Rebuffing Bush, 132 Mayors Embrace Kyoto Rules

Rebuffing Bush, 132 Mayors Embrace Kyoto Rules
By Eli Sanders – The New York Times, Saturday, May 14, 2005​

SEATTLE - Unsettled by a series of dry winters in this normally wet city, Mayor Greg Nickels has begun a nationwide effort to do something the Bush administration will not: carry out the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

Mr. Nickels, a Democrat, says 131 other likeminded mayors have joined a bipartisan coalition to fight global warming on the local level, in an implicit rejection of the administration's policy.
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The mayors, from cities as liberal as Los Angeles and as conservative as Hurst, Tex., represent nearly 29 million citizens in 35 states, according to Mayor Nickels's office. They are pledging to have their cities meet what would have been a binding requirement for the nation had the Bush administration not rejected the Kyoto Protocol: a reduction in heat-trapping gas emissions to levels 7 percent below those of 1990, by 2012.
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On Thursday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg brought New York City into the coalition, the latest Republican mayor to join.
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Mr. Nickels said that to achieve the 7 percent reduction, Seattle was requiring cruise ships that dock in its bustling port to turn off their diesel engines while resupplying and to rely only on electric power provided by the city, a requirement that has forced some ships to retrofit. And by the end of this year the city's power utility, Seattle City Light, will be the only utility in the country with no net emissions of greenhouse gases, the mayor's office said.
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Salt Lake City has become Utah's largest buyer of wind power in order to meet its reduction target. In New York, the Bloomberg administration is trying to reduce emissions from the municipal fleet by buying hybrid electric-gasoline-powered vehicles.
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Nathan Mantua, assistant director of the Center for Science in the Earth System at the University of Washington, which estimates the impact of global warming on the Northwest, said the coalition's efforts were laudable, but probably of limited global impact.
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"It is clearly a politically significant step in the right direction," Dr. Mantua said. "It may be an environmentally significant step for air quality in the cities that are going to do this, but for the global warming problem it is a baby step."
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Mr. Nickels said he decided to act when the Kyoto Protocol took effect in February without the support of the United States, the world's largest producer of heat-trapping gases. On that day, he announced he would try to carry out the agreement himself, at least as far as Seattle was concerned, and called on other mayors to join him.
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The coalition is not the first effort by local leaders to take up the initiative on climate change. California, under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is moving to limit carbon dioxide emissions, and Gov. George A. Pataki of New York, also a Republican, has led efforts to reduce power plant emissions in the Northeast. But the coalition is unusual in its open embrace of an international agreement that the Bush administration has spurned, Mayor Nickels's office said, and is significant because cities are huge contributors to the nation's emission of heat-trapping gases.
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Michele St. Martin, communications director for the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the Kyoto Protocol would have resulted in a loss of five million jobs in the United States and could raise energy prices.
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Ms. St. Martin said President Bush "favors an aggressive approach" on climate change, "one that fosters economic growth that will lead to new technology and innovation."
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But many of the mayors said they were acting precisely out of concern for the economic vitality of their cities. Mr. Nickels, for example, pointed out that the dry winters and the steep decline projected in the glaciers of the Cascade range could affect Seattle's supply of drinking water and hydroelectric power.
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The mayor of low-lying New Orleans, C. Ray Nagin, a Democrat, said he joined the coalition because a projected rise in sea levels "threatens the very existence of New Orleans."
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In Hawaii, the mayor of Maui County, Alan Arakawa, a Republican, said he joined because he was frustrated by the administration's slowness to recognize the scientific consensus that climate change was happening because of human interference.
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"I'm hoping it sends a message they really need to start looking at what's really happening in the real world," Mayor Arakawa said.
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Mayor Nickels said it was no accident that most cities that had joined were in coastal states. The mayor of Alexandria, Va., is worried about increased flooding; mayors in Florida are worried about hurricanes.
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But Mr. Nickels has also found supporters in the country's interior. Jerry Ryan, the Republican mayor of Bellevue, Neb., said he had signed on because of concerns about the effects of droughts on his farming community. Mr. Ryan described himself as a strong Bush supporter, but said he felt that the president's approach to global warming should be more like his approach to terrorism.
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"You've got to ask, 'Is it remotely possible that there is a threat?' " he said. "If the answer is yes, you've got to act now."


