http://www.roa.org/site/PageServer?pagename=resolution_0805
Resolution 08-05 Non-ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty
WHEREAS, there are valuable provisions in the Law of the Sea Treaty, there are also many provisions that cause concern; it is not enough to highlight the benefits of the treaty without weighing the commitments that would be the price for full American participation in this system;
WHEREAS, the Law of the Sea Treaty is a broad agreement including articles that affect the economy and the environment with the treaty covering seabed mining, navigation, fishing, ocean pollution, marine research, economic zones and in turn national security; and
WHEREAS, a fundamental premise of the treaty is that all un-owned resources on the ocean's floor belong to the people of the world, and the treaty creates levels of paid bureaucracy and an International Seabed Authority (ISA) to control these resources; and
WHEREAS, the ISA will regulate deep seabed mining and redistribute income from the industrialized West to developing countries through arbitrary, excessive application fees, annual fees and royalties; costs of access to raw materials are likely to inhibit development, depress productivity, increase costs, and discourage innovation; and
WHEREAS, many activists view the treaty as a far reaching environmental accord; setting a global standard and providing enforcement mechanisms so that all countries are legally bound to protect the marine environment, protect fish stocks and prevent pollution; and
WHEREAS, ratification of the treaty may subject US Naval forces, and will subject U.S. martime and coastal industry to international tribunal or arbitration during disputes predicated on the treaty as geo-politics differs from law; and
WHEREAS, the treaty does not introduce any new protections for safe navigation on the high seas, but can introduce new risks that could impact the sovereignty over and the economy supported by the sea; and
WHEREAS, the Constitution of the United States provides in Article VI that “All treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States shall be the supreme law of the land” ratification may lead to international jurisdiction over U.S. interests;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Reserve Officers Association of the United States, chartered by Congress, urges the United States Senate, to deny ratification of the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Source: ROA Department of Texas Dec. 2007 Adopteded by the ROA National Council Feb. 13, 2008
Showing posts with label regulatory control. Show all posts
Showing posts with label regulatory control. Show all posts
Monday, March 31, 2008
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
BUILDING A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE BUT OBLIVION: USG Funding Of UNCLOS & UN Environment Program Will Undermine US Sovereignty
BUILDING A BRIDGE TO NOWHERE BUT OBLIVION **
The UNCLOS has not been properly researched and scientifically investigated by the U.S. Executive and Legislative branches. Neither have these organs of U.S. government closely examined whether the UNCLOS's environmental regulatory rules can: 1) advance sound environmental policy; 2) ensure objective, balanced enforcement free from the political influence of special interests’ having philosophical/political and economic leanings antithetical to free markets and the protection of private property rights; and 3) guarantee that the Rule of Law, NOT the Rule by Law, is the order of the day - i.e., that Rule of Law is NOT undermined, circumvented or usurped to support a system of unaccountable supranational power where top-down rather than bottom-up Global Governance reigns.
As a result of inadequate executive and legislative branch research and oversight of the UNCLOS and its relationship to the burgeoning United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), U.S. policymakers have remained largely unaware of how the U.S. State Department continues to fund and seek future funding for these organizations/institutions - despite the fact that such funding can be and, in some cases, is actually being employed against U.S. national sovereign interests. For one thing, the UNEP is the multilateral environmental treaty-making machine of the UN, which the European Union, specifically, France and Germany, aim to enlarge and reform into an International Environmental Organization with vast powers to facilitate global environmental regulatory and economic governance over U.S. affairs, based on other than free market, private property, rule of law and scientific principles.
It is therefore surprising that the U.S. State Department has actually funded the UNEP in the neighborhood of $42.17 million from 2004-2007 ($10.94 million – 2004, $10.91 million – 2005, $10.16 million – 2006, $10.16 million – 2007), has estimated that actual 2008 UNEP funding will be $10.42 million, and has recently requested additional 2009 UNEP funding in the amount of $9.52 million – for a total of $19.94 ($20) more million, for a grand total of actual, estimated and projected UNEP funding for 2004-2009 of $62.11 million! [1] Adding insult to injury, the U.S. State Department has also, on at least two occasions, sought federal budget line funding for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the International Seabed Authority (ISBA). These funding requests were submitted FY 2006 $3.1 million (ITLOS - $1.9 million + ISBA - $1.2 million) and just recently FY 2009 $4.9 million (ITLOS – $3.6 million + ISBA - $1.3 million)! [2]
What is the sound rationale justifying the U.S. Department of State's appropriation of monies to the UNCLOS [a treaty not yet ratified], to the tune of approximately $5 million dollars? If the monies are being allocated to the UNCLOS, where other treaty parties hostile to U.S. interests are 1) refocusing and reshaping the UNCLOS into a more communal, centralized social system and 2) planning to utilize the interrelationship between the UNCLOS and the UNEP to promote the development of a global governance system that compromises U.S. national sovereignty, are we not undermining ourselves by building a “Bridge That Leads to Nowhere”, but oblivion?
