The Kyoto Protocol is kind of the “girl next door” of environmental policy. While right now it certainly doesn’t seem as sexy as cap-and-trade strategies, “green cars” funded by bailouts or tax credits for green infrastructure, ultimately international agreements committed to environmental protection are the old friend we find ourselves coming back to.
Maybe it’s because the Kyoto Protocol, in its Earth-wide scope, so closely resembles our mother: The environmental problems are (by definition) global, so the solution will require transcending political boundaries. And rejecting Kyoto was arguably the first in the long litany of mistakes that characterized the Bush presidency, though I can’t really remember; it was all so many mistakes ago.
The Kyoto Protocol, like any good soulmate, cannot live without us. The United States is responsible for some 25 percent of the planet’s carbon emissions, despite being only about 4 percent of the population. Let’s put it this way: If everyone emitted carbon like we do, the world as a whole would be emitting more than 600 percent of what it does now. And nonetheless, most every country other than the United States – including eagerly industrializing China – has ratified Kyoto in some form or another. Again, we find ourselves in a comical arms race with our own ignorance, one we’ll eventually lose when we realize everyone, ourselves included, would rather live in a clean, environmentally rich world than a dirty, industrially rich one.
The reasons for our bloated carbon emissions are numerous. Probably the most significant reason, though, is our overweight economy. We are by far the largest economic producer in the world, dwarfing our nearest competitor by trillions of dollars. And who is that nearest competitor? The entire European Union. All of this economic production has to come from somewhere, and usually the easiest way to finance it is with the ancient sunlight of fossil fuels. What’s more, we have a number of people who “deny” global warming crawling all over our national media. While I’m not at all opposed to hearing out this opinion ad nauseam, its pervasiveness clearly contributes to a public consciousness that simply doesn’t seem to understand how infrared energy is absorbed and re-radiated by carbon dioxide molecules. Nonetheless, our massive economic growth – and even our ignorance – contributes to a high standard of living we all enjoy, including everything from those delicious chicken McNuggets to iPhones.
The other issue is the “way” in which our economic growth comes about. We’re tragically inefficient with our resources, choosing to pay significantly more to get significantly less simply because it seems to make more intuitive sense. The classic example is health care. We pay more tax dollars to finance our system than almost any other industrialized country, even though a great number of people who pay these taxes don’t get anything for them because they lack even basic access to health care – care that is guaranteed by a smaller number of tax dollars in so many other nations. This doesn’t even include the billions we spend in private premiums, deductibles, out-of-pocket costs and bankruptcy proceedings resulting from medical crises – it’s just what we pay in taxes. And all of this excess economic throughput requires the emission of more and more greenhouse carbon.
In short, no plan for global reduction in pollution is likely to succeed without our participation. So Kyoto would definitely like to see us again. But have we grown up enough to realize we were always meant to be with Kyoto? This question remains to be answered.
There is a degree of hope, as the Obama administration’s platform indicates. Now, even Bush himself, the oilman you could have a beer with, has come around and joined the Portland-Seattle drum circle, declaring “we are addicted to foreign oil,” and having “put our nation on a path to slow, stop and eventually reverse the growth of our greenhouse gas emissions” by his last year in office, 2008. Obviously this awakening deserves applause, but you can’t help but chuckle at the irony of it in the context of the seven years since the notorious campaign against Al “Inconvenient Truth-Rockstar” Gore. It sort of rings of the high school bully growing up to beg for a nice, cushy tech job answering to the computer nerd he once assaulted for kicks. Yet Bush’s last-minute epiphany never materialized into a rethinking of his infamous position with regard to Kyoto. So, will President Obama reverse course and lead the rest of America in the footsteps of Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, who in 2005, decided to quit waiting for everyone else and “ratified” Kyoto on his own? We can only hope? so, and Obama has indicated some interest in returning to Kyoto.
As we move forward with the new direction America must take, it’s critical we don’t let Obama or his administration off the hook. The Kyoto Protocol is still there, waiting for our ratification, and nothing would be a better match now that we take “going green” so much more seriously.
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Rekindling the flame: going green
Daily Emerald
February 25, 2009
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