Right on.
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The Kyoto Protocol has little to do with global warming -- which is largely overblown and has unsubstantial evidence backing it that shows it's due primarily to pollution or greenhouse gasses -- and everything to do with globalism. It's all about slowly eroding national sovereignty and establishing international law as dictated by the UN.

The administration's rejection of the Kyoto Protocol is one of the few things they've done that I actually agree with.

The Kyoto protocol, in my opinion, is a total scam used for little more than politcal and globalist causes. Not only is it a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States, it completely goes against the US Constitution.

 

Your post is a little convoluted so I might be reading this wrong, but it seems that you are saying global warming isn't as bad as we might be led to believe, that it's simply a scare tactic being used as a vehicle for world dominance by the elite?

... and moving along, what's wrong with cities wanting to initiate stricter pollution controls?

 

....and moving along...

Nothing is wrong with trying to tackle global warming and the more that is done to slow it down (kyoto was meant as a first step not a solution) the better.

To me the US government is doing the bidding of Corporate vested interests.

 

Damn straight. Ignoring Rat's paranoid assertion, we have to realize that pollution is bad. That is obvious. Trying to reduce pollution would obviously be a step in the right direction, no? You don't need more studies, this is simple science and common sense. Greenhouse gases are an aspect of pollution which could have a profound effect on the global climates. Though it might seem like we'd lose all these jobs and economic progress by implementing Kyoto (which isn't a perfect treaty anyways), but think of the long run. By signing treaties to reduce our idiotic actions that endanger ourselves and the world, we are taking a sensible, survivable approach. And think of the new jobs that it could create in coming up with new technology required to reduce emmissions yet still maintain prosperity.

I agree with this approach. If the federal gov't won't do it, let the states and cities do what they can. I think this is a great idea, even if the impact is small it's sending a message.

 

What I am saying is that there is not substantial evidence linking global warming to the greenhouse gasses caused by pollution. Is global warming real? Yes, of course. But there is also much evidence suggesting that it's part of a natural earth cycle -- according the the reading I have done, moreso than the pollution factor.

Don't get me wrong, I am concerned about the environment. But I don't necessarily believe that a sovereignty-eroding international law is the solution, either.

 

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Yeh yeh yeh Rat and it could be all the hot air produced by conspiracy theorists is the cause of global warming - anyway moving on -


I think that investment in new technologies will bring not just future benefits for the planet but also employment and financial advantage.

I must admit to being a bit of a heretic amongst my green friends in believing we should be putting more effort into gaining extraterrestrial footholds so that we can take advantage of the solar system and solar energy. Otherwise we could end up like Easter Island where when the need came the resources had gone.

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Of course global warming is real and is caused by humans. Anyone with a brain can see the overwhelming amount of scientific evidence pointing to that conclusion.

With that being said, I don't think the Kyoto Protocol is an effective solution (or even an effective start). It's effects will be just enough to damage the economies of the countries that implement it, but not enough to make a significant dent in global warming.

However, if individual communities like these want to test-drive the Kyoto Protocol, more power to them. My hunch is that they will all be abysmal failures, but the only way to learn things like this for sure is to have someone test them out.

 

Well if we remove the association with Kyoto from this article it's really just a story about various mayors coming to the table with ideas towards environmentaly aware policies and actually initiating them at a local level. A zero greenhouse gas powerplant, using hybrids in the municipal fleet in NYC, Salt Lake City embracing wind power, .... these are good things. Also, do not believe for one second that if these policies are dismal failures that those mayors will be re-elected. Ever notice that the further down the political ladder one goes the more finnicky the consitituents become? Really, these mayors are sticking their political necks out on the line. If their economies suffer, their people will let them know much more quickly than at a federal level. But, all the poltical mumbo jumbo aside, I think it's high time we stand up and demand local solutions to global problems. If anything, if even in a selfish way, we would know that our immediate envrionment is that much better. By intitiating change we promote real progress.

