Kyoto

Ok guys, I am interested in your opinions here about President Bush backing out of Kyoto....I am a bit "green" in my thinking because of my studies and experiences in europe. We lived in both the UK and Germany and there were no air-conditioning units in either homes or most cars....and it got hot! The people there were quite proud of the fact that they were educated on the environmental impact of human behavior....each year, a couple of bigger towns would close their roadways for a week and people would take to their bikes/subways to get to work....but many did this daily anyway. All products were recycled...and your garbage that was non-recyclable was weighed. You were charged hefty penalties for going over a certain weight. Honestly, I found it to be really annoying at first....but I got used to it within a year or so and began to feel a sense of pride myself. Big business there is highly regulated in its emissions....it is just a different mindset. I don't know if it is just the general level of science education there or what the deal is. I suspect that you could go out onto the street here and ask ten people what the kyoto agreement is and at least half wouldn't know...The goal of the Kyoto agreement was just to reduce the CO2 emmissions worldwide by 5% over the next several years...and we could do it if we were willing to make some changes in our lifestyles. I find us, as americans to be quite selfish...and I include myself in that as I sit here with the air-conditioning running.....I am not suggesting that we should all turn off our air conditionings all of the time...but we all know that we could reduce both our heating and cooling costs...that as a country we could work to build reliable, high-class public transportation......There is no need to have stores open 24 hours a day and to have the incredible amount of energy waste that goes on here.......

We, as a country have only a small fraction of the world's population, yet we are responsible for the majority of CO2 emmisssions...I think that we should change that...for the sake of future generations...

I am curious to the opinons of others on this...I am sure that there will be those that disagree strongly with me or others who agree....I hope that we can have an interesting discussion!

Kris

OK, I admit that when I first saw the subject of this post I thought maybe yuou were moving to Kyoto! The global warming treaty didn't jump immediately to mind... but I am horrified at Bush's disregard for the environment. He and Dick Cheney are just oilmen trying to help their industry, as far as I can see. It's true that Americans are completely lazy about recycling, etc, compared to Europeans. Maybe it's because they have so much less space? We could manage a tiny bit of inconvenience in order to 'do our bit' against global warming. Business and the environment don't have to be mutually exclusive. It seems sort of aggressively brown to pull out of Kyoto that way.
btw, as a Californian, I am very aware of the energy supply issues and still don't see how opening ANWR could help. It's not the oil we need, it's the power plants! I admit to feeling angry over possible fines if I heat my hot tub this summer...
Kaaren

Kaaren,

I am so glad that you answered...I was starting to feel a bit silly about the thread...I just thought that it would be neat to debate some "current events".

My uncle and I actually discussed this. He has his MS in nuclear engineering and he told me that there is "no such thing as global warming"...that the Kyoto agreement was an attempt by the rest of the world to stifle the American superpower..........YIPES!

But I know.....things are tight...who wants to have to pay more money. When we look at it as a long-term investment in our children's future though, it does make sense that we all start talking about it and looking to solutions that may not be as financially difficult. If we can look at implimenting new technologies at least we know that with time, the price of the technologies would go down, wouldn't it?

Kris

[DCJenn]

First, a disclaimer-

I am a flaming liberal (gee- a liberal in the social services field- imagine!) When it was time to register to vote in high school they gave us a test to determine where we were leaning and I scored as high as you could on the liberal side.

So, I think W. is a putz. I also think that we who use 80% of the earth's resources are extremely short-sighted in our managment of the earth's resources. I'm not surprised that W. backed out of the accord- but I am disappointed.

I think that we need to invest at leat some of our financial resources in to developing alternative technologies. After all, oil is a finite resource- someday it will run out.

I really want to buy one of those cute new hybred cars- but my darling spouse is in a car lease that's now costing us close to $500/month. After that though...

Thanks for bringing it up, Kris!

Jenn

PS- Rick rides his bike to the hospital every day that he can. He leaves uniforms in his locker on Sundays! He's a California Boy.