Global Idiocy

Can we talk?

Nincompoopery

There's big news on the Al Gore front. China, a signatory to the Kyoto Accords, but exempt from greenhouse gas restrictions because it has an "emerging economy," is now the worlds biggest polluter, surpassing the United States.  I stumbled across the June 21 story by accident; it sure as hell hasn't made much news in this country, has it.?  Or maybe I've been asleep. “ China now world's top carbon polluter CHINA has overtaken the US as the world's biggest producer of carbon dioxide, the chief greenhouse gas, figures show. The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving man-made global warming, and put pressure on politicians to agree to a global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy. China's emissions had not been expected to overtake those from the US, formerly the world's biggest polluter, for several years. But according to the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, soaring demand for coal to generate electricity and a surge in cement production had helped push China's recorded emissions for last year beyond those from the US. ” This item is so ridiculous I had to read it three times, then check Onion to make sure somebody hadn't been fooled by one of their parodies.  Nope, these people are serious. “ Human greed takes lion's share of solar energy HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species. The human dominance of this natural resource is affecting other species, reducing the amount of energy available to them by almost 10 per cent, scientists report. Researchers said the findings showed humans were using "a remarkable share" of the earth's plant productivity "to meet the needs and wants of one species". ... The scientists, from Austria and Germany, who publish their results today in the journal of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analysed data on land use, agriculture and forestry from 161 countries, representing 97 per cent of the world's land mass. ”