benhocking's Journal: Global Warming and Kyoto

I've been involved in more than my share of debates over global warming, and one thing that many of those who refuse to believe in anthropogenic global warming (AGW) often resort to is talking about how unfair the Kyoto Protocol is. First of all, that has nothing to do with whether or not AGW is real. Secondly, life's not fair. Thirdly, they're right that it's a bad thing.

Up until recently I've been pretty agnostic on Kyoto, mainly just pointing out that it's not relevant to the question of whether AGW is real. However, I was recently listening to a BBC podcast where the person being interviewed was talking about some company moving its factory to China where the limits wouldn't matter. Regardless of how you feel about globalization, this reveals a fundamental flaw in any greenhouse gas limiting treaty that doesn't involve all parties with this liability in mind - international corporations can always move their factories to countries that allow them to dump more CO2 (and/or methane, etc.) into the atmosphere.

Anyways, I just thought I'd throw this out there as I haven't heard anyone mention it yet.

I'd heard it before

[Marxist Hacker 42]

But then again, I'm very involved in the Union movement- which has been losing jobs to this sort of thing for 40 years now.

Union argument

[benhocking]

So, is the argument more in the way of Kyoto and similar treaties are bad because we'll lose jobs overseas or Kyoto's bad because it won't work since pollution will just be shipped overseas? The first I've heard before, the second I haven't. I mean I've heard that China will pollute more canceling out whatever benefits the environment gets from us polluting less, but not the "polluters just will move overseas and keep polluting" argument. If I were "union" and wanted to fight this, I'd make sure that both p

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

So, is the argument more in the way of Kyoto and similar treaties are bad because we'll lose jobs overseas or Kyoto's bad because it won't work since pollution will just be shipped overseas?

Both. One of the big lefty points of the Unionization movement is that if we keep the jobs HERE, they're under US law, whether that be labor law, or environmental law. It's long been recognized that pollution gets shipped overseas quite often- local to me, the Tyco ViewFinder Plant got moved to Mexico when they disco

As a sympathetic audience member...

[benhocking]

It may be that the argument has gotten rather old and stale now- to the point that a younger generation doesn't recognize it anymore.

As a sympathetic audience member, I wouldn't find that argument tired. Perhaps there is the perception that it would be found such, and hence it has been trotted out much. Also, perhaps they're not reaching out to the "correct" audiences - e.g., the Sierra Club (of which I'm a member), etc. If I don't recognize it, I think the problem is that the message might not be easily

Re:

[Marxist Hacker 42]

As a sympathetic audience member, I wouldn't find that argument tired. Perhaps there is the perception that it would be found such, and hence it has been trotted out much. Also, perhaps they're not reaching out to the "correct" audiences - e.g., the Sierra Club (of which I'm a member), etc. If I don't recognize it, I think the problem is that the message might not be easily recognizable. I say this mainly because my "selection bias" would tend to select for it, rather than against it. To be honest, I don't