Kyoto Protocol

Okay, First Things First: stop shooting at us. Okay, First Things First: stop shooting at us.The threat of man-made climate change looms larger than any other problem facing the planet, so it's no wonder that the discussion about global warming has turned into a kind of choreographed screaming that drowns out the facts.

Science unequivocally tells us that climate change is real and caused by man, but predictions of destruction on an epic scale don’t stack up.

Consider the plight of the polar bear – a pin-up ‘victim’ of global warming. Some campaigners claim polar bears are dying because of warmer temperatures, but the facts don’t support the hysteria.

Since the 1960s, polar bear numbers have actually grown five-fold. Polar bears will eventually be affected by climate change, but many creatures and plants in the Arctic will do better as temperatures rise. That doesn’t make up for waning populations of polar bears, but we need to hear both sides of the story.

Scare stories are based on faulty assumptions about just one declining bear population. For the sake of argument, let's accept those faulty assumptions at face value. That means we are losing 15 bears a year to climate change. This means that – at most – 15 bears could be saved this year if we could stop global warming right now. Of course, we can’t. The Kyoto Protocol will cost $180 billion dollars, yet will not affect temperatures by very much: it would probably save .06 of one bear each year.

There are smarter alternatives. Hunters shoot between 300 and 500 polar bears each year. We can revoke hunting rights and clamp down on poachers. Surely it makes more sense to save 300-500 polar bears at virtually no cost than it does to spend hundreds of billions of dollars saving just one.

Of course, we don’t just care about polar bears, but also about the human toll of climate change. It seems logical to expect more heat waves and therefore more deaths. But though this fact gets much less billing, rising temperatures will also reduce the number of cold spells. And the cold is a much bigger killer than the heat. According to the first complete peer-reviewed survey of climate change's health effects, global warming will actually save lives. It's estimated that by 2050, global warming will cause almost 400,000 more heat-related deaths each year. But at the same time, 1.8 million fewer people will die from cold.

The Kyoto Protocol, at great expense, is not a sensible way to stop people from dying in future heat waves. At a much lower cost, urban designers and politicians could lower temperatures more effectively by planting trees, adding water features, and reducing the amount of asphalt in at-risk cities. Estimates show that this could reduce the peak temperatures in cities by more than 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

Global warming will claim lives in another way: by increasing the number of people at risk of catching malaria by about 3 percent over this century. According to scientific models, implementing the Kyoto Protocol for the rest of this century would reduce the malaria risk by just 0.2 percent.

On the other hand, we could spend $3 billion annually -- 2 percent of the protocol's cost -- on mosquito nets and medication and cut malaria incidence almost in half within a decade. For every dollar we spend saving one person through policies like the Kyoto Protocol, we could save 36,000 through direct intervention.

The world shouldn’t ignore climate change. Rather than throwing trillions of dollars at a treaty that will achieve little, I advocate a dramatic increase in spending on research into low-carbon energy. If every nation took part, this would be much more efficient than Kyoto, yet cost almost ten times less.

We should remember when we respond to the threat of climate change that other huge challenges face the planet:

4 million people will die from malnutrition this year
3 million from HIV/AIDS
2.5 million from indoor and outdoor air pollution
2 million from lack of micronutrients (iron, zinc and vitamin A)
And almost 2 million from lack of clean drinking water.

Climate change policies are not the most effective way of dealing with these issues.

My latest project, Copenhagen Consensus 2008, will look at the world’s biggest challenges and ask some of the world’s top minds to identify the best solutions to them. Four Nobel laureates and four other top economists will weigh up how much good could be achieved by different approaches to world problems, and will identify the most effective ways to make a difference.

There’s more information at Copenhagen Consensus.

Cutting carbon emissions through Kyoto has become the instantaneous answer to any problem, but we could achieve more through simpler policies.

For one thing, we should stop shooting polar bears.

Bjørn Lomborg is the organizer of the Copenhagen Consensus 2008, adjunct professor at the Copenhagen Business School, and author of Cool It and The Skeptical Environmentalist.

