Quantum Forest logs are written by Luis A. Apiolaza in Christchurch, New Zealand.
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Last week—16th of February to be exact—the Kyoto protocol entered into force. USA and Australia did not ratify the protocol—rightly in my opinion—making their governments highly unpopular with environmentalist groups.
Listening to Radio National while taking a shower there were reports of fundamental Christians flooding the White House switchboard with calls requesting the president to sign the Kyoto protocol. The news reminded me of the article What evangelical environmentalists do not know about economics.
Some people are surprised by a potential alliance between conservative Christians and atheist environmentalists, but they should not be. They are both expressions of fundamentalist beliefs, some considering a sacrosanct earth just by itself while others because it is God’s creation. I have to say that it was funny to hear a member of the Sierra Club, now full of biblical references, in an attempt to show how they share the same cause with conservative Christians.
The Lowy Institute for International Policy just released a document entitled Sensible Climate Policy (PDF, 686KB) by Warwick McKibbin. It makes an interesting reading and puts the problem in perspective.
The report states that we can be sure of two things: 1. emissions of greenhouse gases have increased and 2. an increase of greenhouse gases should increase temperature. Some big unanswered questions are: increase by how much, does the Kyoto target mean anything and how much will cost to implement Kyoto. McKibbin’s report points out some of the flaws of the protocol (including uncapped costs for unknown benefits and its rigid timetables approach) and proposes an alternative system: the McKibbin Wilcoxen Blueprint. The blueprint looks like a much more palatable option for countries, making its success much more likely than Kyoto’s protocol.
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