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		Everyone agrees with Kyoto, don't they? Freedom Today - September 23 2004 For everyone in Brussels, and most people in the UK, the Kyoto protocol is like motherhood and apple pie. For those who don't follow these matters, the Kyoto protocol was an international agreement initialled in Japan in 1997, and ratified by many countries, although not, so far, by Russia and the USA. That makes the USA, in particular, a global bad guy. Many people believe that global warming is taking place, resulting in extreme weather, desertification, damage to agriculture, and a potential rise in sea level which could sink low lying islands like the Maldives, or countries like Bangladesh. And they believe that by curbing emissions, especially CO2, we can halt the process. Let's think this through. The proposition is that global warming is happening, that it is a bad thing, that it is caused by human activity, and that we can make a difference by cutting emissions. Every one of those steps is open to question. Is global warming happening? There are certainly indications that it is, although the data are mixed and some still defend the view that there is no overall trend. But let's err on the side of caution, and assume its happening. Is it a bad thing? Some say that's obvious. Tropical areas are turning to desert, wild species are dying out in some areas, we have floods and hurricanes. But patterns of vegetation have always changed. Five thousand years ago the Sahara desert was pleasant grassland, supporting a huge range of wild-life. It changed to desert long before man came along and invented the internal combustion engine. Meantime agricultural prospects in other areas -- like the UK -- may well improve. There is evidence that wine grapes were grown in Scotland in the late Middle Ages. That may happen again. Species will be driven from some areas, but may thrive in new habitats. It is not clear that extreme weather is associated with warming. We all saw the terrible floods recently in Boscastle. But I can remember similar flooding in nearby Lynmouth fifty years ago -- and no one blamed global warming then. The apparent increase in tropical storms may well be an artefact of better satellite observation and widespread media coverage. Certainly there is little hard evidence so far of any significant change in sea level. Is it caused by human activity? Very doubtful. Climate has changed throughout the course of history -- and pre-history. Modern techniques can provide a record of average temperatures going back millions of years, and show both short and long-term fluctuations. Climate is never static, and we shouldn't expect it to be. Twenty thousand years ago there were hundreds of feet of ice over Chicago. The ice receded about twelve thousand years ago -- and it's no coincidence that this is about the time that agriculture developed and the very first permanent human settlements emerged. In the last thousand years we had times when the temperature was warmer than today. When the Vikings arrived in Greenland, they found it green and verdant (think wine grapes in Scotland at the same time). But their settlement was obliterated by cooling after a century or so, when they could no longer grow crops. In the seventeenth century it was very cold. The ice on the Thames was so thick it was possible to build a fire and roast an ox on the river. Climate change is driven by a range of complex factors including small changes in the earth's orbit, and variations in the sun's intensity. Meantime human activity contributes only around 5% of all CO2 emissions (the rest comes from forest fires, volcanoes, rotting vegetation and animals breathing), so even a big reduction in anthropogenic (human-produced) CO2 would make little difference overall. Can we make a difference? Not really. The consensus among scientists is that even full, 100% implementation of Kyoto (which is most unlikely to happen) would make a difference of only 0.2ºC -- almost too small to measure -- in average global temperatures in hundred years' time. And the costs are astronomic -- many trillions of dollars. We are asked to cripple our economies and mortgage our futures, in order to make a trivial difference to our great-great grandchildren. The killer question is this. If we're to spend trillions on the environment, is Kyoto the best way to spend it? The answer is a resounding NO! Instead, we could be supplying simple stoves to third world peasants, to replace open fires for cooking (this would cut carbon emissions and delay deforestation). We could supply clean-coal technology to China's power stations. We could build more (CO2-free) nuclear capacity, and invest in fusion research. Alongside these measures we could pursue some of the current ideas, like bio-fuels and solar energy development. The test of any public policy initiative is, are we getting value for money? With Kyoto, absolutely not. There is a better way.