Reflections From a Murky Pond

On December 13, 2007, former US Vice-President Al Gore spoke at the UN Climate Conference in Bali. Once again Mr. Gore chose to attack his home country.

I am not an official and I am not bound by diplomatic niceties. So I am going to speak an inconvenient truth: my own country, the United States, is principally responsible for obstructing progress here in Bali

— Al Gore
At the UN Climate Conference

I suppose this is no surprise; Al Gore’s primary shtick is bashing the US. It is sadly also unsurprising that Mr. Gore is once again ignoring some truly inconvenient facts about the usefulness of the Kyoto Protocol:

It would seem reasonable to think that the signatory nations would be doing a better job of curtailing carbon emissions. It would also seem reasonable to think that the US, who won’t even ratify the Kyoto Protocol, would keep emitting CO2 at growth levels much higher than those signatory nations. It would be fallacious to think so.

Data on CO2 emission levels per nation are available from the U.S. Census Bureau. By comparing numbers from 1997 (the year the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon) and 2004 (the latest year data is available for) we can arrive at the following statistics:

• Emissions worldwide increased 18.0%.
• Emissions from signatory nations increased 21.1%.
• Emissions from non-signatory nations increased 10.0%.
• Emissions from the United States increased 6.6%.

In point of fact United States’ CO2 emissions grew slower than those of over 75% of the Kyoto Protocol’s signatory nations.The Kyoto Protocol isn’t working – except as a vehicle for Al Gore’s ego.

One possible piece of good news for the world is that the Bali talks were aimed at launching negotiations to replace the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. Hopefully something will be put into place that works this time. Perhaps the UN could start by stripping China and India of their supposed Emerging Nation statuses and applying the Protocol them as well.

• Emission increased from China 55%
• Emission increased from India 27%

Since the fact that these two up and coming commercial and industrial powerhouses wouldn’t be bound by the Kyoto Protocol due to their Emerging Nation status was one of the major reasons for the US’ refusal to ratify the treaty, perhaps that should be the first correction.

Al Gore’s Greenwash is stripped away as repeated note of his energy hogging, extravagant lifestyle is taken. Here’s an excerpt from an article on Green Hypocrisy:

While the former veep and nouveau-$100 millionaire jets around the world squawking about the “planet having a fever” and demanding that we all lower our standard of living, his own personal electricity use is 20 times the national average, including an indoor pool costing $500/month to heat.

While Gore deflected criticism of his inconvenient electric bill during March congressional testimony by saying he purchased “green” electricity, the truth is, he didn’t start doing so until 2007.

Is it just me, or does Al Gore strike anyone else as someone who may “talk the talk“, but who is completely unwilling to “walk the walk” – all the while stridently demanding that the rest of us, who have fewer resources the he does, do so in his stead?

I’m not going to discuss Global Warming in this post because it’s secondary to the point of Al Gore’s hypocrisy. Let’s suppose though that Global Warming is terribly real. Let us also, for the sake of this particular discussion, suppose that human actions are the primary cause of Global Warming. Is a grandstanding hypocrite really the icon people should want for the issue? Think about it.

The Nature Conservancy has brokered the largest debt-for-nature swap in history — a deal that will secure long-term, science-based conservation for Costa Rica’s tropical forests:

• The United States will forgive $12.6 million in debt owed to it by Costa Rica.
• This move will in turn provide $26 million that will be used to finance forest conservation in Costa Rica over the next 16 years, protecting one of the world’s richest natural treasures for future generations.

This debt swap is unique in that it utilizes scientific analysis to determine the sites towards which the funds will be directed.

— Zdenka Piskulich
Program Director – Conservancy in Costa Rica

For the full story go here.

Indonesia is demanding to be paid $5-$20 USD per hectare not to destroy its remaining forests, for the first time giving an monetary figure that they want extort from the world’s wealthier and more environmental conscious countries. Indonesia wants “big emitters” such as the United States and the European Union to pay the country to preserve its pristine rainforests.

We will ask for a compensation of $5-20 per hectare. It’s not fixed; it is open to negotiation

— Rachmat Witoelar
Indonesian Environment Minister

With a total forested area of 91 million ha (225 million acres), Indonesia could receive as much as $US1.8 billion in blackmail (greenmail?) for preserving its forests under the proposal. Indonesia will also attempt to extort a fixed price for other forms of biodiversity, including coral reefs.

So far we have not received anything for what we have done Now that there is a price tag for preservation, the amount of money we get will increase multifold.

— Rachmat Witoelar

Asking the “big emitters” to agree to the environmental extortion is made even more intolerable by the fact that Indonesia is one of the world’s top three carbon emitters according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain’s development arm.

New York State has sued Exxon Mobil Corp on Tuesday July 17, 2007 to force the cleanup of a decades-old, 17 million gallon oil spill in New York City.

Besides requiring Exxon to perform the cleanup operation, the lawsuit asks Exxon to restore Newton Creek and is seeking substantial financial penalties and damages for the injuries to financial resources.

The lawsuit pertains to a leak that was discovered in 1978 in Newtown Creek, the waterway that separates the boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. According to the lawsuit the spill has formed an underground contamination of over 55-acres of the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn.

This company cannot ignore the harm its oil spill has caused to the environment and residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn.

This suit sends the message that even the largest corporations in the world cannot escape the consequences of their misdeeds

 

— New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, located in Brooklyn. U.S. District Judge Carol Amon has been assigned to hear the case.