Get Your Kyoto Out of My Face

Here is another piece on global warming exposing the nonsense masquerading as science in the debate, this time from the Australian ("We love you! Amen!"): Protocol is just lots of hot air

Global temperatures were higher in the Roman times when grapes were grown on British islands and Hannibal's elephants walked through the Alps into Italy. They were higher in the medieval period when the Vikings found and colonised the island that they have called Greenland and when Norwegians grew grain on the fields that are 300m in altitude higher than it is possible to do today.

Temperature variations in the course of the earth's history have been much greater than the increase of 0.6 degrees Celsius estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for the last century. In the past, the earth's climate was warmer, the global temperature rose faster, sea level was higher, floods were more severe, droughts lasted longer and hurricanes were more devastating than they were in the 20th century. Moreover, the best available temperature data from satellites show negligible temperature changes over the past several decades.

This is one reason why any anomolous outlying regional measure of temprature, such as those that produced the spate of "The Artic is Melting! The Arctic is Melting" stories, are seized upon with such ferocity. It's all they've got. Aggregate measures don't show the dramatic change that are claimed. Sure, the climate is changing, but the climate isn't a static entity. It always changes. It always has changed. It always will change. There is no single normal climate.

So if Kyoto isn't about science, what is it about? Politics and money.

The Kyoto protocol requires a supranational bureaucratic monster in charge of rationing emissions and, therefore, economic activities. The Kyoto-ist system of quota allocation, mandatory restrictions and harsh penalties will be a sort of international Gosplan, a system to rival the former Soviet Union's. This perhaps explains why it finds such ready support in some quarters. But that's why it should be a warning signal for those who value economic and political freedom.

The Kyoto protocol is nothing less than a disingenuous attempt to dismantle the engine of economic prosperity in the name of science. I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly with the article's most dire warning:

The message for Australians is clear: continued economic growth and rising living standards or make your future and the future of your children a victim of Kyoto-ism, one of the most aggressive, intrusive, destructive ideologies since the collapse of communism and fascism.

Hopefully the Aussies will get the message. And afterwards I hope they pass it on to the United States.