Dear Source:
I'm glad to see that someone actually read my letter and I hope Jay Craft continued reading beyond the first paragraph. After all, the real issue was energy independence.
Yes, it is true that Kyoto is seen as unfair to US especially by US, and there is a good case to be made.
Let us hope that a better deal can be made before the 2009 Conference. For many countries it is a matter of life and death, and evacuating plans are presently being discussed for a handful of low lying areas in the Pacific and the Indian Ocean. And yes, the 6% increase in emission for US looks good on paper, but part of this 'success' is due to the fact that many factories in US have been shut down and production moved over seas.
More than two million factory jobs have moved to Third World countries, where labor is cheaper and emission control is practically non-existent. Mexico, China, North Vietnam, to mention a few, send the finished product back to US, but in the end pollution is worse World wide compared to having the same product made under stricter control in US.
Unloading your garbage over the fence into the neighbor's yard makes you look good but it is a bad idea since we all live in the same neighborhood.
And yes, I'm well aware that US is improving its standards.
Clean coal technology has come a long way, but the recent 35mpg standard set for 2020 is a joke, especially since these cars are already here.
In my country we have started the process of shutting down our clean coal fired utilities and substituting them with bio fuel fired power stations, but I'm not going to rub more Denmark in your face.
As a permanent visitor to US Virgin Islands let me just say that I love it here, and recently my wife came up with the perfect answer as to why I choose to live here and not in that 'Pie in the Sky' country of mine: There is simply too little to complain about in Denmark, and over here I get to do what I'm very good at: Criticizing other people.
I was going to submit a wish list for 2008, but it would be a carbon copy of Paul Devine's list with the added wish that we would never again use force to secure our energy situation. Merry Xmas (again).
Steffen Larsen
St. Croix
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