**[THE ITSSD WISHES TO THANK CLIFF KINCAID OF AMERICA'S SURVIVAL (http://www.usasurvival.org ) FOR BRINGING THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT'S PROPOSED FY 2009 BUDGET LINE FUNDING OF THESE UNCLOS BODIES TO OUR ATTENTION]
[1] See U.S. State Department “Summary and Highlights - International Affairs Function 150 Budget Requests”, ‘Contributions to International Organizations’, FY 2009 at p. 92, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100014.pdf ; FY 2008 at p. 109, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/80151.pdf ; FY 2007 at p. 88, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/60297.pdf ; FY 2006 at p. 90, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/41913.pdf .
[2] See U.S. State Department “Summary and Highlights - International Affairs Function 150 Budget Requests”, ‘Contributions to International Organizations’, FY 2006, supra at p. 92; FY 2009, supra at p. 96.
The UNCLOS has not been properly researched and scientifically investigated by the U.S. Executive and Legislative branches. Neither have these organs of U.S. government closely examined whether the UNCLOS's environmental regulatory rules can: 1) advance sound environmental policy; 2) ensure objective, balanced enforcement free from the political influence of special interests’ having philosophical/political and economic leanings antithetical to free markets and the protection of private property rights; and 3) guarantee that the Rule of Law, NOT the Rule by Law, is the order of the day - i.e., that Rule of Law is NOT undermined, circumvented or usurped to support a system of unaccountable supranational power where top-down rather than bottom-up Global Governance reigns.
As a result of inadequate executive and legislative branch research and oversight of the UNCLOS and its relationship to the burgeoning United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), U.S. policymakers have remained largely unaware of how the U.S. State Department continues to fund and seek future funding for these organizations/institutions - despite the fact that such funding can be and, in some cases, is actually being employed against U.S. national sovereign interests. For one thing, the UNEP is the multilateral environmental treaty-making machine of the UN, which the European Union, specifically, France and Germany, aim to enlarge and reform into an International Environmental Organization with vast powers to facilitate global environmental regulatory and economic governance over U.S. affairs, based on other than free market, private property, rule of law and scientific principles.
It is therefore surprising that the U.S. State Department has actually funded the UNEP in the neighborhood of $42.17 million from 2004-2007 ($10.94 million – 2004, $10.91 million – 2005, $10.16 million – 2006, $10.16 million – 2007), has estimated that actual 2008 UNEP funding will be $10.42 million, and has recently requested additional 2009 UNEP funding in the amount of $9.52 million – for a total of $19.94 ($20) more million, for a grand total of actual, estimated and projected UNEP funding for 2004-2009 of $62.11 million! [1] Adding insult to injury, the U.S. State Department has also, on at least two occasions, sought federal budget line funding for the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) and the International Seabed Authority (ISBA). These funding requests were submitted FY 2006 $3.1 million (ITLOS - $1.9 million + ISBA - $1.2 million) and just recently FY 2009 $4.9 million (ITLOS – $3.6 million + ISBA - $1.3 million)! [2]
What is the sound rationale justifying the U.S. Department of State's appropriation of monies to the UNCLOS [a treaty not yet ratified], to the tune of approximately $5 million dollars? If the monies are being allocated to the UNCLOS, where other treaty parties hostile to U.S. interests are 1) refocusing and reshaping the UNCLOS into a more communal, centralized social system and 2) planning to utilize the interrelationship between the UNCLOS and the UNEP to promote the development of a global governance system that compromises U.S. national sovereignty, are we not undermining ourselves by building a “Bridge That Leads to Nowhere”, but oblivion?
**[THE ITSSD WISHES TO THANK CLIFF KINCAID OF AMERICA'S SURVIVAL (http://www.usasurvival.org ) FOR BRINGING THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT'S PROPOSED FY 2009 BUDGET LINE FUNDING OF THESE UNCLOS BODIES TO OUR ATTENTION]
[1] See U.S. State Department “Summary and Highlights - International Affairs Function 150 Budget Requests”, ‘Contributions to International Organizations’, FY 2009 at p. 92, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/100014.pdf ; FY 2008 at p. 109, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/80151.pdf ; FY 2007 at p. 88, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/60297.pdf ; FY 2006 at p. 90, at: http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/41913.pdf .
[2] See U.S. State Department “Summary and Highlights - International Affairs Function 150 Budget Requests”, ‘Contributions to International Organizations’, FY 2006, supra at p. 92; FY 2009, supra at p. 96.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Bali Bologna
How Green Was My Bali
The American Thinker
By Marc Sheppard,
December 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/02/AR2007120201635.html
Planet saving green superheroes flew off to the climate carnival in Bali Monday last week boldly sensing a new sweltering wind at their backs.
And, while recent events certainly served to bolster their optimism, the folly of both their cause and - were they actually necessary - proposed solutions, would ultimately dash their dreams of a global UN-based Kingdom more red than green.
