posted February 16, 2005 06:19 PM              

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Greenpeace activists disrupted trading on a major international oil exchange Wednesday. Details

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KYOTO, Japan (Feb. 16) - The Kyoto global warming pact went into force Wednesday, seven years after it was negotiated, imposing limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases scientists blame for increasing world temperatures, melting glaciers and rising oceans.

The landmark agreement, negotiated in Japan's ancient capital of Kyoto in 1997 and ratified by 140 nations, targets carbon dioxide and five other gases that can trap heat in the atmosphere, and are believed to be behind rising global temperatures that many scientists say are disrupting weather patterns.

The United States, the world's largest emitter of such gases, has refused to ratify the agreement, saying it would harm the economy and is flawed by the lack of restrictions on emissions by emerging economies China and India.

''We have been calling on the United States to join. But the country that is the world's biggest emitter has not joined yet, and that is regrettable,'' Japan's top government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Hiroyuki Hosoda, told reporters.

Environmental officials, gathered in the convention hall where the accord was adopted, hailed the protocol as a historic first step in the battle against global warming and urged the world to further strengthen safeguards against greenhouse gases.

''Today is a day of celebration and also a day to renew our resolve ... to combat global warming,'' said Hiroshi Ohki, former Japanese environment minister and president of the conference that negotiated the protocol.

Australia, the only other developed nation besides the United States not to join, defended that decision, with Environment Minister Ian Campbell saying the country was nonetheless on track to cut emissions by 30 percent.

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''Until such time as the major polluters of the world, including the United States and China, are made part of the Kyoto regime, it is next to useless and indeed harmful for a country such as Australia to sign up,'' Australian Prime Minister John Howard said in Canberra.

The Kyoto agreement was delayed by the requirement that countries accounting for 55 percent of the world's emissions must ratify it. That goal was reached last year - nearly seven years after the pact was negotiated - with Russia's approval.

In Japan, a tireless supporter of the pact, the enactment was being met with a mixture of pride and worry that the world's second-largest economy is unprepared to meet its emissions reduction targets. Japan planned to celebrate the enactment Wednesday at the convention hall where the accord was negotiated in December 1997.

Joke Waller-Hunter, the Dutch chief of the treaty secretariat, said that while the Kyoto agreement already was having an impact on greenhouse gas levels, it was only a first step that must be followed up with stronger agreements once it expires in 2012.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said climate change was one of the biggest challenges facing mankind and there was ''no time to lose'' in formulating strategies that would follow the term of the Kyoto pact.

''If this challenge is not addressed, sustainable development will be out of reach,'' he said in a video message broadcast from U.N. headquarters in New York.

In London, about 35 Greenpeace protesters armed with foghorns, attack alarms and whistles stormed the International Petroleum Exchange in a bid to paralyze oil trading.

''We believe we are stopping trading in oil on the global market,'' Greenpeace spokesman Ben Stewart said. ''We're asking the world to take a deep breath on this and consider where our oil addiction is taking us.''

The Kyoto targets vary by region: The European Union is committed to cutting emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012; the United States agreed to a 7 percent reduction before President Bush denounced the pact in 2001.

That proposal was opposed by the U.S. Senate so adamantly that the protocol was never submitted for ratification by then-President Clinton. Bush then pulled the United States out of the pact in March 2001, less than three months after taking office, saying the Kyoto pact would have cost far too much and exacerbated an already bothersome energy problem for the world's largest consumer of energy from fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso urged Washington to address the issue, saying, ''Science warns us that we have to continue to reduce emissions.''

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Tuesday ''we are still learning'' about the science of climate change. In the meantime, McClellan said, ''We have made an unprecedented commitment to reduce the growth of greenhouse gas emissions in a way that continues to grow our economy.''

The Bush administration's stance has since drawn fire from environmental experts, who say it is ignoring scientific consensus about global warming, and that government reports have been censoring views not in line with its politics.

Japan is struggling to find ways to meet its obligations. A report this month by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry showed that 11 of 30 top Japanese industries - steel and power among them - risked failing to reach targets unless they take drastic steps.

Officials made solemn pledges Tuesday to fulfill Japan's treaty requirement to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 6 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

The Cabinet will draw up concrete plans by May, Environment Minister Yuriko Koike said.

Some officials are pondering a ''carbon tax'' to punish polluters - a move opposed by business - while others favor expansion of nuclear power and promotion of energy-saving technologies.

Japan also has been especially active in carbon trading - a system under which governments have allocated carbon dioxide quotas to industrial facilities. Those which emit less gas can sell the ''credit'' to other companies who emit too much.

Makoto Katagiri, whose Natsource Japan is acting as a credit broker between Japanese and foreign companies, estimated in a World Bank study that Japan bought 41 percent of the carbon credits on the international market last year.

AP-NY-02-16-05 13:40 EST

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posted February 17, 2005 03:25 AM            

If all the ice caps were to melt it would turn into a volume which is less than that of the visible part of an iceberg (1/10th)(water expanding as it freezes)
You dont see much ice these days...

Correct me if Im wrong, as always.
Right back at ya!

Sorry I dont remember where I heard it, nor do I really care but I believe it as my own truth.
Make up your own mind like grown ups do.

posted February 17, 2005 08:25 AM            

Try typing in Global warming Hoax in your browser, or maybe Ice age coming...

Seek!

posted February 17, 2005 01:19 PM            

For those concerned about increased levels of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, do you know that plant life thrives on CO2?

