The “K” Word

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments (5)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  A good read.  Am currently studying earth sciences at University.  Hope you don’t mind if I use a few quotes in my essay that I’m writing on Global Warming.

  Posted by Mark Newton on May 21, 2003 at 4:58 AM

  I agree with your points, but we never signed the Kyto protocol. You correctly state that Bush didn’t accept it, but neither did Clinton, so you weren’t reporting the whole truth. I believe the Kyoto Protocol is about to become international law anyway, so we’re gonna have to follow it.

  Posted by Brad on May 21, 2003 at 11:16 PM

  The US follows international law?  I wasn’t aware of that.  yikes!
  Clinton did sign the Kyoto protocol, but only with the knowledge that it would be soundly defeated by the Senate.  In fact, he never bothered to submit it to the Senate.  Republican, Democrat, neither has any particular inclination to disobey their corporate sponsors and act in a way that places importance on long term global benefits for the majority, rather than short term domestic gain for the few.  There will be no change in America’s global role until the people force it. 

  Posted by mike on May 22, 2003 at 8:10 PM

  Mike, you are 100% right about how there will be no change until the people force it, but it’s a shame that the people don’t care. It has nothing to do with misinformation or bad reporting of news, everyone knows that SUV’s have bad CO2 emmission, but don’t care.

  Karen Charman (the author) said that censoring science won’t make it go away. She’s right, but she forgot about something, there is a belief that many scientists hold that the Earth warms and cools in cycles. I can’t quite remember how, it has to do with phytoplankton and things they release. Personally I don’t believe it, but I’m no scientist.
  

  Posted by Brad on May 23, 2003 at 7:31 PM

  Im sorry if I offend anyone with this BUT: Why do we not take into account the impact of mass immigration when it considering energy consumptiondemand and the reduce greenhouse gasses? I have read that we added 37-52 million illegal and legal immigrants in a decade, with 1-2 million coming each year. Common sense dictates that if you add this 20-25% to your population, energy demand and consumption ( and emissions) will increase accordingly! I agree that SUV and lack of energy efficiency is a major issue in this country BUT if we continue to allow population increases such as this to continue there will be ZERO chances at reducing emissions or complying with the Kyoto accords. It is ludicrous for our government to initiate and enact stringent emsiion requirements and programs on this nations existing populace when these expensive and miniscule gains are offset by mass immigrations population growth. Environmentalists where are you? Why do you not address this?

  Posted by Chet Polwin on Jun 2, 2003 at 12:48 AM

  Page 1 of 1 pages

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also by Karen Charman

• The “K” Word
  U.S. turns its back on Kyoto and global warming
• Down on the Biopharm
  
• Seeds of Domination
  Don't want GMOs in your food? It may already be too late.