Posted on 12/12/2005 3:56:50 PM PST by Libloather
Global Warming or Terrorism: Which Is a Bigger Threat?
Commentary, Syed Arif Hussaini,
Pakistan Link, Dec 12, 2005
Sponsored by the UN, attended by almost 10,000 representatives from 189 countries, environmental groups, scientific organizations and businesses, the United Nations Climate Change Conference just finished in Montreal, Canada. Inaugurating the November 28-December 9 conference, Canadian Environment Minister Stephane Dion called for a “more effective, more inclusive long-term approach to climate change”.
Several observers interpreted his observations as an appeal to the United States, the leading consumer of oil and gas and emitter of greenhouse gases, whose President, George Bush, had decided in 2001 to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol that had been enthusiastically endorsed earlier by his predecessor, Bill Clinton. Bush’s argument: the restrictions in the protocol would adversely affect economic activities in the country.
While the conference had just started in Montreal, President Bush in a major speech at the US Naval Academy in Maryland rejected strongly the demands for early withdrawal from Iraq saying “America will not run in the face of car bombers and assassins so long as I am your Commander-in Chief”.
Conspicuous by its absence in his statements is any mention of the conference in Montreal. Being the Republican President, the interests of big businesses and corporations hold a special place in his scale of priorities.
The Kyoto Protocol agreed to in 1997 commits industrial states to cut their combined emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% below 1990 levels by 2012. The protocol became a legally binding treaty on February 17, 2005 for all the 38 industrial and over a 100 other states who have ratified it. The treaty suffered a massive blow in 2001 when the US responsible for about quarter of the world’s emissions, pulled out.
President Bush maintains that the treaty is fatally flawed, partly because it does not require developing countries to cut down emissions. China and India fall into this category, although they are two of the world’s biggest producers of greenhouse gases. Both have ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which acknowledges that developing countries contribute the least to climate change but will quite likely suffer the most from its ill effects.
The Protocol is based on the findings of over 2,000 scientists from around the world who have conducted since 1988 the most extensive enquiry into world climate changes and have declared unanimously that human-caused global warming has already set in and would continue to go from bad to worse unless drastic measures were taken to reverse the trend.
Chairman of the UN-supported Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, summed up their findings in the apocalyptic prediction: “We are risking the ability of human race to survive”. The top British scientist, Sir David King, had gone further by calling the climate change, “The biggest danger humanity has faced in 5,000 years of civilization.”
Scientists working in Antarctica have confirmed that levels of greenhouse gases are higher today than at any time in the past 650,000 years. They have also confirmed that humans are responsible for the increase.
The world temperature has already increased by one degree Fahrenheit, sea levels have gone up by 4 to 7 inches, record heat wave in 2003 left 35,000 dead across Western Europe, many more in South Asia and elsewhere. The monsoons, which brought rains to the farms of South Asia with almost clockwise precision, have turned quite erratic. The world is experiencing more hurricanes, tornadoes, downpours, heat waves, droughts and blizzards. In their wake come flooding, landslides, power-outages, crop failures, property damage, disease, hunger, acute poverty and even loss of life.
Weather pundits were surprised at the torrential rains in California and elsewhere in the US last January. One after the other, several tornadoes smashed the coasts of Florida. Hurricanes, one after another, including the monstrous Katrina kept smashing life and property around the Gulf of Mexico. On the other side of the globe, the northern areas of South Asia have been buffeted with unusual snowstorms claiming many lives. Even an arid area like Balochistan was subjected to torrential rains.
Bush administration’s opposition to the restrictions in the Kyoto agreement does not emanate from any super-power arrogance but from the compulsion of a Republican government to place the interests of big businesses ahead of any other consideration.
American people are by nature and tradition quite charitable. Their current administration, however, looks at such issues through a partisan prism.
The principal reason for the US government reluctance in endorsing the Kyoto Protocol is probably the loss of some $400 billion, according to one estimate, for the US industries and corporations by a slowing down of their activities.
President Bush no longer enjoys the support of all parts of the country on this issue, like his bellicose policy on Iraq that has lost people’s general endorsement. His popularity has sunk deep. No wonder his ostrich-like conduct on the climate issue has been rejected by nine eastern states who are ready to sign an agreement setting Kyoto style legal limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power houses. New York and New Jersey are among these rebel states. In California, Governor Schwarzengger is forging ahead with legislation to cut emissions from cars by 30 % within a decade. Not only that, 187 mayors from US towns and cities have pledged to adopt Kyoto targets. And, many carmakers have already put on roads hybrid cars.
Mr. Bush believes in staying the course, no matter what. He appears obsessed with the war on terror, so the climate issue will have to take a seat far in the back. But, the people at large have not taken leave of their senses.
Bush maybe off the hook. It could all be Benz's fault...
Where is the baaaaarf craaaap alert?
What's more deadly: Monkeys or Ninjas?
"Global Warming or Terrorism: Which Is a Bigger Threat? "
Add one more to the list. "Global Warming, Terrorism, or the ACLU."
...and one more- the NEA.
Global warming is a much bigger threat. How many times have we been attacked since 9/11?????
heh
I shall rest my case!
You are kidding right? I am a meteorolgist and this planet is warming. It prob is not caused by humans but it is still warming. Your graphic is 100% BS and misleading.
One is real and the other is fantasy.
Meteorologists can't even tell us if it will be 54 or 43 tomorrow night, much less what the earth's climate will be in a few decades or longer. There is no scientific basis for "global warming". It is pure speculation heavily influenced by nitwit political bias. Someone said that in 1900 people were worried that the world would run out of horses, and they also worried about where they would put all the horse manure in the future. Global warming has the same credibility as horse manure.
Terrorist are real however. Just ask their allies, the Democrats who would cut and run from Iraq.
As a meteorologist and former research scientist, I study the raw data and simply do not allow anyone else to dictate the conclusions that I reach. Any meteorologist which can perform basic research, would understand what a fraud this "global warming" is, once he studies the raw data himself.
Has the Earth's atmosphere been warming over the last 400 years? Absolutely yes, and every human on this planet should be thankful for that warming.
Indeed Global warming is real. It is caused by the Sun, that, for whatever reason is hotter this solar cycle. Mars and Venus are experiencing global warming. Man's contribution to global warming is nihil. We can do nothing about global warming, but live with it. Terrorism we can stop if we have the will. We have the wherewithall, but do we have the will? Do not ask the Democrats they will say we have not the will. Let us appease is what they say. Not sure about the Republicans.
$400 Billion a year for junk science, I don't think so.
My local Meteorolgist told me that it wasn't going to snow today...I currently have six inches of "Partly Cloudy" in my driveway to shovel!
I liked that you said humans "prob" ably aren't the cause, though. I'm glad to be off the hook! ;)
You are a moron. You wasted your parents college investment if you do recognize junk science. Heck, I'm still waiting for the great Paul Erdman's population bomb in 2000 to wipe us out.
I think Global Warming is more deadlier - because the terrorists will be eradicated too!
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