I’ll agree with you that it was easier for China and India to sign onto Kyoto when their obligations were minimal. I did mention that they had no specific emissions reduction obligations. Worthington’s facts were simply wrong.

On the issue of burning leaves, the burn merely hastens a natural process. If leaves aren’t burned, they’ll decompose and emit carbon dioxide over a few months. Burning arguably decreases overall warming, since accumulated heaps of leaves can create anaerobic conditions which release methane, which is even more potent than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Scientists recognize, of course, that carbon dioxide exists naturally in the atmosphere and that some is absolutely vital to creating a climate that sustains us. Carbon dioxide is only a pollutant in excess (like many other substances such as mercury, lead and even arsenic, which we need in appropriate amounts). So carbon only causes global warming when it is removed from a naturally sequestered state and released into the biosphere. Leaves were already in the biosphere. Their carbon is accounted for. Next year’s leaves will take up the carbon that this year’s leaves release into the air.

Flying to Copenhagen is quite different, since it requires the input of fossil fuels. Yes, of course it contributes to climate change, and that’s a big part of the reason I’m staying right here in Canada. But then, I don’t have a truck, either.

On the government funding front, I’m just not understanding your logic. Governments have been avoiding the implications of the science. They dread being forced to make unpleasant and unpopular changes. The notion that Stephen Harper, himself elected largely on the basis of oil industry support and funding, is actively promoting the science of Canadian climatologists is pretty laughable.

But the problem with the Friends of Science isn’t just that they’re supported by the oil industry. Take someone like Tim Ball for example, who makes false claims of being Canada’s first climatologist – he hasn’t published anything in a peer reviewed journal in decades and has never published a single paper in climatology. I don’t have to dismiss his research – he has none to dismiss. All he has are opinions, which he’s paid to promote by the oil industry.

Hope this helps,
Adriana

Burning leaves does not produce CO₂? Which peers-we-like-but-not-peers-we-don’t “peer reviewed” study on SuzukiWantsYourMoney.org did you read that sort of claptrap on? If you insist that CO₂ is causing global warming, then anything which produces CO₂ (ie. burning leaves, or on the macro level forest fires) causes global warming. Or is this a case where Warmmongers flying en masse to Copenhagen isn’t bad for the environment, but me leaving my truck to warm up in -36°C is?

Finally, who cares if a scientist is “funded by the oil industry”? Big government and environmental groups are funding scientists all over the world. They have far more self-interest in getting research to show we need a big social engineering program than any oil company has to show that their oil exploration helps rather than hinders the planet. I tell you what: you refuse to consider any research supporting global warming funded by government agencies or left-wing/environmental agencies, and I’ll let you discount studies performed by oil companies.