failure at the United States. However you decide to call my logic 100% false because I am looking at aspects beyond just the developed nations and fossil fuel emmissions. If your not willing to discuss the overall failures of the Kyoto Accords - then calling my logic and reasoning 100% false logic is indeed a logical fallacy on your part. (Speaking of Strawman Arguements and Red Herrings).

Years ago I had a fellow engineer (true knee jerk conservative that prompted me to begin using the term) try to convince me that burning the rain forests would actually *reduce* CO2 because ag use would tie up more carbon. He must have read that in one of his conservative sources somewhere, as he was always repeating the stuff verbatim without doing a basic logic check. The guy was brilliant with process design, but when it came to social/political matters he became a nearly brainless automaton.

And I would of told him he was incorrect also. The Rain Forests help reduce CO2 by scrubing it as a food source. Basic Biology. Reducing the Rainforests to plant crops - is a reduction of the ability for the natural cycle to work.

This is a "two wrongs make a right" approach, but it is far wide of the mark. I have not said anything should be off the table, so your strawman appears to have caught fire.

Actually you have committed the fallacy - it seems you missed a key word in the sentence. I did use the qualifer of If and I did not commit a distortion of your postion, I made a simple statement that if your only using..., then you are being as short sighted. It was an if then statement.

Edit: Initially misread the final paragraph, but in review fixed my chain of thought.