The problem with Kyoto is simple: global warming is caused by a combination of higher solar activity in this century plus the burning of fossil fuels. See this page on global warming, written by a Quaker.
There is a limited amount of fossil fuels. The problem of global warming will go away when the competing uses for fossil fuels and competing sources of energy out-bid the burning of them.
Kyoto leaves out China and India, who have greatly stepped up their burning of fossil fuels. Basically, the fossil fuels WILL be burned until it's not economic for anyone; the only question is whether we will burn them or if they will burn them. Kyoto will have NO EFFECT ON GLOBAL WARMING. It will, on the other hand, make the industrialized countries much poorer, making it harder for them to help mitigate the INEVITABLE effects of global warming on third-world countries.
This is completely independent of the fact that Kyoto doesn't stop the burning of fossil fuels. It doesn't decrease the burning of fossil fuels. It only slows down the INCREASE (at huge cost) by three years. If we implement Kyoto, then 50 years from now we will have the same amount of warming we would have had in 47 years.
When you stack up global warming against all the other problems in the world, there's a dozen problems more serious. For example, solving global sanitation would save MANY MORE LIVES than solving global warming, at a hundredth the cost -- yes, people are still drinking water contaminated with shit in the year 2007.
We are being led into a hysterical overreaction to a problem which is simply not all that serious. Back in the 1600's we would have gone looking for a witch to burn. We laugh at their foolishness now; in four hundred years they will laugh at our foolishness now.
I would laugh at Gore, except that what he's doing is killing people. There are a limited amount of resources in the world. If you do one thing, you give up doing another. By addressing global warming as a higher priority, we are condemning people to preventable deaths. And as ludicrous as Al Gore's campaign is, it's not at all funny.
posted at: 19:28 | path: /economics | permanent link to this entry