Website of the Day.

JunkScience.com

Kyoto Count Up!
February 16, 2005
Updated August 22, 2005


The seemingly interminable Kyoto countdown is over - now we begin to count UP (the cost).

Since coming into effect February 16, 2005, the Kyoto Protocol has cost the world about US $78,645,452,391 (When I last looked. Go here to watch the numbers fly. - F.G.) while the potential temperature saving by the year 2050 so far achieved by Kyoto is 0.000815589 degrees Celsius (to get activity on the clock we had to go to billionths part of one degree, which obviously cannot be measured as a global mean) and yes, that really does represent about $100K per billionth of one degree allegedly "saved." Guess that means for the bargain price of just $100 trillion we could theoretically lower global mean temperature by about 1 °C.

So, how do we arrive at these incredible numbers?

Firstly, the now widely acknowledged "saving" (amount of warming avoided) potential for complete implementation of Kyoto is ~0.07 °C by the year 2050. Since skeptics (e.g. Pat Michaels) and advocates (Kevin Trenberth, for example) alike have signed off on the figure we see no need to dispute it. Further, even though the US and Australia have sense enough to stay clear of energy rationing schemes like this we are prepared to cut The Protocol a great deal of slack and pretend that figure is achievable by the EU and fellow travelers. Thus our potentially "saved" temperature figure is simply 0.07 °C/45 (the amount per year assuming a linear progression) further divided down to an accumulation per second. Granted, this is not likely a very accurate nor realistic representation but hey, we don't even know the absolute mean surface temperature of the planet within ±0.7 °C anyway.

For our cost values we basically went with the optimistic guesstimate of $150 billion per annum compliance cost. This figure is divided to an amount per second and accumulated in 0.05 second increments. Granted, we could have used much more aggressive cost estimates but we just can't see the governments of the EU, Japan and maybe Canada being permitted to squander any more funds that could be usefully applied to such frivolous pursuits as domestic health care, third world development aid or even infrastructure repair and replacement.


Update August 22, 2005:

Our cost estimate is extremely conservative - see: "Cost of ending global warming 'too high'" - "BRINGING global warming to an end would cost almost half global GDP - €13,000bn - at least, one London analyst has calculated. Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research says this is many times the cost of dealing with the damaging effects of global warming." (Unison.ie)

EDITOR'S NOTE: Full report available at http://www.lombardstreetresearch.com/Content/Home.asp

Global warming's £10 trillion cost (The Scotsman)

The above guesstimates do not include the billions allocated to "global warming" research ($2 billion per annum in the US alone), "alternative" energy research ($3 billion in the US) and subsidy ($? lots, with forced market share), public indoctrination education campaigns, public monies misdirected to NGOs and other pressure groups or the donations frightened out of the public by the various foundations and alleged charities acting against human interest. These additional funds are the gravy train of Big Warming, a multi-billion-dollar industry devoted to generating scary scenarios and pronouncements of impending doom to further their own agendas or simply maintain their grant stream and employment. Curiously, Big Warming presents the absurd idea that warming advocacy is purely altruistic while the paltry few hundred thousands in donations or grants that were (I don't know if they still are) available to help present the counter case somehow invalidates the science or opinion of anyone who dares to disagree - a position actively promoted by the mainstream but actively Left-leaning media. Quite how multi-billions don't influence while a few thousands "obviously corrupt" we have not been able to discern.

Many billions of dollars have already been squandered on this farce and now it really begins.

What a stupid game this is.