Biased BBC points out the goofiness of the claim of a "panel" on the BBC claiming that we have "used up 2/3 of the world's resources" (how? By mass of the earth's volume?) and Jonah Goldberg keeping it real when it comes to the U.N.'s "Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Report" claims that amount to the world, basically ending...
«Seriously, forests are breaking out all over America. New England has more forests since the Civil War. In 1880, New York State was only 25 percent forested. Today it is more than 66 percent. In 1850, Vermont was only 35 percent forested. Now it's 76 percent forested and rising. In the South, more land is covered by forest than at any time in the last century. In 1936 a study found that 80 percent of piedmont Georgia was without trees. Today nearly 70 percent of the state is forested. In the last decade alone, America has added more than 10 million acres of forestland.»
«Across the country, the coyote has rebounded (obviously, this is a mixed blessing, especially for roadrunners). The bald eagle is thriving.... ...And, of course, there's the mountain lion. There are probably now more of them in the continental United States than at any time since European settlement. This is bad news for deer, which are also at historic highs, because the kitties think "they're grrrreat!" In Iowa the big cat was officially wiped out in 1867, but today the state is hysterical about cougar sightings.
To be sure, the environment is not pristine neither in the G8 states or elsewhere, but sanctions and measures seem to dwell on peaceful, developed societies that are in the best environmental state because, well, they're peaceful and developed. Environmental activists from the left are disparaging the wrong social instruments – unless their goal is to “vanquish” developed states for some other political goal.
...Anyway, there's more good news, of course. According to Gregg Easterbrook, air pollution is lower than it has been in a generation, drinking water is safer, and our waterways are cleaner.
The richer you get, the healthier your environment gets. This is because rich societies can afford to indulge their environmental interests and movements. Poor countries cannot. Unsurprisingly, rich countries tend to have a better grasp of economics and the role of markets, private stewardship and property rights, reasonable regulations, and so forth.
With the exception of some oil-rich states, they're also almost always democratic and hence have systems that can successfully assign blame to, and demand restitution from, polluters. In socialized economies, a "tragedy of the commons" almost always arises. As Harvard president Lawrence Summers says, nobody's ever washed a rented car. So let's get back to the bad news...»
Which brings us to the biggest single fallacy of the Kyoto Accord which has more to do with the transfer of wealth between growing societies and shrinking ones - particularly the US having to pay off the EU.
The treaty does not allow for carbon absorption. Were that the case, the payment flow would be going the other way, and nations with successful environmental policies would be rewarded and not punished.
To be sure - were that the case there would be no Kyoto treaty as we know it, and the US and Canada in particular would be accused of imposing anti-development strictures on the rest of the world and "poor" Europe which would squeal about being bankrupted.
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