How Should the U.S. Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions After the Kyoto Protocol?

No global treaty for climate change

The global climate has been and will always change no matter what man does. Just another cry "wolf" or chicken little the Sky is Falling.

There is no man-made global warming caused by CO2

The whole premise of the US News report seems based on the false (political) premise that man-made CO2 is causing global warming (now called climate change because earth has cooled for the past decade). Given the importance of this issue to the future of our economy and our free enterprise culture that is the only economic system capable of feeding the world is seems dishonest for the magazine to not start their report by making the scientific case (not political consensus) that "science proves “man can and is changing earth's climate. Did US News think it would not be scientifically necessary to justify its premise because US News takes political consensus as science? More than 31,000 scientists have signed a petition that states that signing the Kyoto Treaty or any subsequent treaty that states that man is responsible for or could change the climate of earth is nothing but politics because science proves otherwise - please read the Petition at www.oism.org and the detailed climate research that comes with the petition that is backed up with more than 130 reference research studies. They also make a case for the benefits of increased CO2, a building block of life, which increases food growth as world population increases.

This said, earth’s temperature IS changing as it always has. Please read the NASA report Oct 2000, "Earth's Fidgeting Climate" and you will see that over 400M of the past 600M years the earth's average temperature has cycled between a high band, MODE, most often, temperature of ~72 degrees F and its infrequent low band of 52 degrees F. Earth's temp has dipped to 52 F only three times over the past 600M years and then only briefly. We humans are now living in a low average temperature period of about 54 F, it being some 10M years or so since the "52 F bottom". Earth has been warming for millions of years and will continue to warm (most likely) as earth returns to its mode temperature average of 72F. A chart is available at the NASA site. In parallel Yale University has released a study of CO2 PPM on earth over these same 600M years that shows that CO2 PPM was some 7,000 PPM 600M years ago and has dipped and climbed and dipped until today the CO2 is now about 380 PPM. In no case did CO2 PPM change as a ratio of CO2 change. The NASA and Yale graphs are easy to find on the web – see Christopher Monckton of Brenchley for a graph of CO2 levels and NASA temperature plots on the same graph.

Earth’s heat is derived from the sun. Earth’s temperature is controlled by its orbit around the sun, axis tilt (wobble), its increasing diameter (expanding from original 2000 miles to today’s 8,000 mi. diameter. Main factors controlling earth’s temperature are the interaction of cosmic rays with the earth’s water vapor (the 97% GHG – CO2 being <2.7% GHG) that change the degree of earth cloudiness – hence temperature. Cosmic ray penetration of earth’s magnetic field is influenced by sun spots that reduce cosmic ray activity resulting in more cloudiness and a cooler earth. The sun spots have many different cycles, but best known to man is the 11 year cycle. Dr. Tim Patterson, Toronto, Canada, has tracked these associations for your review. They agree with the Oregon Institute for Science and Medicine study (oism.org). Sun spot activity in 2008 – 9 has been very low, with some months with “zero”, a record that goes back more than 100 years.

Reduce Greenhouse gas emissions

I think that reducing greenhouse gases has to be done. What good is it if we get rich, but don't have the right air to breath? If this approach worked for acid rain, then it should work for global warming. William Kovacs better get on board or he should be fired. I'm all for a healthy planet.