Day 2 (Jonathan Gottfried): Is it Time for Jews to Vote Republican?

Jews have an interest in a secular society; the Christian Right does not

DIALOGUE: by Jonathan Gottfried, January 3, 2007

From: Jonathan Gottfried
To: Paul Gottfried
Subject: Jews have an interest in a secular society; the Christian Right does not

Dad,

You suggest that certain aspects of the parties’ environmental and foreign policy platforms (which I had pointed out as distinguishing factors) resemble one another.

With respect to the Kyoto Protocol, the 95-to-zero Senate vote in 1999 on the Byrd-Hagel resolution may not have been the Democratic Party’s finest moment. Yet, as you know, the Senate has never actually rejected the Kyoto Protocol since it has never been submitted for ratification. In 1999, the Senate merely voted—prior to the conclusion of Kyoto negotiations—in favor of a broadly worded statement that the United States should not be a signatory to any agreement that (i) did not apply similar emissions standards to developing and developed nations, and (ii) harmed the United States economy.

That Democratic senators voted for Byrd-Hagel does not place them in the same category as S. Fred Singer or the Bush administration. In addition, while both Democrats and Republicans may have voted for the same bill, their reasons likely differed (organized labor for the former and big business for the latter). And although Schwarzenegger may nominally be a Republican, he broke with Republicans in California’s legislature to join the Democratic majority and to pass that state’s recent emissions bill. I still believe that there is a stark contrast between the parties when it comes to the environment.

With respect to foreign policy, you point out that Clinton used the military during his presidency, for example in Kosovo and Sudan. While recognizing that Clinton “did not stumble into any engagement quite as disastrous as the Iraqi War,” you nonetheless place both Bush and Clinton’s international forays into the same category of “nation building.” Setting aside the question of whether that appellation can credibly describe U.S. efforts around the Tigris and Euphrates, there exist greater differences between the two presidents’ policies than simply the number of body bags they’ve produced.

The United States acted with NATO in Kosovo, after UN military intervention had failed, and without the vociferous opposition demonstrated by much of the world against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Bush’s actions demonstrated contempt for long-standing American allies, while Clinton’s actions—although perhaps no more legal under international law – at least involved genuine diplomacy. Perhaps most importantly for me, the American claim to be pursuing humanitarian objectives in Kosovo was more plausible than in Iraq. Once again, I see meaningful differences between the parties’—or, at least, the presidencies’—foreign policies, even if both parties have “meddled beyond our borders.”

I’m sorry for dwelling so long on the environment and foreign policy and for straying from the topic at hand—the Jewish connection to Republicans and Democrats. You’ve written that Jews have moved further and faster to the left than their Christian counterparts over the past decades, and you attribute this political shift to American Jews’ perceived victimization at the hands of their non-Jewish neighbors. This suggests that Jews were, at one time, more conservative. So why have we become more sensitive (or, from your perspective, more paranoid) of late?

We agree that Jews have a tendency to view themselves as the objects of malice and that Jews must move beyond a negative definition of themselves. There seems to be a need to define oneself not just in relation to the “other,” but in fear of this “other.” Perhaps that’s a consequence of Jewish history, or perhaps of not being among the religious majority. However I don’t see how Jews’ casting their vote with non-Jewish Republicans helps any more than their casting their vote beside non-Jewish Democrats. In addition, I question whether Jews have long-term allies in the “effusively philosemitic and passionately pro-Zionist” Christian Right.

Most Jews view Israel as an end unto itself, not a means to achieving the second coming of Christ. Moreover, the Christian Right’s respect for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are well and good; yet I question whether that respect extends to modern-day Jews when the Christian Right advocates a Constitutional amendment for school prayer. Ultimately, a religious minority has an interest in a secular society. I guess you’ve helped me to realize that, despite my earlier comment about whether American Jews share political views as Jews, we may all have an interest in secularism.