Do you know that plant life breaths in CO2 and expels oxygen?

Do you know that the average level of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere is approximately 350 PPM [parts per million]?

Do you know that through years of agreed upon practice, the optimum level of CO2 for plant growth is in the 1000-1500 PPM range?

Do you know that at these levels it is not uncommon to realize a 25-40% increase in crop yield?

Do you know another essential element for maximum crop yield...for most warm weather crops...is heat?

Perhaps rising temperatures and increasing CO2 concentrations in Earth's atmosphere is Mother Natures way of feeding the increasing world's population.

When compared against the CO2 produced naturally by the Earth, human contributions are statistically negligible.

posted February 17, 2005 09:10 PM              

btw where did you cull that info from? not from memory i hope.....

posted February 17, 2005 10:06 PM              

quote:

---

For those concerned about increased levels of CO2 in Earth's atmosphere, do you know that plant life thrives on CO2?

---

If there is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and a decrease in the plant life that could use it, what then? What to do with all that yummy extra CO2?

posted February 17, 2005 10:40 PM            

Or the implied statement that the Sun is putting out more radiation..in this sun cycle and that increased radiation accounts for warming of the earth?

Or that natural causes result in most of the CO2 released into the atmosphere...causes having nothing whatsoever to do with automobile emissions, factory emissions or any emissions resulting from what the earth's population does?

Plant inhalation of CO2 and exhaling oxygen has been part of grammar school education for more than 50 years Petron. Is that a class you missed?

My grammar school education included crystalline structure, including the crystalline structure of snowflakes...which are individually unique.

posted February 17, 2005 11:02 PM            

quote:

---

If there is an increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and a decrease in the plant life that could use it, what then? What to do with all that yummy extra CO2?

---

TINK what model are you using that assumes a decrease in plant life in a cycle of rising CO2 levels?

Am I not always gentle?

posted February 17, 2005 11:32 PM              

i posted some articles about co2 ppm back at the "time is running out" thread, you never commented on it then....now your lecturing us about ppm (did you know...did you know...did you know?? lol)

It's a simple request.

posted February 18, 2005 12:22 AM            

It was a simple request

quote:

---

It's a simple request.

---

posted February 18, 2005 02:11 AM            

The record shows we are very far into the warming cycle before the next cooling cycles starts.

The history of the Earth is for the most part cold, dry and inhospitable with brief periods of warmth, higher humidity, rising CO2 levels and lush vegetation.

Given the factual historical record, I'll take the warmth and rising CO2 levels over an Earth covered by thick ice sheets....any day. The simple fact is that, at the current level of technology, we cannot influence the heating and cooling cycles of the Earth to any significant degree. That's too bad because there's another Ice Age in Earth's future.

Example of regional variations in surface air temperature for the last 1000 years, estimated from a variety of sources, including temperature-sensitive tree growth indices and written records of various kinds, largely from western Europe and eastern North America. Shown are changes in regional temperature in ° C, from the baseline value for 1900. Compiled by R. S. Bradley and J. A. Eddy based on J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vol 5, no 1, 1991. Courtesy of Thomas Crowley, Remembrance of Things Past: Greenhouse Lessons from the Geologic Record
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

The idea that man-made pollution is responsible for global warming is not supported by historical fact. The period known as the Holocene Maximum is a good example-- so-named because it was the hottest period in human history. The interesting thing is this period occurred approximately 7500 to 4000 years B.P. (before present)-- long before human's invented industrial pollution. http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html

posted February 18, 2005 02:13 AM            

Air temperature near Antarctica for the last 150,000 years. Temperatures given are inferred from hydrogen/deuterium ratios measured in an ice core from the Antarctic Vostok station, with reference to the value for 1900. Compiled by R. S. Bradley and J. A. Eddy based on J. Jouzel et al., Nature vol 329, pp 403-408, 1987 and published in EarthQuest, vol 5, no 1, 1991.

Variations in regional surface temperatures for the last 18,000 years, estimated from a variety of sources. Shown are changes in°C, from the value for 1900. Compiled by R. S. Bradley and J. A. Eddy based on J. T. Houghton et al., Climate Change: The IPCC Assessment, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1990 and published in EarthQuest, vol 5, no 1, 1991.

The scientific record also shows that CO2 does not cause rising temperatures. It shows that rising temperatures cause rising CO2 levels...after temperatures rise.

Concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases (in parts per billion by volume) over the last 50,000 years, compared to estimated changes in air temperature at high latitudes over the same period (bottom curve), derived from analyses of an ice core from Antarctica. After M. Leuenberger and U. Siegenthaler, Nature, vol 360, pp 449-451, 1992

posted February 18, 2005 02:35 AM              

wow look at that co2 spike in that last chart....

posted February 18, 2005 09:15 PM              

Average readings at the 11,141-foot Mauna Loa Observatory, where carbon dioxide density peaks each northern winter, hovered around 379 parts-per-million on Friday, compared with about 376 a year ago.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that, if unchecked, atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by 2100 will range from 650 to 970 parts per million

Current CO2 levels, as recorded in March 2004 at a Hawaii monitoring station, stood at 379 ppm. In 2000, they were 368 ppm http://www.linda-goodman.com/ubb/Forum16/HTML/001069.html

**********

heres a closeup of the co2 ppm rise in the last 1000 years so as not to confuse the issue of heat vs co2 ppm

http://www-das.uwyo.edu/~geerts/cwx/notes/chap01/icecore.html

probably just a "coincidence"