There appears to be little chance that a comprehensive, binding treaty on global warming will come out of the negotiations scheduled for December in Copenhagen, the New York Times reported yesterday evening.
“Negotiators have accepted as all but inevitable that representatives of the 192 nations in the talks will not resolve the outstanding issues in the time remaining before the Copenhagen conference opens in December,” according to the NYTimes. The overall problems appear to be economic. According to the NYTimes, “The gulf between rich and poor nations, and even among the wealthiest nations, is just too wide.”
This failure should come as no surprise. Human created carbon emissions are the result of technological advances that were made to meet economic needs. Therefore, to reduce human carbon output will require technological solutions spurred by economic needs. Government is not equiped to effectively negate or supplant economic needs.
Nations are too self-interested, politicians too self centered, and policy making skills too weak to create effective international legislation. Instead, the role of the various world governments should be to provide a dependable legal framework for innovation to flourish; innovation based on economic needs. Further, environmentalists should not waste their time pushing for legislation. Instead, their role should be to encourage consumers to demand green products. Consumer demand (economic need) will drive the move to green faster than any legislation.
Government solutions always come with a cost that someone has to pay. On the other hand, the failure to negotiate a comprehensive, binding, global warming treaty might be the best opportunity the planet has to avoid the costs of continued global warming. Failure could force environmentalist to seek a better solution – Free markets provide a better solution. Only free markets can meet economic needs.
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This whole “save the planet” fad is a diversion. It has become the religion de jour, with vast numbers of people expending their time and energy worrying about the planet, and in effect worshiping the planet in an idealized, imaginative state. All of this distracts us from what we should be doing with our time and energy which is worshiping and striving to be come like our Savior Jesus Christ. It is the souls of the men and women who live on this planet that need saving. We will only be saved when we learn to love as He loved, to give up war, hatred and immorality, to serve our fellow man and treat them all as neighbors.
They act as if all the data is in on the global warming issue and it is not. There is evidence that the sun is influencing earths warming and it is cyclical. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080512120523.htm
NASA found evidence that Mars is warming. Did humans cause that?http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/02/070228-mars-warming.html
What this is really about is destroying the sovereignity of the United States. Please watch this clip from Lord Christopher Monckton. He lays it out quite plainly.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddQvhdCyhe4
The incentives are in place to pollute, not to reduce pollution? Without government regulation, why should a company reduce emissions when it’s competitors don’t? And the owners of the company don’t have to live near the plant. Then there are enough people like Rick who think, “Who cares what happens to the planet, all people who believe like me will be in heaven anyway.”