Reflections From a Murky Pond

To my surprise, the Japanese government has backed down and suspended plans to hunt up to 50 humpback whales after extreme protests by the Australian people and government. Chief Japanese government spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said humpbacks would not be part of the annual hunt in the waters around Antarctica.

It’s true that Australia expressed quite a strong opinion to Japan on this. As a result, I hope that this will lead to better relations with Australia.

– Nobutaka Machimura
Chief Cabinet Secretary

It may have taken more than just the mentioned protests to convince the Japanese of the error of the ways though. Australia has been ‘dogging’ Japan - including flying survelliance aircraft - for its plans to resume whale hunting in the Antarctic region. The Australian Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd had recently announced plans to dispatch an armed observation ship to track the Japanese whaling fleet and gather evidence for a possible lawsuit at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Never underestimate the power of armed diplomacy!

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.