 

I think it's good news. Global warming is definitely real and definitely caused mostly by greenhouse gas emissions. Most credible scientists agree. Only good things can come of reduced emissions. The economy is hardy something to be concerned about when our very health is in jeopardy. Anyone who isn't concerned about global warming is not educated about it.

 

I know what you mean.. but i think the economy is still important. whats is the point of us trying to correct our errors if you don't take it into consideration.. The planet has survived much worse that what we will ever do. I think our fragile bodies are the real problem and we transfer that onto the ecology of the planet that survives in places that would kill us...Selfish of us ? well thats another matter i suppose.

 

By that logic, spending any amount of money (however large) would be justified if it (however minimally) benefitted your health. You still need to weigh the marginal costs versus the marginal benefits. The question I like to pose to Kyoto supporters is this: Is Kyoto truly the most cost-efficient way of saving lives? You can save a life from hunger for a few hundred dollars a year; you can prevent a case of AIDS for about a thousand dollars a year; you can prevent a case of malaria for less than a hundred dollars a year. But it would costs millions of dollars to save a life from global warming.

That's not to say that global warming isn't a problem...but there are bigger problems that can be solved more cheaply.

 

Spoken like someone truly ignorant on the subject (I don't mean that to be insulting, just matter-of-fact). "The planet" has "survived" much worse? I don't know what you mean with that. I don't think environmentalists are concerned about the entire planet becoming devoid of life....we just want to save species. Preserve biodiversity. Many species are going extinct every day, that is not "surviving". These extinctions are due to human activity. That is the problem, they are not "natural" extinctions. How can saving biodiversity be selfish? I think humans are better off with greater biodiversity.

 

I don't care about AIDS, malaria, or hunger. These are strictly human "problems", humans do not need any help. Global warming is going to make these issues much worse BTW, do some reading on the subject please before you make such absurd comments.

 

Ah, I forgot to whom I was speaking. While I may not be able to convince you, hopefully the other 99.99% of the people on this forum who consider human life more important than animal life will at least consider the points I made in my previous post.

I suppose it could make malaria worse, by increasing the land area on which the mosquitoes could live...I suppose it could make hunger worse, by reducing crop yields. I don't see any way it could affect AIDS.

Regardless, spending $1 towards hunger/malaria/AIDS will go farther towards solving the hunger/malaria/AIDS problem than spending $1 towards global warming will.

 

Kan

Global warming is closer to a house with rising damp.

If the condition continues then the house will become uninhabitable. The people living in the house might get ill and those illness might even be related to the houses condition (1) but treating them does not stop the house’s deterioration. To say that it would be better to spend the money on treating the ill people rather than spending it on the repair to the house seem to be missing the point. It would just mean that there would be more healthy people around to witness the house’s eventual collapse.

The thing is that there is enough for both, for slowing down the rate at which the house is deteriorating and the healthcare of the people in it, what is missing is the will.

(1) Many believe that my illness will increase due to GW for example malaria could increase due to the insects carrying it surviving the some regions warmer winters and the increase in marshland environments.

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Kyoto is not a very good treaty it is a compromise nearly all such treaties are compromises, and many believe that a lot of the reason for it being so compromised was to make it acceptable to the US. It was meant to bring about the first tentative steps the first of which was the acceptance of collective responsibility. The US government and many of it’s people seem unwilling to accept responsibility even going as far as to not only deny culpability but to deny that there is anything to be responsible for.

When such a strong state and such a major polluter takes that stance it allows others to either shrug of responsibility or claim that without the US involved it isn’t worth doing anything anyway.

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OK, I see your analogy and raise you one: Restoring the house to pristine condition will cost billions of dollars (and the possibility exists for future technology making this much cheaper). Meanwhile, you can treat the sickness of the inhabitants for a few hundred dollars. No matter how many people get sick it'll be cheaper to treat them than to fix the house.

Advanced nanotechnology will most likely provide some solutions to global warming that we simply do not have at our disposal now. I think I'll wait for a more cost-effective solution than Kyoto.