True, incoming Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before his arrival at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). His predecessor, John Howard, declined to sign on to the international cap-and-trade scheme, joining the U.S as the only 2 developed nations not to do so. Rudd's capitulation was surely expected to put further pressure on the sole remaining holdout to do the same, or at least participate in the summit's objective of laying the groundwork for Kyoto's successor.
What's more, rumors were flying that a bi-partisan coalition of Congressmen might toughen the coercion by arriving at the meeting to announce a freshly Senate committee-passed Kyoto-friendly American cap-and-trade bill of their own. Such would be considered quite a boost to the conference as well, for, while it's George Bush the left reflexively blames, it was actually the Senate that unanimously rejected the previous accord back in 1997.
That Senate had the wisdom to recognize the plan's exclusion of developing nations as the ineffectual ploy and threat to the U.S economy it was then and remains now.
But as green-fevered thinkers saw it - with the U.S now isolated among developed nations, surely we'd accept mandatory emissions targets foregoing previous demands that China and India adopt them as well.
Besides, with left-leaning eco-maniacal Democrats controlling both Houses, how much longer would U.S insistence on a voluntary, market-based approach endure anyway?
Indeed, confidence was high that by the time U.N secretary general Ban Ki-moon arrived for anointment later in the week, his dream of a global green economy would be well on its way to reality.
The Onset of Offset Upsets
But offsetting the estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide the 15,000 politicians, lobbyists, journalists, actors and other assorted Gore groupies from 190 nations and their private jets and SUV's will unleash on the resort island wouldn't be the only trouble in paradise.
In reality, planting 79 million CO2 hungry trees across Indonesia (which has been gutting its forests at a rate faster than any other country) while providing 200 mountain bikes and recycled paper to attendees are mere symbolic gestures which hardly mitigate all those carbon footprints in the Bali sand.
In fact, the entire "offset" concept underscores the futility of the entire UN agenda, which continues to push disproved cap-and-trade offset schemes. Mechanisms which have failed miserably in Europe, where Kyoto was ratified and adhered to - yet CO2 levels continued to rise, while voluntary market-based reduction initiatives have succeeded in the Kyoto-rogue US, where levels have instead ebbed.
And yet, ignoring these failures, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) worked feverishly to get the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill out of committee in time to allow her to lead a Senate delegation to Bali this week with her new legislative victory firmly in hand.
On Wednesday, the Dem-controlled Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doggedly defeated each and every rational amendment offered to protect the economy while still meeting their arbitrary Carbon goals.
Watching them work reminded me of just how many traits the majority in Congress share with the O.J jury - each being too ignorant of science to possibly understand its application to law.
Despite overwhelming evidence presented that the bill would spark runaway consumer energy costs, it passed with virtually every Republican amendment denied. Even a statement from top 5 electricity producer Duke Energy that their need to purchase between 44 and 57 percent of emissions allowances in 2012 would force them to increase rates by between 13 and 53 percent failed to sway the determined Boxer.
The bill, which would cap emissions and somehow reduce them by 60 percent by 2050 through an allocation system where companies buy, sell and trade pollution credits, was on its way to the Senate floor. Hearing the news, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer literally cheered.
But the bill will face extended debate - and a filibuster promised by committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla) - in the full Senate.
Besides, Harlan Watson, our senior climate negotiator at Bali dismissed any idea that policy might be impacted by the Boxer rebellion.
Indeed, the administration recognizes the UN's goal to exploit the research it first financed and then corrupted to effect a plan with no impact other than Third World-favoring global wealth redistribution. So it's a safe bet that despite the American left's ignorant meddling, as with most sequels, particularly those to an abysmal original, Kyoto II is destined to be a flop.
Trouble in Green Paradise
Arriving on the resort Island of Bali last Monday, Australian delegates pledged their country's immediate action on Kyoto. And for their sins, they received a standing ovation. But green hopes faded quickly as the clock ticked. A great divide still existed between the developed nations of the Northern Hemisphere and those developing in the South. And, while not quite Union versus Confederate in contrast, their differences
emerged equally insurmountable.
The north stood essentially unified in pressuring both China and India to jump aboard the mandatory cap wagon. After all, nearly 70% of China's electricity originates from coal-fired power plants, of which they are now building as many as 2 weekly. Add India's growing demands and any plan for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction without the involvement of both would be doomed to failure before it ever began.
Meanwhile, the south reiterated demands for continued cap exemption and insisted the north agree to share cutting-edge renewable-energy and future carbon sequestration technology at highly reduced costs. Of course, China's history of criminal disregard for copy and intellectual property rights (e.g. their shameless pirating of all media American) makes the latter highly unlikely.
Already disappointed greenies were handed another setback when a Japanese delegate's opening comments addressed a "market-based approach" to GHG reduction with no reference to mandatory targets:
"It is essential to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol to a new framework in which the entire world will meaningfully participate in actions leading to global reduction of emissions."
Naturally, representatives of both countries attested that Kyoto's host nation's sudden accord with the stance of the U.S was unrehearsed.
