Well, looks like signing kyoto is looking better and better by the minute. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7092989.stm
Australia should have ratified Kyoto when it was drawn up. Hopefully, we'll have a government willing to ratify it in two weeks time.
I'm not saying kyoto shouldnt be ratified - I'm not knowledgeable enough on kyoto atm to make that call. But is that per Australian? I bet its not per square km. There's a lot of travel involved in Australia, with our population spread all around a very large coast. Granted, it should be done more efficiently via more environmentally friendly rail. That would also take some of the burden off our poor truck drivers who are forced to work ridiculously long shifts. Although, it must be taken into consideration that Australia has one of the lowest population densities in the world - only twice that of the West Saharan desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density How do our emissions per person compare with a country like Canada?
Yes James, it's imcomprehensible to me that we can't just sign. Hopefully, yes hopefully... I'm more than hopeful, I'm convinced.. It reminds me of when Keating was booted out, the policies really counted for nothing, the populus were sick of the man.. same deal now. A lot of voters who are clinging to all the bottom line bullshit and 'libs are good for the economy' will hit the booths and despite themselves vote for Spud, I mean Rudd. Australia is well and truly sick of the sight of little johnny, it's as simple as that! Every time Johnny opens his mouth, he sticks his foot in and every time he does that, he pulls out his gun and shoots himself in the other foot. John Begone!
Yes, it is per capita. The biggest producer of greenhouse gases, in terms of total amount, is the USA. And it is not far behind Australia if you calculate things per capita, either. Travel isn't the main cause of greenhouse gases in Australia. The largest culprit is our power generation using brown coal - one of the dirtiest energy sources in terms of carbon emissions.
Bingo Desi, China has bullshit targets according to kyoto - targets that Canada or Australia has NEVER actually produced on a per capita basis. Probably NE china pollutes more in one year, than Australia/Canada pollute in 20 years, put together. What a joke.
China is bringing on line two coal fired electrical plants every hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Asia is the larges airborne polluter, lead by China and India in the world, in fact their pollution contributes to the pollution in the United States, it take approximately 10 day for the pollution from China to reach the west coast of the United States, and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes - New York Times Experts once thought China might overtake the United States as the world’s leading ... As China Roars, Pollution Reaches Deadly Extremes (August 26, 2007) ... http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/26/world/asia/26china.html
Yeah, people seem to have forgotten about air pollution other than greenhouse gases, probably because efforts to reduce them have been so successful in the West.
We don't mind that China is a huge polluter, considering it's to make all of the cheap goods we're enjoying. - N
Air pollution is a green house gas. Now there is even a bigger source of GHG, it is the tundra, global warming is part of a natural cycle, the world it always warming or cooling, as it warms the carbon sinks of the tundra thaw, which leads to decomposition of the vegetable matter, which then releases the Co2, and methane, that was in suspension because of the frozen state of the tundra. The release follows the warming, it doesn't precede the warming, the Sun is still the biggest elephant in the warming of the planet, and there is nothing that we are going to do about it until we can control the sun.
