Scrap Kyoto Now!

I've attempted this blog entry three times now. Each try has proven too strident even for me. My recent conversion into the faith of environmental skepticism has led several people to try and stage an intervention and bring me back to the Suzuki path.
Both sides of the global warming debate have a wealth of information at their fingertips--as with most things in life, you can bend the data to prove whatever you want to, especially if you look at it with preconceived notions of what it's supposed to prove. I think it's fair to say that if scientists have split off into opposing teams, each touting entirely contradictory theories, more research is obviously needed. One group of people doesn't know what they're talking about. Worse, they think they do. That can have potentially disastrous consequences.
Let's look at the much-vaunted Kyoto Protocol closely, shall we? As Canada has signed this treaty, every thinking person here should understand just what it is we have committed to.

Our only obligation under the Kyoto Protocol is to cut greenhouse gas emissions, largely carbon dioxide, to six percent below 1990 levels. To do this--or rather, to attempt it, since I will show that it's impossible--our government will spend up to ten billion dollars, and our corporations will have to spend many billions more than that.
Oh well, it's all for a good cause, right?
It might be, if the rest of the world took any notice. Granted, 153 nations have signed and ratified the treaty, but it was an easy decision for many of them: the developing world--including China and India, two of the biggest polluters on the planet-- is not required to make any cuts to their emissions. Moreover, the United States has no intention of getting with the program. Their rationale is that the Kyoto Protocol is a flawed document which entails enormous costs with negligible enviromental benefits.
Are they all out to lunch down there? Has the altar of American science been desecrated by shills for George W. Bush and his oily cronies?
The director of McGill's school of environment says "Kyoto is a mere drop in the bucket...The agreement will delay the doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by 10 to 15 years. To really stop global warming, you don't need a six percent reduction, you need 60 or 70 percent. Is that feasible?"
As of 2003, we as a nation were pumping out 740 megatonnes of greenhouse gasses, according to Environment Canada. Of that, 358 megatonnes was the byproduct of industry and 190 megatonnes came from transportation of all kinds.
Our 1990 total emissions equalled 609 megatonnes, so our target level is a shade over 572 megatonnes. (By the way, our total emissions have risen since 2002, rendering projected cuts even more steep. Environment Canada doesn't like to acknowledge that our emissions are still rising, so they couch it in terms of GDP...our gross domestic product is rising faster than our greenhouse gas emissions. Makes us look better.)
So, where to cut 168 megatonnes out of our economy? That's almost ninety percent of all our transportation--cars, trucks, trains, planes, boats...permanently shut down. It's Kyoto Survivor! How long can you outwit, outplay, outstarve your fellow Canadians?
Even if we spread the pain, using technologies we (ahem) don't exactly know about yet, we're looking at a monumental impact on our economy and way of life. And while I'd be the first to admit we could do with a little Third World experience, I'd admit even faster that such experience would bring mass civil unrest within days.
But let's stop being so negative. Maybe we can find a way to cut our greenhouse gasses without so much blood, sweat and tears. After all, Rick Mercer says we can do it! Let's keep our eyes on the prize!
Uh...where's the prize, again? From here, it looks like we are being asked--no, volunteering!--to take on a huge portion of the burden, without much proof it is a burden. Global warming, some estimate, would be a huge net benefit to Canada, resulting in higher crop yields and a longer growing season. They could be wrong, of course: global warming might actually be synonymous with climate change. But nobody knows for sure yet.
Moreover, Kyoto does absolutely nothing to reduce air pollution. Have you ever paid attention to the Weather Network's air pollution indices? They measure the amount of pollution in the air at a given site and also tell you what the main pollutant is. More often than not, it's "suspended particulate"--sulphur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, nasty buggers--and these are not greenhouse gasses, so Kyoto doesn't care about them.
Professor Robert Mendelsohn at Yale is one of North America's most respected critics of Kyoto. He says "There is still this mood in the community that climate change is evil, and has to be stopped aggressively. They don't like to hear anything that gets in the way of that."
Maybe we should at least keep half an ear open.