Yet I still don’t see a good reason why Jews should hide the Manischewitz, order a mint julep and vote Republican.

NEXT: Jewish concern with the Christian Right is a silly diversion

Day 2 (Paul Gottfried): Is it Time for Jews to Vote Republican?

Going to synagogue is like plunging into an editorial meeting at The Nation

DIALOGUE: by Paul Gottfried, January 3, 2007

From: Paul Gottfried
To: Jonathan Gottfried
Subject: American Jews are not so assimilated as you think

Jonathan,

Reading your spirited, penetrating response, I must admire the genetic endowment that your mother and I have bestowed on you. Despite your verbal adroitness, however, I feel obliged to challenge a few of your points.

Contrary to the attacks made on the Republican Party by former Vice President Gore, the Democrats opposed the Kyoto Accords on global warming as much as the Republicans did. On July 27, 1999, the Senate voted against ratifying those accords by a score of 95 to nothing. That figure included all of the Democrats in the Senate as well as the Republicans on the other side of the aisle. Russia, China, India, and Brazil—all of which are happily polluting the environment—also refused to accept the Kyoto restrictions on fuel emissions. According to the research of S. Fred Singer—the physicist who developed the instruments for measuring the temperature of the ozone layer—the reduction of global warming would be no more than 0.02 degrees even if the Kyoto agreements were put into effect.

From what I recall, President Clinton did not hesitate to engage in his own “nation-building” and did so with brute force in Kosovo. Moreover, his secretary of state Madeleine Albright and his se Bill Clinton: Did he destroy a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory to get our minds off Monica? Bill Clinton: Did he destroy a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory to get our minds off Monica?curity advisor Sandy Berger organized pressure against Austria in 1999 to keep the rightwing anti-immigrationist Jorg Haider out of its government. (Similar actions, to my knowledge, have not been taken to keep communists out of any Western or Central European government since the end of the Cold War.) Although Clinton did not stumble into any engagement quite as disastrous as the Iraqi War, (bombing an aspirin factory, in order to divert attention from his impeachment proceedings, may have been quantitatively less stupid) he certainly meddled beyond our borders. His would-be successor was the preferred presidential candidate of the New Republic, an honor that devolved on Gore for his deserved reputation as a zealous nation-builder. If Bush has taken over traditional Democratic slogans about human rights for the world, Gore held the same instruction book even earlier.

I’m also not sure that Jewish voters in Alabama are all that similar to their Christian white neighbors. In all likelihood, most Jews in Alabama, like Jews in other states, identify with social positions that are more radical than those held by their Christian co-residents. From looking at Gallup Polls since the 1960s, it seems that American Christians have moved leftward on a wide range of social issues but that Jews have done so even more dramatically.

Going from my liberal Protestant college environment to a synagogue service is like plunging from a gathering of fairly standard left centrists into an editorial meeting of The Nation magazine. The reason for this seems clear. According to Anti-Defamation Leage (ADL) surveys, American Jews believe, without serious evidence, that Christian antisemitism is on the rise in this country. Thus they combat the remnants of a Christian, bourgeois society, presumably as a form of self-protection. (Jews do not act this way out of malice but are reacting to genuine anxiety.)

I suspect that Alabama's Jews, except for the handful of Orthodox ones, are as horrified by the Evangelical Right as are the Jews of the Northeast. This revulsion is undeserved since what is called the Christian Right is effusively philosemitic and passionately pro-Zionist.

Jewish dislike for this group seems based on nothing more substantial than conservative Christian opposition to the use of public education to change sexual mores and to Evangelical resistance to the removal of Judeo-Christian symbols from the public square. Although I am not comfortable with all of the Religious Right’s political positions, particularly its passion for President Bush’s nation-building, the attempts to present it as antisemitic are baseless and even outrageous.

