Anyway, I've always wanted to visit Australia, New Zealand, and Tazmania.
$710.96... The price of freedom.
Posted on 06/28/2004 4:00:27 PM PDT by blam
Australia is the world's dirtiest country
June 28 2004 at 05:57AM
Sydney - Australia pumps out more of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming than France or Italy, a recent study concludes.
In fact, on a per capita basis, Australia is a worse polluter than the United States, a report from rich country group the OECD shows.
Australians emit 27,2 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent per person per year, a figure far higher than the Americans' 21,4 tons and more than double the average for rich countries.
The main reason Australia is such a dirty country is its reliance on coal to generate electricity rather than less polluting alternatives like oil or gas. Australia, the world's largest coal exporter, has huge coal deposits that it wants to use up before looking to cleaner alternatives.
'We're not going to sign something that's unfair to Australia' The industry employs 120 000 workers and its exports are worth AUS$24-billion (R575-billion) a year.
"The reality is that the older fuels, of which we have large supplies, are going to contribute the bulk of our energy needs," Prime Minister John Howard says. "The energy advantage provided by our resources is something that Australia must not throw away."
Signing the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the government says, would not be in the national interest because of the cost to the economy.
Howard warns that energy-intensive industries would be lost to lower-cost producers like China and India that are not party to the Kyoto accords, which would set signatories a binding target for reducing their individual contributions to the greenhouse gas problem.
"We're not going to sign something that's unfair to Australia," the prime minister says.
To become an international agreement, the Kyoto initiative needs to be ratified by at least 55 countries that together account for 55 percent of global emissions.
The US - responsible for about a quarter of emissions - has, like Australia, refused to join in the effort.
Russia, which was initially a Kyoto sceptic, has announced it intends to ratify the accord. It was a surprise move and one that could set the Kyoto process in motion.
Rather than tapering off, the emissions from Australia's energy sector have grown by about 30 percent since 1990, the starting year for greenhouse gas assessments in the Kyoto accords.
Don Henry, the chief executive of lobby group the Australian Conservation Foundation warns that "we're actually facing a greenhouse disaster in our energy and transportation sectors". Like other environmentalists, Henry is depressed about the government's hostility to Kyoto.
The opposition Labor Party, which will face off against Howard's conservatives in a closely fought general election later this year, is pledged to ratify the Kyoto Protocol.
The minor parties, the Greens and the Democrats, are also keen to join up. Greens leader Bob Brown says Australia is "going backwards when other countries are advancing with renewable energy".
But even Brown has to admit that the global environment is a lower-order issue for Australians, just as it is for fellow Kyoto stop-outs the Americans.
Australian roads increasingly look like American highways, with one in five new private vehicles registered a gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive. Petrol, which in the state of Queensland is even subsidised, costs about a third of the price in Europe.
Some analysts explain this shared apathy on green issues a reflection of history and geography. Australia, like the US, has no pesky neighbours that complain about emissions. It also has a frontier mentality; Australians, like Americans, tend to think of their country as a boundless land of rich natural resources that are of inestimable worth and will never be used up. - Sapa-dpa
So....nobody's bothered to clean all the sand off of North Africa yet.
Australian roads increasingly look like American highways, with one in five new private vehicles registered a gas-guzzling four-wheel-drive.
Another green anarchist masquerading as a journalist.
Kyoto is funny because if any country would implement it - it would cause an economic Depression. So they all can sign up, but they will never abide by it and it will never be tracked.
bttt
These guys want to force their own opinions of how things should run on everyone else. That's not anarchism. If anything, it's a lot closer to fascism.
I'm no fan of anarchists, but they in general have a live and let live attitude. Or they're not really anarchists.
Rubbish!
Wait a sec, I thought America was the dirtiest, worst, meanest, greediest, rottenest, most violent and vulgar country on earth. Where does Australia get off trying to muscle us out of the top spot? Or do I mean bottom spot?
Egypt...etc.
Anyway, I've always wanted to visit Australia, New Zealand, and Tazmania.
$710.96... The price of freedom.
The first I've seen of this. The latest I've read says they'll not make a formal decision until August.
I remember this being mentioned a few years ago. Australia has a small population on the edges of a large area, so they have a lot more transportation costs (and associated emissions) that a smaller, denser nation.
The new technique being used here is to constantly equate CO2 with "dirty". I don't think it's really honest to call carbon dioxide pollution, at least not in the sense that most people would understand pollution.
But, I'm sure the radical environmentalists would like the public to think of it that way.
My kind of place.
The only surprise here is that America isn't taking the hit for being the biggest polluter because we're so awful and materialistic. We're also the meanest bully on the block that is invading countries arbitrarily because we don't like them. Oh, and don't forget the arrogance, we are the most arrogant country in the world. Can't forget the arrogance... < /liberal rant off >
Huh. I thought it was Pornografistan.
Bump!
CO2 + H2O + Sunlight + Chlorophyll = Sugar
CO2 is the most basic of plant foods.
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