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Argument: Humans are not causing global warming so Kyoto can't solve it
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Bob Barr, former US House Representative (R-GA), stated in an interview on CNN's Glenn Beck Program (retrieved from a YouTube video titled "Bob Barr on Glenn Beck 06/06/2008" and accessed Aug. 12, 2008) - "Global warming is a myth, but yet it's being used by the environmental folks and by the internationalists. A lot of the pressure is coming from the United Nations and other countries, some of which, like China of course, are pushing the Kyoto Protocol. Why? Because they are exempt, it's going to saddle us..."[1]
Duncan Hunter, US Representative (R-CA). Aug. 13, 2007 - "While historic measurements of temperatures do indicate that warming has occurred [according the National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration the mean temperature for the contiguous US has increased by 1.1 degree Fahrenheit] the apportionment of warming to man's activities versus the natural cycle is unclear. The Kyoto Protocol would have been disastrous for those who advocate less greenhouse gasses as well as Americans who want to maintain the industrial base of the United States."[2]
Fred Thompson, former US Senator (R-TN). "Plutonic Warming". National Review Online. 22 Mar. 2007 - "Some people think that our planet is suffering from a fever. Now scientists are telling us that Mars is experiencing its own planetary warming: Martian warming. It seems scientists have noticed recently that quite a few planets in our solar system seem to be heating up a bit, including Pluto.
NASA [National Aeronautics and Space Administration] says the Martian South Pole's 'ice cap' has been shrinking for three summers in a row. Maybe Mars got its fever from earth. If so, I guess Jupiter's caught the same cold, because it's warming up too, like Pluto.
This has led some people, not necessarily scientists, to wonder if Mars and Jupiter, non signatories to the Kyoto Treaty, are actually inhabited by alien SUV-driving industrialists who run their air-conditioning at 60 degrees and refuse to recycle.
Silly, I know, but I wonder what all those planets, dwarf planets and moons in our SOLAR system have in common. Hmmmm. SOLAR system. Hmmmm. Solar? I wonder. Nah, I guess we shouldn't even be talking about this. The science is absolutely decided. There's a consensus.
Ask Galileo."
Andrey Illarionov, Economic Adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin - "Ideology on which the Kyoto Protocol is based, is a new form of totalitarian ideology, along with Marxism, Communism and Socialism. We had doubts about the Kyoto Protocol, we wanted reasoning from our partners in the European Union, in the IPCC. Formal requests had been sent to these organizations. But we have not received responses yet, which suggests that no coherent answers can be offered. What we hear is ‘it is not comprehensive responses that matter, we will not give them anyway; what is important is whether you believe us or not’."[3]
Andrey Illarionov, Economic Adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin - "We have received no single argument in favour of this document except political pressure. No link has been established between carbon dioxide emissions and climate change. No other objective facts have been presented in recent time. The IPCC's reports in 1990 and 1995 show it clearly."[4]
Charli E. Coon. "Why President Bush Is Right to Abandon the Kyoto Protocol." Heritage Foundation. May 11, 2001. - "Faulty Science. Large uncertainties remain in predicting future climate changes, their impact, and their causes. Projections are based on scenarios that predict population change, fuel use, technology development, international trade, and rate of development. The Protocol does not distinguish between human and non-human sources for greenhouse gases."
Faulty Science. Every five years, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes a report on global climate change. These Assessment Reports, which become central to the debate over global warming, purport to lay out a consensus of what is known, what is still uncertain, and how various actions might cause changes in future climate conditions. 15 The Second Assessment Report in 1995 predicted, for example, temperature increases by the year 2100 that would range from less than 2°F to more than 6°F. However, it also conceded that "current data and systems are inadequate for the complete description of climate change." 16
In January 2001, in a "Summary for Policymakers" for the Third Assessment Report, 17 the IPCC predicted the onslaught of coastal inundation, increasingly violent weather, more droughts, increased spread of mosquito-borne illnesses, crop failures, and more. It placed blame at the feet of humans for temperatures warming at a faster rate than previously predicted. 18
Though the media characterized the summary as having a higher degree of certainty than previous assessments, 19 independent reviews have found it to be a flagrant misrepresentation of what is known about the impact of future climate changes. 20 For example, after reviewing a draft of the summary that was leaked to the press just before the U.S. presidential elections, the Director of the Environmental Program at the Reason Public Policy Institute, Dr. Kenneth Green, criticized the report for not putting its findings in context, either with previous assessments or with the main body of research conducted for the more scientifically rigorous Third Assessment. 21 Moreover, when the official version of the summary was released, he found that the wording had changed but the predictions were the same as in the leaked report.
1. Presents speculation as fact. The report makes predictions based on simple models that (1) fail to take into account current or historical climate phenomena, (2) are not calibrated to observed climate phenomena, (3) fail to emulate fundamental climate processes, and (4) project an appearance of certainty that is not supported by the evidence in underlying technical reports or statements regarding similar exercises made in mainstream science journals. 23
2. Fails to distinguish between non-human and human-caused factors. 24 By lumping together predictions based on human and non-human factors, the report fails to provide the kind of verifiable information that would enable policymakers to make intelligent decisions on how to reduce human contributions to climate change and how to prepare for changes that are due to forces outside of human control. 25
3. Bases its predictions on pessimistic and unsubstantiated assumptions--worst-case scenarios that suggest a higher range of potential warming and rising sea levels by 2100. 26 The possible scenarios on which the report's predictions are based include population changes, fuel use, technology development, international trade, and rate of development.
As Dr. Green concludes, "the ramifications of climate change policy are too far-reaching to be based on distorted representations of the current state of knowledge in either climate science or climate predictive ability." 27 As long as biased political forces outside scientific processes can manipulate the data, scientists will never be able to arrive at a consensus regarding global climate change. Until a consensus based on sound science can be reached, it would be irresponsible for the U.S. government to agree to mandatory emissions reductions.[5]
John Carlisle. "President Bush Must Kill Kyoto". February 2001 - Negotiated by the Clinton/Gore Administration in December 1997, the Kyoto Protocol would require the U.S. and other industrialized nations to make economically-drastic cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. Then-Vice President Gore and environmental groups made shrill, scientifically-unsupported arguments that carbon dioxide emissions are dangerously heating the planet, and that the Kyoto treaty is vital to saving the Earth from the myriad of climatic apocalypses this human-induced warming would spawn.
Never mind that the most reliable scientific evidence lends no credence to these visions of climate doom. The most accurate barometers of global temperature, NASA weather satellites, show that the Earth has slightly cooled since 1979.1 In addition, one of the leading scientists promoting the global warming theory, Dr. James Hansen, says he now sees no evidence that carbon dioxide is even responsible for any global warming that occurred over the last several decades.2
Absent proof that it causes dangerous warming, carbon dioxide is simply what it is has always been: a benign, non-polluting substance that plants need to grow.