Mr. Robert Novak provides some details on the Kyoto accords that I had not previously heard.[1] I have been against this treaty simply because I think it is utterly misguided. From what I gather, it does not seem that we can undo the damage of global warming that we have done so far, whatever amount of damage is our fault. The push then seems to be couching a desire to minimize future damage in terms of preventing inevitable catastrophe. This seems wrong-headed. If the catastrophe is coming, we should push forward as best we can to have the technology on hand to survive it.
Mr. Novak asserts that this treaty is about more than environmentalism however. If he is right, it is also an explicit attempt to use environmentalism to cause Americans to accept a decrease in our standard of living. This causes a blip in my radar screen because it was one of the things that was predicted in the Federal Reserve book that I never finished. It had some kooky Lockness Monster type name. Anyway, one of the ideas of the part of the book that I did read was that various situations would be used not to raise the third world up to first world lifestyles, but to level the playing field by bring down the average. Were this to actually happen, it would not surprise me to see it coming with heavy European and Chinese pressures, as these are socialist and communist governments already. I am not saying that the book is right, just that this sort of tendency bears watching.
[1] http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20050613.shtml