Interesting development in Canada, to paraphrase the essentials : if we knew then what we know now Kyoto would have never happened.”
The fact is that “the study of global climate change is, as the Canadian Prime Minister himself has said, an emerging science, and one that is perhaps the most complex ever tackled. It may be many years yet before we properly understand the Earth’s climate system. Nevertheless, significant advances have been made since the protocol was created, many of which are taking us away from a concern about increasing greenhouse gases. If, back in the mid-1990s, we knew what we know today about climate, Kyoto would almost certainly not exist, because we would have concluded it was not necessary.
To me the whole global warming debate has defocused and diminished the environmental movement, Environmentalists don’t need a new poster crisis every ten years. Agit-prop, new dogma, and crisis mongering never make for good policy — bolstering your cause with potential causality vs. proven facts is usually a bad thing, which usually achieves bad ends. The politics of the dogma debate and the geopolitical gerrymandering over the redistribution of wealth implicit in the Kyoto protocol have now engulfed and surpassed the original purpose for most proponents.
In Aristotle’s day, as philosophers used the word, “Praxis” defined a complete philosophical concept — it meant in simple terms ” A purposeful, reasoned action.” I am a proponent of Praxis, and when you take the reason from the action, you get an unreasoned action… Kyoto.
It makes emminent good sense to reduce airborn carcinogens from autos, manufacturing, etc., and you don’t need a crisis theory to prove it. Any toxicologist can provide you with ample evidence of the badness of introducing benzene compounds to human lung tissue.