But my larger point, Jonathan, is that American Jews are not as fully assimilated into American society as you suggest. Most continue to think of themselves as marginal and threatened and continue to appeal to public administration and the courts against traditional American religious attitudes. Although Jewish Republicans may suffer from some of the same mishagasim, their switch to the Republican Party indicates a more secure relationship with the white Christian majority. I offer this not as a bill of health for their party of choice but as moderate praise for the Jews who have joined it.

One last point: Orthodox Jews and religious Christians in Alabama do not share the sociological or cultural overlap you suggest. The reconstruction of an Eastern European Jewish communal lifestyle in metropolitan areas does not remind me at all of a Southern rural or smalltown Protestant ambience, even if the Jews and Protestants both occasionally cite Hebrew scriptures. Their only common ground is a sense of being threatened by the moral transformation of the U.S., a process in which the courts and public administration have both played key roles. Religiously traditional groups increasingly support the Republican Party as the national party less likely to push forward revolutionary moral and social changes. Whether the Republicans deserve this reputation is of course a separate issue.

Dad

Next: Jews have an interest in a secular society; the Christian Right does not

Day 1 (Jonathan Gottfried): Is it Time for Jews to Vote Republican?

Jewish Democrats are not stuck in the shtetl

DIALOGUE: by Jonathan Gottfried, January 2, 2007

From: Jonathan Gottfried
To: Paul Gottfried
Subject: Are Jewish Democrats less American?

Dad,

So we’ve been asked whether it’s time for Jews to vote Republican, and it seems that you object to the question on the grounds that the Democratic and Republican parties are merely so much hot air used to inflate an ever-increasing federal government. Before responding to the question and your comments, I, too, want to take issue with some assumptions underlying the question.

To ask whether Jews should vote Republican is to assume that American Jewry is a monolith of homogenous interests. I’m not sure that such a political creature does or should exist. A mildly observant Jew in Alabama likely has more in common with his mildly observant Christian neighbor than he does with most Jews in New York. The two religions’ theological differences—as understood and practiced by your average Jew or Christian—pale in comparison to the similarities of geography and culture shared by my hypothetical Southern neighbors. Other than a favorable U.S. policy towards Israel, I’m not convinced that there is a political platform to which most Jews, as Jews, adhere (and this is not to argue that the U.S. policy towards Israel has been good for Israel or even for America’s Jews).

Even if we assume that Jews across this country do share political interests, I’m not sure that we should cast our lot with any single political party. Consistently voting Democrat or Republican eventually creates a situation where the Jewish vote is taken for granted. Better to rock the boat every once in a while in order to ensure that one’s voice is heard.

Enough of my bickering with the question, and now let me turn to your objection to the quGoodbye Baghdad, Hello Kyoto: America under President Goreestion. You argue there is no longer any difference between the Republican and Democratic parties. I find that hard to believe.

Had Gore been elected, do you believe that our country would have invaded Iraq, that we would have withdrawn from the Kyoto Protocol, that we would have opposed the establishment of the International Criminal Court? You may question the import of Kyoto and the ICC; however it is hard to ignore the 3000 American dead as a result of this war. You may respond, perhaps, that this war has nothing to do with the Republican Party. Perhaps you’re correct. Had Bush père or another Republican been in power, we may not have invaded. And yet the point remains that a Republican president pursued a war that I don’t think that the Democratic candidate, if elected, would have. For that reason alone, I believe that there is a difference between the parties.

I'm surprised by your reason why Jews should vote Republican. Jews do not vote Democrat because they fear the non-Jewish Americans around them. Jewish Democrats do not linger in the shadows of the shtetl, fearful that America’s non-Jews are sharpening their knives for the next pogrom. Nor do I think that Jews need to vote Republican in order to prove they are Americans worthy of playing on the polo fields with WASPs. Are you suggesting that voting Republican is somehow a sign of successful, Jewish assimilation? Of becoming “American” in a way that Jewish Democrats are not?

Jonathan

Next: Going to Synagogue is like plunging into an editorial meeting at The Nation

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What Polar Bears Can Teach Us About the Environment (Hint: It's Not What You Think)