Bush Better at CO2 Than EU Kyoto Treaty Signers

My letter-to-the-editor was published December 21, 2007 in the Laguna Beach Independent.

Carbon dioxide emissions

Dear Editor,

If a person thought the world was imperiled due to carbon dioxide emissions, what would that person do?

The Clinton-Gore administration negotiated the fleckless Kyoto Treaty, signed it, but then did not submit the treaty to the Senate for ratification as required by the U.S. Constitution. During those eight years, U.S. greenhouse emissions greatly increased.

During the Presidency of George W. Bush, how has the U.S. performed compared to European Union countries that have ratified the Kyoto Treaty? One would think that the EU would have a better record regarding carbon dioxide emissions. See Wall Street Journal December 3, 2007 Editorial “An Inconvenient Reduction”:
■ “U.S. emissions of carbon dioxide fell by 1.8% from 2005 to 2006.”
■ “Output of all [U.S.] greenhouse gases was down 1.5% last year. All this while the American economy grew by 2.9%.”
■ “from 2000 to 2005, the U.S. outperformed Western Europe. Carbon emissions were up 3.8% in the so-called EU-15 during those years, versus 2.5% in the U.S.”

The Laguna Beach Independent recently published a letter-to-the-editor with the headline “Global warming is a hoax and the world is flat” and associating those views with me. My views are more in line with Bjorg Lomborg’s October 7, 2007 Washington Post op/ed piece “Stop fighting over global warming -- here's the smart way to attack it” which includes “The Earth is warming, and we're causing it. But that's not the whole story, and predictions of impending disaster just don't stack up.”

Yours truly,
Gene Felder