Any government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else. You can raise taxes or run up a deficit, but the increased expenditures could still be better spent on something else.

That's a fair point, but I think it's rather moot unless you're arguing that spending $1 on global warming will reduce the malaria problem by a greater factor than spending $1 on malaria treatment will.

In addition to the economic problems, there are plenty of political problems with Kyoto. Some of the biggest polluters in the world (Russia and China) escape Kyoto relatively unscathed, whereas clean nations (Canada) are punished for being modernized.

Kyoto, if it is followed by every nation in the world (unlikely), will slow global warming by approximately six years over the next century. That's hardly worth billions of dollars in my opinion.

 

Kan


The thrust of your argument seems to be ‘hope for the best’ or even ‘believe’? The problem is that whatever faith you may have in science just hoping that some miracle scientific discovery will turn up and save the day is to me just the secular version of the Christian fundamentalist idea of rapture.

Any government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else. You can raise taxes or run up a deficit, but the increased expenditures could still be better spent on something else. What to me is worse it that both give out the message that there is no real need to deal with the very immediate and real problems of GW today. Just as the religious fundamentalists is apathetic because they believe they will be whisked away before the end so the secular ostrich is apathetic because he believes ‘nanotechnology’ or some such will make everything better.

I read Drexler and looked at the development of nano since ‘Engines of Creation’ was first published and it is similar in the way it is going to the earlier view of robotics, great promise that never really achieved the dream.

Now I know I could be wrong, but since I’d be gambling with the future of my child (and her children and theirs), I’d rather try and do something now rather than putting my hope in futures than I cannot predict or dreams that may never come to be.

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You say the money that could be spent on combating GW could be spent on something else, well yes that is obvious.

But again your argument is to allow the house to deteriorate while spending the possible maintenance money on something else, because there maybe, possibly, conceivably be something, sometime, whenever in the future be a scientific way of putting things to rights.

You also have to ask is the money being spent at the moment being spent on more worthwhile things than saving the place we depend on for our survival?

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Also to put your view that “government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else” think about cotton subsidies

“In 2001/02 (US) farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn…three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people” (my brackets)
Oxfam briefing paper ‘Cultivating Poverty’

Only a very small portion of that USAID money is spent on fighting malaria.

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Kan


The thrust of your argument seems to be ‘hope for the best’ or even ‘believe’? The problem is that whatever faith you may have in science just hoping that some miracle scientific discovery will turn up and save the day is to me just the secular version of the Christian fundamentalist idea of rapture.

Any government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else. You can raise taxes or run up a deficit, but the increased expenditures could still be better spent on something else. What to me is worse it that both give out the message that there is no real need to deal with the very immediate and real problems of GW today. Just as the religious fundamentalists is apathetic because they believe they will be whisked away before the end so the secular ostrich is apathetic because he believes ‘nanotechnology’ or some such will make everything better.

I read Drexler and looked at the development of nano since ‘Engines of Creation’ was first published and it is similar in the way it is going to the earlier view of robotics, great promise that never really achieved the dream.

Now I know I could be wrong, but since I’d be gambling with the future of my child (and her children and theirs), I’d rather try and do something now rather than putting my hope in futures than I cannot predict or dreams that may never come to be.

**

You say the money that could be spent on combating GW could be spent on something else, well yes that is obvious.

But again your argument is to allow the house to deteriorate while spending the possible maintenance money on something else, because there maybe, possibly, conceivably be something, sometime, whenever in the future be a scientific way of putting things to rights.

You also have to ask is the money being spent at the moment being spent on more worthwhile things than saving the place we depend on for our survival?

**

Also to put your view that “government budget means that $1 spent on something like global warming is $1 less that can be spent on something else” think about cotton subsidies

“In 2001/02 (US) farmers reaped a bumper harvest of subsidies amounting to $3.9bn…three times more in subsidies than the entire USAID budget for Africa’s 500 million people” (my brackets)
Oxfam briefing paper ‘Cultivating Poverty’

Only a very small portion of that USAID money is spent on fighting malaria.

**