Nonetheless, attending environmental-cases, recalling America's threats (and Canada's nascent hints) to reject any post-Kyoto agreement lacking emissions cap obligations for all large emitting nations, nearly fainted.
Then, on the very day Boxer's committee approved Warner-Lieberman, something happened 10,000 miles away that might just cement the fate of the conference - Rudd backed away from his government's commitment to meet the proposed 2020 objectives. The Prime Minister tabled any discussions on mandatory targets until next year, when economist Ross Garnaut's report on the viability of emissions trading is due.
By Friday, revelers likely wished they could retract their standing O when Rudd's Trade Minister, Simon Crean, declared that any plan excluding strict caps for developing nations would be fruitless. Ouch.
All of this green dissent before even hearing from delegates of the red, white, and blue betrayed a conference in complete disarray. Not even this week's highly anticipated arrival of Green King Gore himself, his fist filled with silly internet petitions, is likely to breathe life into this corpse of a convention, or its likewise deceased post-Kyoto scam.
While Greenies Gab, Science Strides Forward
Without exception, everything discussed at UNFCC, indeed the very temporary greening of Bali itself, is predicated on the specious argument that greenhouse gases, and no other forces, might be driving global temperatures.
But the science on which the U.N's hysteria-engendered flock base their planet-saving plans is settled only in their minds and the reams of hyped reports from the IPCC, which they foolishly expect to dictate global climate policies.
Readers are all too aware of the endless tricks
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/mind_games_of_the_big_green_sc_1.html ,
deceptions
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/gores_deceptive_rolling_stone.html
outright lies
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/why_would_anyone_nasas_trust_c.html ,
and more tricks
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/manmade_global_warming_the_rea.html
used to divert attention from any driver not Carbon- (and, therefore, not industry-) related.
Those same readers are well aware that this author believes the factor most irresponsibly ignored by alarmists to be Solar, as I have opined many times, including here
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/solar_deniers_attempt_to_eclip.html ,
here,
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/06/seasons_of_the_global_warming.html ,
and here
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/solar_global_warming_deniers.html .
As it happens, last week also saw astronomer and Sun expert Dr David Whitehouse further the case for Solar forcing's majority influence
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece .
Whitehouse reported that it's been months since any sunspots have been observed:
"After a period of exceptionally high activity in the 20th century, our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet."
The significance of which might become quite evident quite quickly. You see, whenever presented with the obvious (and logical) correlations between solar activity and Terran climate in the past, Solar Deniers claimed that continued elevations in global temperatures after 1998 somehow disproved any direct connection. While insignificant in long-term analysis, Whitehouse nonetheless attributed this to the rapid increase between 1978 and 1998, after which average temps have held their high, but steady, level:
"Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years."
He suggests we're actually in a period of solar activity low enough to not only counteract any GHG increases, but, as proposed by Russian Academy of Sciences members, actually cause temperatures to drop 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2020.
Whitehouse dubs this new Solar season, which may even usher in another Little Ice Age, the Modern Solar Minimum. The good doctor also lists it with previously correlative periods the greenies completely ignore:
* Modern Solar Minimum (2000-?)
* Modern Climate Optimum (1890-2000) - the world is getting warmer. Concentrations of greenhouse gas increase. Solar activity increases.
* Dalton Solar Minimum (1790-1820) - global temperatures are lower than average.
* Maunder Solar Minimum (1645-1715) - coincident with the 'Little Ice Age'.
* Spörer Solar Minimum (1420-1530) - discovered by the analysis of radioactive carbon in tree rings that correlate with solar activity - colder weather. Greenland settlements abandoned.
* Wolf Solar Minimum (1280-1340) - climate deterioration begins. Life gets harder in Greenland.
* Medieval Solar Maximum (1075-1240) - coincides with Medieval Warm Period. Vikings from Norway and Iceland found settlements in Greenland and North America.
* Oort Solar Minimum (1010-1050) - temperature on Earth is colder than average.
If current trends continue, 2007 will be the coolest year this century, perhaps the coolest since 1995.
Of course, should temperatures continue to drop off precipitously while CO2 levels continue to rise, those intent on wielding both political and economic power through junk-science know they will have missed their opportunity to do so.
The Death of the Red Masque
Its science is unmitigated junk. Its solutions are unworkable. Its corruption runs so deep as to be worthy of a Hague forum [or rather Tribunal]. But there's more.
One upshot of Bali thus far has been the demand by China and India that the U.N steward the transfer of low-carbon energy technology the Intellectual Property not of Western governments, but of their private enterprises. Its unity with this and a proposal for a "technology transfer fund" that industrialized nations would be forced to pay into for developing countries withdrawal to finance clean energy technology projects or purchase patents should end any doubt of the U.N's socialist objectives.
Yet they're apparently not red enough for some greens, as many less developed countries told the conference they were being deprived of benefits. That's right - they complained that carbon offsetting pays companies to cut emissions, but undeveloped countries - particularly in Africa - have few emissions to start with and would not gain from such reductions.
Sound familiar? Like the Democrats who constantly complain that tax cuts, while benefiting tax-payers, do nothing for those not earning enough to pay taxes?
And speaking of domestically grown lefties - should they really wish to relate Kyoto to Warner-Lieberman, then they can neither deny nor escape the corollary of the faults of each. By setting utopian limits and assuming that technology will rise to meet them, both play a dangerous game with human posterity.
At home, utility companies would be forced to either invest heavily in uncertain R&D or move away from coal altogether, retooling their plants for alternate fuels such as natural gas. Neither solution bodes well for their customers, who would themselves be forced to make the choice between paying hugely higher rates for their heat and electricity (if they can) or suffering long seasons without them. How many of those responsible for the current Democrat majorities might then ponder their vote as they struggle to keep their families warm while battling soaring inflation?
Internationally, the trade warfare the UN plan would impose impedes global development while likely doing nothing to aid any but the corrupt leaders of the very poor nations the union is duplicitously scheming to uplift. And, as it needlessly degrades the economies of all prosperous nations involved, it would ultimately be just another socialist experiment gone horribly wrong - this time on a devastatingly global level.
And all in an effort to prevent an impending storm they likely know full well never actually threatened.
Disgraceful.
While Bali's pulse grows faint, the adolescent green dream of controlling climate through a new world order may smell funny - but it's not quite dead.
Given the extent of the madness, even armed with a sudden extended cooling such as that predicted by Whitehouse and others, it won't be an easy kill.
However -- it will be an essential one.
The American Thinker
By Marc Sheppard,
December 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/12/02/AR2007120201635.html
Planet saving green superheroes flew off to the climate carnival in Bali Monday last week boldly sensing a new sweltering wind at their backs.
And, while recent events certainly served to bolster their optimism, the folly of both their cause and - were they actually necessary - proposed solutions, would ultimately dash their dreams of a global UN-based Kingdom more red than green.
True, incoming Aussie Prime Minister Kevin Rudd had promised to ratify the Kyoto Protocol before his arrival at the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). His predecessor, John Howard, declined to sign on to the international cap-and-trade scheme, joining the U.S as the only 2 developed nations not to do so. Rudd's capitulation was surely expected to put further pressure on the sole remaining holdout to do the same, or at least participate in the summit's objective of laying the groundwork for Kyoto's successor.
What's more, rumors were flying that a bi-partisan coalition of Congressmen might toughen the coercion by arriving at the meeting to announce a freshly Senate committee-passed Kyoto-friendly American cap-and-trade bill of their own. Such would be considered quite a boost to the conference as well, for, while it's George Bush the left reflexively blames, it was actually the Senate that unanimously rejected the previous accord back in 1997.
That Senate had the wisdom to recognize the plan's exclusion of developing nations as the ineffectual ploy and threat to the U.S economy it was then and remains now.
But as green-fevered thinkers saw it - with the U.S now isolated among developed nations, surely we'd accept mandatory emissions targets foregoing previous demands that China and India adopt them as well.
Besides, with left-leaning eco-maniacal Democrats controlling both Houses, how much longer would U.S insistence on a voluntary, market-based approach endure anyway?
Indeed, confidence was high that by the time U.N secretary general Ban Ki-moon arrived for anointment later in the week, his dream of a global green economy would be well on its way to reality.
The Onset of Offset Upsets
But offsetting the estimated 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide the 15,000 politicians, lobbyists, journalists, actors and other assorted Gore groupies from 190 nations and their private jets and SUV's will unleash on the resort island wouldn't be the only trouble in paradise.
In reality, planting 79 million CO2 hungry trees across Indonesia (which has been gutting its forests at a rate faster than any other country) while providing 200 mountain bikes and recycled paper to attendees are mere symbolic gestures which hardly mitigate all those carbon footprints in the Bali sand.
In fact, the entire "offset" concept underscores the futility of the entire UN agenda, which continues to push disproved cap-and-trade offset schemes. Mechanisms which have failed miserably in Europe, where Kyoto was ratified and adhered to - yet CO2 levels continued to rise, while voluntary market-based reduction initiatives have succeeded in the Kyoto-rogue US, where levels have instead ebbed.
And yet, ignoring these failures, Barbara Boxer (D-CA) worked feverishly to get the Warner-Lieberman cap-and-trade bill out of committee in time to allow her to lead a Senate delegation to Bali this week with her new legislative victory firmly in hand.
On Wednesday, the Dem-controlled Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works doggedly defeated each and every rational amendment offered to protect the economy while still meeting their arbitrary Carbon goals.
Watching them work reminded me of just how many traits the majority in Congress share with the O.J jury - each being too ignorant of science to possibly understand its application to law.
Despite overwhelming evidence presented that the bill would spark runaway consumer energy costs, it passed with virtually every Republican amendment denied. Even a statement from top 5 electricity producer Duke Energy that their need to purchase between 44 and 57 percent of emissions allowances in 2012 would force them to increase rates by between 13 and 53 percent failed to sway the determined Boxer.
The bill, which would cap emissions and somehow reduce them by 60 percent by 2050 through an allocation system where companies buy, sell and trade pollution credits, was on its way to the Senate floor. Hearing the news, UNFCCC Executive Secretary Yvo de Boer literally cheered.
But the bill will face extended debate - and a filibuster promised by committee ranking member James Inhofe (R-Okla) - in the full Senate.
Besides, Harlan Watson, our senior climate negotiator at Bali dismissed any idea that policy might be impacted by the Boxer rebellion.
Indeed, the administration recognizes the UN's goal to exploit the research it first financed and then corrupted to effect a plan with no impact other than Third World-favoring global wealth redistribution. So it's a safe bet that despite the American left's ignorant meddling, as with most sequels, particularly those to an abysmal original, Kyoto II is destined to be a flop.
Trouble in Green Paradise
Arriving on the resort Island of Bali last Monday, Australian delegates pledged their country's immediate action on Kyoto. And for their sins, they received a standing ovation. But green hopes faded quickly as the clock ticked. A great divide still existed between the developed nations of the Northern Hemisphere and those developing in the South. And, while not quite Union versus Confederate in contrast, their differences
emerged equally insurmountable.
The north stood essentially unified in pressuring both China and India to jump aboard the mandatory cap wagon. After all, nearly 70% of China's electricity originates from coal-fired power plants, of which they are now building as many as 2 weekly. Add India's growing demands and any plan for greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction without the involvement of both would be doomed to failure before it ever began.
Meanwhile, the south reiterated demands for continued cap exemption and insisted the north agree to share cutting-edge renewable-energy and future carbon sequestration technology at highly reduced costs. Of course, China's history of criminal disregard for copy and intellectual property rights (e.g. their shameless pirating of all media American) makes the latter highly unlikely.
Already disappointed greenies were handed another setback when a Japanese delegate's opening comments addressed a "market-based approach" to GHG reduction with no reference to mandatory targets:
"It is essential to move beyond the Kyoto Protocol to a new framework in which the entire world will meaningfully participate in actions leading to global reduction of emissions."
Naturally, representatives of both countries attested that Kyoto's host nation's sudden accord with the stance of the U.S was unrehearsed.
Nonetheless, attending environmental-cases, recalling America's threats (and Canada's nascent hints) to reject any post-Kyoto agreement lacking emissions cap obligations for all large emitting nations, nearly fainted.
Then, on the very day Boxer's committee approved Warner-Lieberman, something happened 10,000 miles away that might just cement the fate of the conference - Rudd backed away from his government's commitment to meet the proposed 2020 objectives. The Prime Minister tabled any discussions on mandatory targets until next year, when economist Ross Garnaut's report on the viability of emissions trading is due.
By Friday, revelers likely wished they could retract their standing O when Rudd's Trade Minister, Simon Crean, declared that any plan excluding strict caps for developing nations would be fruitless. Ouch.
All of this green dissent before even hearing from delegates of the red, white, and blue betrayed a conference in complete disarray. Not even this week's highly anticipated arrival of Green King Gore himself, his fist filled with silly internet petitions, is likely to breathe life into this corpse of a convention, or its likewise deceased post-Kyoto scam.
While Greenies Gab, Science Strides Forward
Without exception, everything discussed at UNFCC, indeed the very temporary greening of Bali itself, is predicated on the specious argument that greenhouse gases, and no other forces, might be driving global temperatures.
But the science on which the U.N's hysteria-engendered flock base their planet-saving plans is settled only in their minds and the reams of hyped reports from the IPCC, which they foolishly expect to dictate global climate policies.
Readers are all too aware of the endless tricks
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/mind_games_of_the_big_green_sc_1.html ,
deceptions
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/11/gores_deceptive_rolling_stone.html
outright lies
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/08/why_would_anyone_nasas_trust_c.html ,
and more tricks
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/06/manmade_global_warming_the_rea.html
used to divert attention from any driver not Carbon- (and, therefore, not industry-) related.
Those same readers are well aware that this author believes the factor most irresponsibly ignored by alarmists to be Solar, as I have opined many times, including here
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/07/solar_deniers_attempt_to_eclip.html ,
here,
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/06/seasons_of_the_global_warming.html ,
and here
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2007/03/solar_global_warming_deniers.html .
As it happens, last week also saw astronomer and Sun expert Dr David Whitehouse further the case for Solar forcing's majority influence
http://news.independent.co.uk/sci_tech/article3223603.ece .
Whitehouse reported that it's been months since any sunspots have been observed:
"After a period of exceptionally high activity in the 20th century, our Sun has suddenly gone exceptionally quiet."
The significance of which might become quite evident quite quickly. You see, whenever presented with the obvious (and logical) correlations between solar activity and Terran climate in the past, Solar Deniers claimed that continued elevations in global temperatures after 1998 somehow disproved any direct connection. While insignificant in long-term analysis, Whitehouse nonetheless attributed this to the rapid increase between 1978 and 1998, after which average temps have held their high, but steady, level:
"Almost everyone agrees that throughout most of the last century the solar influence was significant. Studies show that by the end of the 20th century the Sun's activity may have been at its highest for more than 8,000 years."
He suggests we're actually in a period of solar activity low enough to not only counteract any GHG increases, but, as proposed by Russian Academy of Sciences members, actually cause temperatures to drop 1.5 degrees Celsius by 2020.
Whitehouse dubs this new Solar season, which may even usher in another Little Ice Age, the Modern Solar Minimum. The good doctor also lists it with previously correlative periods the greenies completely ignore:
* Modern Solar Minimum (2000-?)
* Modern Climate Optimum (1890-2000) - the world is getting warmer. Concentrations of greenhouse gas increase. Solar activity increases.
* Dalton Solar Minimum (1790-1820) - global temperatures are lower than average.
* Maunder Solar Minimum (1645-1715) - coincident with the 'Little Ice Age'.
* Spörer Solar Minimum (1420-1530) - discovered by the analysis of radioactive carbon in tree rings that correlate with solar activity - colder weather. Greenland settlements abandoned.
* Wolf Solar Minimum (1280-1340) - climate deterioration begins. Life gets harder in Greenland.
* Medieval Solar Maximum (1075-1240) - coincides with Medieval Warm Period. Vikings from Norway and Iceland found settlements in Greenland and North America.
* Oort Solar Minimum (1010-1050) - temperature on Earth is colder than average.
If current trends continue, 2007 will be the coolest year this century, perhaps the coolest since 1995.
Of course, should temperatures continue to drop off precipitously while CO2 levels continue to rise, those intent on wielding both political and economic power through junk-science know they will have missed their opportunity to do so.
The Death of the Red Masque
Its science is unmitigated junk. Its solutions are unworkable. Its corruption runs so deep as to be worthy of a Hague forum [or rather Tribunal]. But there's more.
One upshot of Bali thus far has been the demand by China and India that the U.N steward the transfer of low-carbon energy technology the Intellectual Property not of Western governments, but of their private enterprises. Its unity with this and a proposal for a "technology transfer fund" that industrialized nations would be forced to pay into for developing countries withdrawal to finance clean energy technology projects or purchase patents should end any doubt of the U.N's socialist objectives.
Yet they're apparently not red enough for some greens, as many less developed countries told the conference they were being deprived of benefits. That's right - they complained that carbon offsetting pays companies to cut emissions, but undeveloped countries - particularly in Africa - have few emissions to start with and would not gain from such reductions.
Sound familiar? Like the Democrats who constantly complain that tax cuts, while benefiting tax-payers, do nothing for those not earning enough to pay taxes?
And speaking of domestically grown lefties - should they really wish to relate Kyoto to Warner-Lieberman, then they can neither deny nor escape the corollary of the faults of each. By setting utopian limits and assuming that technology will rise to meet them, both play a dangerous game with human posterity.
At home, utility companies would be forced to either invest heavily in uncertain R&D or move away from coal altogether, retooling their plants for alternate fuels such as natural gas. Neither solution bodes well for their customers, who would themselves be forced to make the choice between paying hugely higher rates for their heat and electricity (if they can) or suffering long seasons without them. How many of those responsible for the current Democrat majorities might then ponder their vote as they struggle to keep their families warm while battling soaring inflation?
Internationally, the trade warfare the UN plan would impose impedes global development while likely doing nothing to aid any but the corrupt leaders of the very poor nations the union is duplicitously scheming to uplift. And, as it needlessly degrades the economies of all prosperous nations involved, it would ultimately be just another socialist experiment gone horribly wrong - this time on a devastatingly global level.
And all in an effort to prevent an impending storm they likely know full well never actually threatened.
Disgraceful.
While Bali's pulse grows faint, the adolescent green dream of controlling climate through a new world order may smell funny - but it's not quite dead.
Given the extent of the madness, even armed with a sudden extended cooling such as that predicted by Whitehouse and others, it won't be an easy kill.
However -- it will be an essential one.
Friday, January 18, 2008
The LOST Leviathan
Friday, November 9, 2007
This image, prepared by artist M. S. Hollis, of Wimberley, Texas, was generously donated to the ITSSD by the Good Neighbor Law (GNL) Forum located in Greeley, Colorado.
The GNL website, http://www.goodneighborlaw.com/ , provides citizens of the Rocky Mountain and Western Plains regions of the United States with updated information about how evolving international, national and state and local laws are slowly eroding their constitutionally guaranteed rights to private property.
The GNF also works with other groups to explain how Americans may protect their exclusive private property rights from unauthorized government and environmental activist group interference.
