Climate change staying with Kyoto Protocol

[Admin]

Climate change staying with Kyoto Protocol
By Pongphon Sarnsamak
The Nation 2011-04-06

The Kyoto Protocol - due to expire next year - legally binds industrialised nations to reduce greenhousegas emissions, and their support must continue, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said yesterday.

"We need to extend the enforcement of the Kyoto Protocol until we have a new mechanism to reduce greenhouse gases," he said.

Suwit made his remarks in a speech to the UN Climate Change Conference Bangkok 2011 - the first formal round of climatechange negotiations this year. More than 2,500 scientists, environmental activists and lobbyists from 192 countries are attending.

"We support extension of the Kyoto Protocol because we have no confidence in rich nations signing up for a second commitment period," he said.

The second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol sets binding greenhousegas emission targets on rich nations from 2013 to 2018.

The uncertainty of industrialised nations supporting the second commitment will affect the mechanism to reduce emissions, Suwit said.

To date, only Japan and Russia are cool towards extending the Kyoto Protocol - while the Group of 77 developing countries and China have expressed strong support for its extension.

"If the Kyoto Protocol expires, industrialised nations will no longer take responsibility for reducing greenhousegas emissions," the source said.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, the world should aim to reduce greenhousegas emissions by 30 per cent since it was established in 1997.

Suwit also called for rich nations to support financial resources and technology transfer to developing nations to fight global warming - but, the source said, so far there had been no progress from developed nations in helping developing countries.

Representatives from Japan have insisted strongly that their country will not support an extension of the Kyoto Protocol. However, they said it would continue its role in tackling climate change and make all possible contributions.

Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said financial support and technology transfers from rich nations to developing countries were being discussed in the meeting, together with the extension of the protocol.

Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap), said climate change was no longer a distant threat. It was a reality and a sign of what lies ahead.

Disasters related to weather and climate are occurring in the AsiaPacific with increasing frequency. The human toll is immense - more than any other region. In fact, Asia has accounted for 80 per cent of the world's deaths caused by natural disaster in the past decade.

"Action on climate change therefore cannot wait, and people are calling for action now.

We need a new sense of urgency and responsibility," she said. "It is our responsibility to not only protect our people and our economy today, but also to prepare for future economies.

We must be responsible in how we use the Earth's resources. The gifts which we take for granted are not guaranteed."

[urleft]

Better make copies of US GVT web sites while you can:

Trump Orders EPA To Take Down Global Warming Web-Page

Andrew Follett

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2017/01/25/trump-orders-epa-to-take-down-global-warming-web-page/#ixzz4Wna1xL7C


The Trump administration told the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to take down its global warming webpage, an anonymous EPA staffer said.

“If the website goes dark, years of work we have done on climate change will disappear,” the staffer told Reuters Tuesday. The staffer was not authorized to speak to the media and claimed EPA employees were scrambling to save data on the website.

The EPA’s global warming webpage is currently still up as of Wednesday morning. The page contains some links to EPA’s data on carbon dioxide (CO2) as well as other greenhouse gas emissions and lists the effects the agency says global warming will have. The site doesn’t host much of the data, however, and only aggregates links to it.

[Adam]

The holocaust never happened.

That is how all this seems to me, deny it, remove it from web pages therefore it is not happening.

[isanbirder]

Agreed, Adam.  If you deny something long enough, it will go away.

[urleft]

Conservatives like me want true science, we do not want to just accept that it is settled and that failure to accept global warming cause USA investigations in your position.  Here is what I believe, if the Yellowstone super volcano blows, we are headed to another ice age. 

Give us the truth.  Al gore saying the Arctic could be ice free by 2015 is not the truth.  And Trump's actions against the EPA are causing smiles. 

Meltdown at the EPA

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444415/epa-meltdown-reform-junk-science-agency-causes-freakout

by Julie Kelly January 31, 2017 4:00 AM


And not the nuclear kind: The agency?s junk-science promoters are flipping out. In his recently released and timely book, Scare Pollution:

Why and How to Fix the EPA, author Steve Milloy says this about the Environmental Protection Agency: The EPA has over the course of the last 20 years marshaled its vast and virtually unchallenged power into an echo chamber of deceptive science, runaway regulations and fatally flawed research derived from unethical human experiments. The EPA?s conduct runs the gamut from subtle statistical shenanigans to withholding key scientific data, from seeking to rubberstamp baseless research data to illegally spraying diesel exhaust up the noses of unsuspecting children and other vulnerable populations. Milloy, who runs the website JunkScience.com, has chronicled the scientific and bureaucratic abuse at the EPA for two decades, and he is thrilled by President Trump?s plans to finally reform the EPA. ?I can think of no agency that has done more pointless harm to the U.S. economy than the EPA ? all based on junk science, if not out-and-out science fraud,? Milloy told me. ?I am looking forward to President Trump?s dramatically shrinking the EPA by entirely overhauling how the remaining federal EPA uses science.

? It looks like the EPA will be the agency hardest hit by the Trump sledgehammer. For eight years, President Obama used the agency as his de facto enforcer of environmental policies he couldn?t pass in Congress even when it was controlled by his own party. If Obama was the climate-change bully, then the EPA was his toady, issuing one regulation after another aimed at imaginary polluters who were allegedly causing global warming. Jobs were lost, companies were bankrupted, and an untold amount of economic growth was stymied out of fear of reprisals from this rogue agency. The courts halted many of the EPAs most overreaching and unlawful policies initiated by Obama ? such as the Clean Water Rule and Clean Power Rule, two regulations aimed at farmers and coal producers. Unsurprisingly, people in these sectors voted heavily for Trump.

Trump officials and Congress are ready to make major changes in the EPA. A leaked memo written by Trump?s EPA transition team details how the new administration wants to tackle shoddy science at the agency. The memo asserts that the EPA should not be funding scientific research, and it must make any data publicly available for independent scientists to review. It also said that the agency must eliminate conflicts of interest and bias from the science advisory process.

The administration also put a freeze on most contracts and grants, pending further review by incoming staff. A good chunk of the EPA?s $8.3 billion budget is spent on grants to universities and units of government; its 2017 budget for state- and tribal-assistant grants was nearly $3.3 billion. The agency also has nearly $6.4 billion in outstanding contractual obligations to dozens of companies across the country, dating back to 2001. These will get much-needed scrutiny over the next several months, and Milloy insists it?s a necessary step:

The EPA uses tax dollars to fund its friends and allies, who tend to be political activists and ?political? scientists. There has been no effective oversight of the EPA because Republicans have lacked the numbers and often the will to challenge the all-powerful EPA.

Now you?d think scientists would welcome a hard look at a politicized government agency accused of promoting dubious science, right? But instead, the scientific community has lost its collective mind, again. (It?s hard to tell who?s more easily triggered these days, the media, college students, or scientists.) The Union of Concerned Scientists called the Trump administration?s move ?an attack on scientific integrity,? and the group?s president sent a letter to U.S. senators claiming that ?freezing grants and contracts would almost certainly increase health risks for children and other vulnerable people in our country.? The group has also set up a hotline so federal scientists can anonymously tattle on their new bosses.

 You?d think scientists would welcome a hard look at a politicized government agency accused of promoting dubious science, right? New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, who opposes Scott Pruitt as Trump?s nominee to head the EPA, and who wants to prosecute climate-change ?deniers,? said he will use all the powers of his office to stop ?a disturbing opening act by an administration that seems determined to dismantle essential federal environmental protections, regardless of the impact on the health and safety of ordinary Americans.? Scientists feel so threatened by the Trump administration that some are planning a protest this spring modeled after the Women?s March on January 21. (Can?t wait to see their hats!) Organizers insist that the event will be nonpartisan and will promote its core principle, namely:

There are certain things that we accept as facts with no alternatives. The Earth is becoming warmer due to human action. The diversity of life arose by evolution. An American government that ignores science to pursue ideological agendas endangers the world.

