Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (78056)	9/4/2006 8:26:09 PM
From: ThirdEye	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361973

"They hate us because of our freedom"--to bomb the shit out of them.

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (78056)	9/5/2006 9:16:50 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361973

If you go down to the woods today... There is no easy fix for climate change. Adam Ma’anit, New Internationalist When British physicist Freeman Dyson wrote in 1972 of his dream of the ‘greening of the galaxy’ – in which humans would populate the stars by means of massive genetically engineered trees planted on comets – few took him seriously. Likewise when he advocated triggering nuclear explosions underneath space probes as a means of propulsion, most gave the idea a bemused miss. Dyson is, however, a tenacious character. When in 1977 he advocated using trees to soak up excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, people took notice. Third time lucky. .. But what some call ‘failure’, the offset industry calls ‘learning by doing’ – and it has been ‘learning by doing’ ever since. What could have been regarded as another one of Dyson’s more wacky notions is now part of a multi-billion dollar market that involves everyone from the world’s largest transnationals, governments, the World Bank and the UN, down to ‘boutique’ merchant banks, mom-and-pop offset companies, consultancies, and NGOs. The World Bank estimated the global carbon market, of which tree-planting is just one part, to be worth $11 billion at the end of 2005 – 10 times the value of the previous year. .. The solution to climate change is social change. Tall order? Yes. Pipe dream? Perhaps. But it is ultimately what’s needed – and at least, seen from this perspective, we have a lot of friends and allies. After all, if Freeman Dyson can strike lucky with his wacky ideas, why can’t we? (July 2006) This edition of the NI has two other accessible articles on carbon offsets and their imapcts, 10 things you should know about carbon offsets and Forest Fever.http://www.newint.org/features/2006/07/01/keynote/

To: T L Comiskey who wrote (78056)	9/5/2006 10:11:16 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Respond to of 361973

It can be done; a bunch of dopers are doing it... Dutch greenhouse gas emissions fell 2 percent in 2005, now at 1990 levels, agency says The Associated Press Published: September 4, 2006 AMSTERDAM, Netherlands Greenhouse gas emissions in the Netherlands fell by around 2 percent in 2005 from a year earlier and were at approximately the same level they were in 1990, a government agency said Monday. Climate change watchdogs generally praised the announcement by the country's Central Bureau for Statistics, but said the public should be skeptical about how the fall in emissions was measured and what it means. "It's a good thing, but they (the Dutch) still have a way to go in order to meet their targets under Kyoto," said Joris Thijssen of Greenpeace, referring to the international treaty under which the Netherlands agreed to reduce its emissions to 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2010. The statistics agency said that total Dutch emissions were 214 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide or equivalents, down 2 percent from 2004 and just fractionally higher than 213 billion kilograms in 1990. Agency spokesman Michiel Vergeer said the fall from 2004 was due to carbon dioxide emissions saved by increased use of biomass fuel for electricity generation, by households using less energy for heating during a warm winter, and by increased import of electricity. However, each of those reasons has a downside. A warm winter could be just a fluke, or it could be due to global warming. Dutch biomass generators have been accused of buying some fuel from suppliers in developing countries who chop down old-growth forest to make room for biomass crops. And when the Netherlands imports more electricity, that means the exporters — Germany and to a lesser extent France — will have higher emissions. "We just report the data, it's up to others to interpret it," Vergeer said. John Hay, spokesman for the U.N.'s climate change agency UNFCCC, said the Dutch announcement was "a good sign of sound international policies," and added the U.N. would be releasing a broader report on the international emissions landscape in October. "A group of Kyoto countries are set to have rising emissions," in 2008 he said. "Among high-performing economies some are doing well, others are off the mark." He gave the example of Spain as a country likely to miss its Kyoto targets because it has undergone faster economic growth than other parts of Europe in the past 16 years. The Netherlands also grew fast in the 1990s, and its carbon dioxide emissions have actually risen. But that's been compensated by reductions in emissions of methane, nitrous oxide, and fluorine, greenhouse gases that are believed to contribute disproportionately to global warming. Thijssen of Greenpeace said that the Dutch government would meet its Kyoto goals not by further reductions, but by buying pollution credits from developing countries, which is allowed under the 1997 treaty. "Initially they said that they would aim for a 50-50 split between emissions reductions in the Netherlands and emission reductions elsewhere," he said. "Now they've let go of that." He noted that the government last month announced a freeze on new applications for subsidies for renewable energy projects because it believes it will meet its Kyoto targets and a goal of having 9 percent of electricity generated from renewable sources by 2010. iht.com