The image depicts the UN Law of the Sea Treaty (LOST) leviathan bearing the seal of the UN Division for Ocean Affairs and the Law of the Sea, engulfing the land and business owners of the United States with outstretched tentacles bearing the flag, and by extension, the environmental laws of the European Union.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
EU HIDES BEHIND ‘PRIVATE’ STANDARDS EFFORT TO SECURE GLOBAL REGULATORY CONTROL
October 22, 2007
Developing Countries May Have New Grounds to Bring WTO Actions Against Europe
Princeton, NJ – October 9, 2007 – In the current issue of the Global Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory lawyer Lawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to promote official government sustainable forest management policies that likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries and their industries.
In addition, the article describes how these same EU governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards.
According to Mr. Kogan, “It is no secret that the EU aspires to ‘usurp America’s role as a source of global standards’, and to become ‘the world’s regulatory capital’ and ‘standard-bearer’”. Therefore, it is natural that they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available to push their regulatory control agenda forward.” As EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, ‘exporting our rules and standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European power’”.
Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the Economist confirm this assessment. “The Commission, the EU’s executive body, states openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials are working hard to put that vision into practice...[T]he Union [has]... a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages - a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health [sustainable development] requirements are concerned”.
The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan, paraphrasing from one article, especially “because ‘it rests on the [standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing, guilty-until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not risk)-based] Precautionary Principle’, which is inconsistent with both WTO law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights”. As another article reaffirms, “In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.”
“Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe’s extraterritorial activities”, warns Kogan, “the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its 45-plus environmental regulatory articles - which also incorporate Europe’s Precautionary Principle!
This would essentially open up the floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non-economics-based environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans’ Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry’s global economic competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free enterprise systems.
The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry and positive sustainable development around the world. This ITSSD study and related materials are accessible online at:
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDAssessmentISO26000Standard.pdf
Developing Countries May Have New Grounds to Bring WTO Actions Against Europe
Princeton, NJ – October 9, 2007 – In the current issue of the Global Trade and Customs Journal, international trade and regulatory lawyer Lawrence Kogan details how the European Union and its member states previously enlisted private European environmental standards bodies to promote official government sustainable forest management policies that likely violated the World Trade Organization rights of developing countries and their industries.
In addition, the article describes how these same EU governments are behind the ongoing efforts of other European pressure groups to promote, via United Nations agencies and international standardization organizations, the adoption by global industry supply chains of overly strict corporate social responsibility standards.
According to Mr. Kogan, “It is no secret that the EU aspires to ‘usurp America’s role as a source of global standards’, and to become ‘the world’s regulatory capital’ and ‘standard-bearer’”. Therefore, it is natural that they would endeavor to employ whatever nontransparent means are available to push their regulatory control agenda forward.” As EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson claimed in a prior speech, ‘exporting our rules and standards around the world is one source [and expression] of European power’”.
Two recent articles appearing in the Financial Times and the Economist confirm this assessment. “The Commission, the EU’s executive body, states openly that it wants other countries to follow EU rules and its officials are working hard to put that vision into practice...[T]he Union [has]... a body of law running to almost 95,000 pages - a set of rules and regulations that covers virtually all aspects of economic life and that is constantly expanded and updated. Compared with other jurisdictions, the EU’s rules tend to be stricter, especially where product safety, consumer protection and environmental and health [sustainable development] requirements are concerned”.
The European regulatory model is worrisome, emphasizes Kogan, paraphrasing from one article, especially “because ‘it rests on the [standard-of-proof-diminishing, burden-of-proof-reversing, guilty-until-proven-innocent, I-fear-therefore-I-shall-ban, hazard-(not risk)-based] Precautionary Principle’, which is inconsistent with both WTO law and US constitutionally-guaranteed private property rights”. As another article reaffirms, “In Europe corporate innocence is not assumed. Indeed, a vast slab of EU laws...reverses the burden of proof, asking industry to demonstrate that substances are harmless...[T]he philosophical gap reflects the American constitutional tradition that everything is allowed until it is forbidden, against the Napoleonic tradition codifying what the state allows and banning everything else.”
“Notwithstanding its knowledge of Europe’s extraterritorial activities”, warns Kogan, “the 110th US Congress may soon ratify the UN Law of the Sea Convention without all of its committees possessing oversight jurisdiction having first adequately reviewed in public hearings its 45-plus environmental regulatory articles - which also incorporate Europe’s Precautionary Principle!
This would essentially open up the floodgates to a tsunami of costly non-science and non-economics-based environmental laws, regulations and standards that would abridge Americans’ Fifth Amendment rights, impair U.S. industry’s global economic competitiveness and fundamentally reshape the American legal and free enterprise systems.
The Institute for Trade, Standards and Sustainable Development (ITSSD) is a non-partisan non-profit international legal research and educational organization that examines international law relating to trade, industry and positive sustainable development around the world. This ITSSD study and related materials are accessible online at:
http://www.itssd.org/GTCJ_03-offprints%20KOGAN%20-%20Discerning%20the%20Forest%20from%20the%20Trees.pdf
http://www.itssd.org/Programs/ITSSDAssessmentISO26000Standard.pdf
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