And in the ultimate dramatic move, just a few days into Trump?s presidency, the keepers of the hokey Doomsday Clock moved it 30 seconds closer to midnight. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists? executive director, Rachel Bronson, explained why the group made the unprecedented move:

This year?s Clock deliberations felt more urgent than usual . . . as trusted sources of information came under attack, fake news was on the rise, and words were used by a president-elect of the United States in cavalier and often reckless ways to address the twin threats of nuclear weapons and climate change. These are scientists, keep in mind. Milloy isn?t surprised by the scientific community?s apoplexy; his book details how the EPA funded nearly $600 million in bogus research to buttress the agency?s regulatory overreach:

It?s all about the money. EPA pays university scientists massive amounts of money to support its agenda and their institutions are more than happy to oblige by doing what the EPA wants regardless of merit. Looks like the EPA may need its own doomsday clock, because its time of promoting dubious science to back up a political agenda is running out. ?

Julie Kelly is a writer from Orland Park, Ill. SPONSORED CONTENT
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444415/epa-meltdown-reform-junk-science-agency-causes-freakout

[urleft]

Exposed: How world leaders were duped into investing billions over manipulated global warming data
    The Mail on Sunday can reveal a landmark paper exaggerated global warming
    It was rushed through and timed to influence the Paris agreement on climate change
    America's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration broke its own rules
    The report claimed the pause in global warming never existed, but it was based on misleading, "unverified" data

By David Rose for The Mail on Sunday

Published: 22:57 GMT, 4 February 2017 | Updated: 15:12 GMT, 5 February 2017

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-global-warming-data.html#ixzz4XuKCNLkT
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook



Another reason to try to get to the truth instead of panic and draconian regulations.   

[Starman]

Have you thought of golf?

[urleft]

Have you thought of golf?

Many times.  Especially when the bigwigs did their golf outings and I was designated to represent them at the office because I did not golf. 

[Starman]

That's nice. Shame though.

[urleft]

That's nice. Shame though.

But I try to learn from my mistakes.  I plan to get my daughter onto the Annapolis golf team. 

[urleft]

Global Warming coming to NYC.

Winter Storm Stella is going to slam New York City


Get out now while you still have the chance!

A blizzard warning has been issued for New York City and much of the tri-state area beginning at midnight Tuesday as Winter Storm Stella threatens to dump as much as 18 inches of snow.

Whiteout conditions are expected to make travel extremely dangerous and power outages are likely amid crippling wind gusts of 20 to 40 mph, according to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines.

http://nypost.com/2017/03/13/blizzard-warning-issued-as-winter-storm-stella-gears-up/

[Ahab]

You obviously missed the memo, it has not been called global warming for quite a while. It is now called global climate change so that no matter what happens with the temperature it can be blamed on rising CO2 levels. This massive snow storm in mid-march is a result of climate change, if there wasn't a storm it would also be a result of climate change.

[urleft]

Trump cut the EPA budget:

What?s at Stake in Trump?s Proposed E.P.A. Cuts

By HIROKO TABUCHIAPRIL 10, 2017

What is at stake as Congress considers the E.P.A. budget? Far more than climate change.

The Trump administration?s proposed cuts to the Environmental Protection Agency budget are deep and wide-ranging. It seeks to shrink spending by 31 percent, to $5.7 billion from $8.1 billion, and to eliminate a quarter of the agency?s 15,000 jobs.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/climate/trump-epa-budget-cuts.html?_r=0


Funny that they don't mention the impact of this budget cut:

EPA ends employee gym membership subsidy

By Daniella Diaz, CNN
June 19, 2017

Washington (CNN)The Trump administration is ending a program which subsidizes gym memberships for Environmental Protection Agency employees.

"We have ended taxpayer-funded fitness centers at EPA; a program that was costing American taxpayers $900,000 per year," EPA spokesperson Jahan Wilcox told CNN in a statement. "Disinvestment in using federal funds for EPA fitness centers will allow the agency to invest this money in core activities to protect the environment."
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/06/19/politics/epa-gyms-fitness-benefits-ending/index.html

Wonder what other EPA programs are also essential to the environment as employee gym membership?