Peter Cole <
[email protected]> wrote:
>Mark Hickey wrote:
>> Peter Cole <[email protected]> wrote:
>> So while the Bush act will actually reduce mercury emissions by about
>> 70%, the website you supplied claims:
>>
>> "The Bush administration plan delays any mercury reductions to 2010.
>> It allows power plants to spew more than 5 times more mercury
>> pollution each year from 2010 through 2017, and 3 times more
>> mercury emissions every year after."
>>
>> Now, someone reading JUST that, without undestanding the context would
>> naturally think that Bush actually allows MORE pollution. But I guess
>> that's the point of a website like that, huh?
>
>I think that's the conclusion, yes. It seems to be the reason why every
>major environmental group is against the proposal.
And of course, there couldn't POSSIBLY be a political component in
play there, right? ;-)
An alalogy that is at least slightly bike-related.
Say I'm the Democrat mayor of Podunk, IA. Bike groups have been after
me for the last eight years to put in some bike lanes, but I haven't
done anything.
An election rolls through, during which my vice-Mayor is narrowly
defeated by the Republican challenger. After this happens, but before
he is sworn in, I get my Publics Works supervisor to draft a bill
calling for bike lanes on every street in the county, including
Interstate highways and rural roads, and to have them all installed
within a year.
Obviously this can't possibly happen, but I've left a nice "time bomb"
for my evil Republican successor. He takes office, tears up my bill,
and suggests installing bike lanes on the 25% of the roads that will
actually be used by cyclists, and that gives the city five years to
construct the bike lanes.
Two things will happen here, based on political leanings.
1) Republican and non-political cyclists will thank the new mayor for
finally making progress in this area.
2) Political hacks from the Democrats will try to claim that building
all those bike lanes in five years is somehow much worse than the past
mayor doing absolutely nothing.
>>> They're almost alone in bucking Kyoto. The administration's conservative
>>> dogma is hampering any real long-term solutions.
>>
>> I disagree. The administration is hampering an expensive, ineffective
>> "solution". I couldn't agree more.
>
>Why is it that the only other major holdout on Kyoto (Australia) has the
>highest per capita CO2 emissions. Isn't it obvious that the US and
>Australian positions are self-serving? It seems to be obvious to the
>rest of the world.
Of COURSE they're self-serving (we pay them to be that way). The
issue isn't whether it's the right thing to do or not - it's whether
signing up for Kyoto would be creating a significant hardship on the
citizens of those countries without providing any measurable benefit.
>>> Since
>>> this is a global problem, the other applicable scenario is the "tragedy
>>> of the commons" -- that's where we're headed.
>>
>> BUT not due to CO2. That's my point.
>
>That's a distinctly minority opinion these days -- one might say a
>fringe view. Since the welfare of the world and future generations may
>be at stake, I find your cavalier attitude a bit shocking.
Oh, c'mon... don't be so dramatic. You haven't bothered to read even
the info presented by the pro-Kyoto camp. CO2 simply isn't the
problem, but that fight has superceded the actual issue to become the
"sound bite du jour".
I'll give you the same challenge as I did another poster recently:
1) How much of the total CO2 released into the air every year is
caused by man?
2) How much would a reduction of 7% of the man-caused (as opposed to
total) CO2 released into the atmosphere every year reduce the
temperature of the planet?
I would think you'd want to know these things in order to complement
your obvious interest in the issue.
>In any case, as so many have pointed out, conservation would itself lead
>to reduction in all pollutants, while reducing foreign dependence -- a
>win-win in my book, perhaps just a simple win in yours. The 1990 -7%
>could be easily reached just through conservation -- an idea I think
>would appeal to a conservative.
Again, I'm NOT "pro-pollution" - I'm for finding solutions that
actually work, rather than just tossing many billions of dollars into
a hysteria-fueled political bonfire. Let's put the money where it
actually does some good - I hope you'd agree that's the prudent
approach.
Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycles
http://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame