Letters to the Editor: Believe in global warming

Re: “The problem with the Kyoto Protocol,” (page 5, Dec. 5)

Ah yes. Another Monday is upon us and we are blessed with another ignorant opinion piece from Tara Stroll. As usual, she has spent too much time staring at a cardboard cutout of Ann Coulter to look at any real facts besides the partisan rhetoric she has bookmarked on her computer. Firstly, let’s not deem environmental conferences”ridiculous” until we have a look at their track record. The Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone layer was signed in (of all places) Montreal in September 1987. This act called for a gradual but massive reduction in CFC production. By 1995, total CFC production was down a whopping 20 percent worldwide, which is astounding considering the recent industrialization of many East Asian nations. This conference was led by the European Union, through the United Nations, and was astoundingly successful in implementing and achieving its goals.

Now onto the Kyoto Protocol itself. She claims Kyoto isn’t needed because the U.S. is proceeding in its own efforts to combat greenhouse gas emissions. She cites tax credits and grants given to companies by the Bush administration as a method of reduction. If she is referring to the money given under Cheney’s Energy Task Force of 2002, she is gravely mistaken as it is well known that the entire program was simply a way of throwing government subsidies to energy companies under the guise of the “pursuit of clean energy.” A major portion of that money was given to companies to further research nuclear technologies, hardly a “clean energy.” Regardless of what money went to whom, Stroll applauds the U.S.’s results of a 0.8 percent reduction of gas emissions since Bush came into office. Besides the fact that five years is too little an amount of time for policies to have an effect and that any reduction can probably be attributed to the Clinton administration, a 0.8 percent reduction is nothing to be proud of when the U.S. is responsible for 25 percent of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions while only having 5 percent of the world’s population.

Ms. Stroll then decides to stick it to the European Union by saying it has increased greenhouse gas emissions since 1990, which is simply not true. According to The Greenhouse Gas Emission Trends and Projections in Europe 2004, the EU-15’s emissions are only 1.0 percent below that of the 1990 levels, but, “Savings from additional domestic policies and measures being planned by Member States that would result in emission reductions of 7.7 percent [by 2010].” So much for the EU being a Kyoto Failure. Keep it up, boys.

At the end of the day, the Kyoto Protocol is a great step toward providing a better world for generations to come. People like Tara Stroll and President George “I don’t believe in global warming” W. Bush need to wake up and realize that multilateral action like that of the Kyoto Protocol needs to be taken, because each nation can’t do it alone.

Matt Warren CAS ’07