I hate it when Geo. is right. lol

Eh, I'm not sure I can agree with you here Scott. I think talk of the Kyoto Protocol is still important, as is our joining.

I also cannot accept a blank comment on Bush being right on this (no offense Pat). His staying away from the Kyoto Protocol is based mainly due to financial thoughts; he didn't like the thought of how it would effect our economy. The other main reason he steered clear of it was because he didn't feel it was fair that the larger, more financially sound, industrious countries would be held to a stricter standard then those developing countries. Well, that is a problem. If we, and other large, industrious nations are the major contributors to the pollution and harm to the environment, then we should have tougher standards. It just makes sense to me. I also don't buy into his concern on how it would effect the economy. The money we will end up shelling out for his war in Iraq definately surpasses what would have been required to come closer to goals within Kyoto. And this money would have been extended out over a longer period of time with the strong possibility of developing new job markets. Putting money into development new technologies brings new jobs, which brings me to my next point.

One important feature of the Kyoto Protocol is found in Article 2 (Article 2, Paragraph 1, section III, subsection IV to be exact): "Promotion, research, development and increased use of new and renewable forms of energy, or carbon dioxide sequestration technologies and of advanced and innovative enviromentally sound technologies."

I am astounded to witness how Americans can beat their chest and proclaim superiority over other countries when there is talk of a possible war, but yet, we don't retain that proudness when it comes to developing new enviromental innovations? Ok, so, we are the police men of the world but that's it? Are we to only be the 'bouncer' of this planet and leave all that advancement in alternative energy sources to the smarter counrties? I don't think so.

You see, I think that it is scary to have a leader that would prefer to line the pockets of the polluting corporations instead of trying to find ways to help save this planet. What good is the money going to do you when we can't survive to enjoy it?

I know some of this might have come across extremist, but then again that BBC article was ended with a quote from a sceptic. I hope that allowing one extreme and not another is not how everyone wants to be. At least think about what helping out the Kyoto Protocol could mean.

We have already signed onto the Vienna Convention (1985 and ratified again in 86), Montreal Protocol (1987 and ratified again in 1988), London Amendment (1991) and the Copenhagen Amendment (1994).

Just my thoughts...

With respect,

This country was, as far as I can tell, one of if not the very first major industrial nation to put environmentalism on the center stage in its public policy. Beginning in the 1960s an increasingly activist section of the nation successfully pushed through a large number of effective policy initiatives that wrought profound changes in many areas of this nation's industries.

These changes were almost all for the good, but they were very expensive and did in fact cause economic hardship for the nation. Anyone who owned a car built between 1975 and 1981 can attest to the automobile industry's difficulty in coping with the mutually exclusive goals of cleaner emissions and increased efficiency.

Meanwhile Europe was still largely unregulated, with the environmental movement in Germany, for example, only picking up steam in the mid 1980s when pollution damage to the black forest area was too severe to be ignored. European cars were not commonly fitted with catalysts in their domestic markets until the late 1980s.

Japan had to undergo several major scandals involving the outright industrial poisoning of large numbers of its citizens before serious governmental action began to be taken on environmental issues in the 1970s. Love Canal was nothing compared to the Jinzu river.

In my own opinion, I think the US has done plenty to protect the environment on its own, before anyone else anywhere else ever even thought about the problem. We did pay an economic price for trying to get it all done as quickly as possible, and I do not want to see the miasma of the over-regulated 1970s return.

This time around I want to watch other nations undergo economic hardship living with political mandates that require the fabrication of new technologies while a deadline looms. I want to see radical unilateral action that wrenches entire industries over a decade or more. I want to see citizens willing to put up with unemployment, loss of government services, and industrial competitiveness over these policies. Because that's what we did.

Then I will want to see my government play catch-up, using the technologies already developed by Europe and Japan to cheaply and quickly make our air as clean as theirs. Because that's what they did.

This report would indicate I'll be waiting a very long time.