US Opts Out of Kyoto Again: We Oughta Be Ashamed of Ourselves

Some of you following the action at SpaceBlog Alpha might have wondered why I wrote a Post, Friday, on the US stance against the Kyoto Protocol. It's a fair question with a complicated answer.
In what amounted to an International incident, at last week's global summit on climate change, U.S. negotiator on climate change, Harlan Watson, walked out of a session designed only to create an agreement on international verbal cooperation.
In other words, the Bush Administration doesn't even want to talk about it. It's a non-starter.
That's a real shame. Especially when you consider much smaller nations such as Singapore, with much more limited resources, are enforcing stricter carbon emission regulations than us and will likely ratify the Kyoto Protocol very soon.
While emissions from the wealthiest nations participating declined about 5 percent over 1995 levels, ours grew by a whopping 13.1 percent.
You might wonder what the Kyoto Protocol has to do with Space exploration. Plenty.
The Kyoto Protocol is meant to deter the creation of new greenhouse gases, eventually reducing their production level to zero. These gases are known Ozone destroyers and trap heat close to the planet, thus creating the very real global warming effect we are currently suffering from. The busiest and most destructive hurricane season on record, no more icy Halloween nights in the Midwest (I know, I live there) and generally poor weather everywhere, all point to one thing: Our environment is changing.
Only Americans seem to have a problem with this scientific fact. They prefer to believe driving an SUV to the mini-mart is as ecologically safe as driving a Hummer, so what's the difference? Complete ignorance.
The sickening truth (as Bush sees it) is this: The net effect of the Kyoto Protocol creates a global economy that is powered by renewable energy sources; no more fossil fuels. Bush believes the US will lower its emissions levels through the use of advanced technologically. Not very likely given his push for more of the same-old, same-old.
It's nice to think you can get up from your computer, hop in your car and go wherever you want, at a moment's notice. But there is a price to be paid for this. Not to mention the incredulous notion that despite the fact 'Peking Man' discovered fire 500,00 years ago, it's still our main and sometimes only, source of energy.
Internal combustion engines were developed two centuries ago, and nobody seems to be able to build anything better--or more appealing; They create fantastic compressed-air cars, and nobody is interested.
This lack of interest in new technology is what keeps us tied to this planet. Launching a Spaceship requires a vast amount of energy, in the form of heavy fuel that costs almost as much to lift as the cargo it's carrying.
The USS Ronald Reagan has a power source on-board that will last 20 years but your car needs a fill-up about once a week. Doesn't that strike you as odd? Which one of those items has more of a direct impact on your daily life?
Not that we shouldn't have the ship--it's just our cars should be able to do the same thing. If we're as technologically advanced as Bush claims we are, we should have both.
Alas, we don't even come close to his promised technological prowess.
Wind, solar, bio-mass, tidal generators, even solar power stations in orbit or on the Moon with microwave beaming stations, these things represent the future, they will carry us to new worlds. Unfortunately it seems the United States is heading in the opposite direction.
Let's face it, the longer it takes us to develop NEW sources of energy--not just new coal mines or oil fields or natural gas reserves, but actual new forms of energy, the longer it will take us to get into Space.
And the more the international community develops the energy sources we ignore, the further ahead of us they will be.