Newsbytes from The GWPF
Europe’s proposed new climate goals could be weaker than previously announced due to its method of accounting for changes in land use. Last October the bloc agreed to target greenhouse gas cuts of 40% on 1990 levels by 2030, a rise on its 20% goal for 2020. But in a leaked document outlining the European Commission’s plans for curbing carbon pollution, the 40% goal now includes land use, land use change and forestry accounting. This means the growth of existing forests could be used towards EU targets, which analysts say could mean the 40% drops to 35% in reality. –Ed King, Responding to Climate Change 24 February 2015
Given that heads of states agreed to “at least” 40%, including the land use sector would not be in line with the political decision that has already been taken. It would also be seen as ‘backsliding’ from the originally presented 40% target and would set the EU off on a bad start towards agreeing an ambitious international climate treaty in Paris in December 2015. — Eva Filzmoser, Responding to Climate Change 24 February 2015
European Union leaders want to enshrine in international law a goal to cut global emissions by 60 percent by 2050, according to a draft document that puts the bloc on a collision course with the biggest polluters. The EU document also proposes that the 2015 deal “should preferably be in the form of a protocol”, which is the toughest legal option. That could meet resistance from China and the United States, which are likely to prefer looser arrangements than internationally binding law. —Reuters, 24 February 2015
Back-tracking has commenced.
Economic reality casts a long shadow over every human endeavor.
Large countries like Canada and Russia with low popuation density can lean backwards because their CO2 output is low. Taking in account land use, forests and size.
Not much support can be expected from these oil and gas producers, the Paris conference and EU wishes
are not promising.
Canada as a country absorbs more CO2 than they emit due to the growth of their boreal forests.
Then again, if you count the CO2 from Canadian ‘tar sands’ that is exported (ie, outsourced) then their CO2 is pretty high. If the Canadians are REALLY committed to CO2 reduction, then they would STOP drilling, STOP producing oil. Until they do, I tend to regard them as a drug pusher is regraded by a drug user.
Obviously, you are a “Warmist” who lurks!!!
The Canadians were up-front in dropping out of Kyoto and saying that they would only look at other CO2 reduction in per capita terms and in line with other countries – basically saying stuff CO2 emission controls. The current government campaigned in one election opposing the CO2 taxation plans proposed by the other main party (and won on those terms) so I don’t see anything wrong with their policies on oil production. They are certainly less hypocritical than the EU (who have outsourced their CO2 production by exporting their heavy industry to other countries) or the US who pay lip service to CO2 emissions when it suits them (Keystone pipeline) and ignore the fact they they are the world’s biggest oil producer.
From the sound of it dccowboy has really bought into the whole idea of save the world at all cost by stopping all production of CO2. I hope dccowboy only walks everywhere or uses a recycled bicycle, doesn’t wear any artificial clothing including shoes, doesn’t buy any food transported from outside his/her/its area, doesn’t doesn’t breath (well not this one I discourage suicide). He/she/ or it also should help pay for all of the higher energy costs his/her/its desired policies help cause.
Actually I’m getting really sick about ignorant people like dccowboy.
Wow, what a sad individual you are.
No we are not committed to reducing CO2 emission at all.
Other nations can freeze to death. We will heat out houses to comfortable temperature.
Cheers!
I work the oil sands. No we do not mine tar despite your childish attempt to claim otherwise. Factually, researchers for California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard have recently released new data measuring the carbon intensity of various crude oil blends, including diluted bitumen (a.k.a. ‘dilbit’) and upgraded synthetic crude oil (‘SCO’) from the Canadian oilsands. The Californian findings will not be well-received by anti-oilsands activists.
Among the findings that may surprise:
• There are 13 oil fields in California, plus crude oil blends originating in at least six other countries, that generate a higher level of upstream greenhouse gas emissions than Canadian dilbit blends;
• Crude oil from Alaska’s North Slope, which makes up about 12 per cent of California’s total crude slate, is actually “dirtier” than the Canadian dilbit known as “Access Western Blend”;
• The “dirtiest oil in North America” is not produced in Canada, but just outside Los Angeles, where the Placerita oil field generates about twice the level of upstream emissions as Canadian oilsands production; and
• The title of “world’s dirtiest oil” goes to Brass crude blend from Nigeria, where the uncontrolled release of methane during the oil extraction process generates upstream GHG emissions that are over four times higher than Canadian dilbit.
Hey dccowboy (3:17 pm) instead of ‘talking the talk’ why don’t you try ‘walking the walk’?”
http://cdn.spectator.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/95360285.jpg
http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9435652/they-sought-paradise-in-a-scottish-field-and-found-hunger-boredom-and-mosquitoes/
Not only that, but they are melting the ice with all their hockey games and curling matches.
Given the purported damage Cows are doing to the planet, maybe you should be thinking of another profession? Being called a Cowboy these days may not be a good thing anymore…See Cowspiracy:
http://www.gary-tv.com/garymain/video/more-categories/envrionment/cowspiracy-watch-full-movie-online/
dccowboy
…and I presume you walk to work. And you have bicycled for 20 minutes to generate the electrical power required to operate your computer to troll WUWT.
dccowboy,
It’s hard to tell which side of the corral you’re on there.
You say; ” Until they do, I tend to regard them as a drug pusher is regraded by a drug user.”
“drug pusher” seems a slightly archaic term, but it’s my impression that drug users regard their dealers as very useful, if not indispensable.
Are you saying that that’s how you regard us Canadians? Useful, maybe indispensable?
Until we stop selling oil?
How about water?
@dc, OK, just what the heck is wrong with increasing levels of CO2? Please educate me.
.
Hunh? Then this standard would apply to every oil-producing nation that exports, including the USA. It proves nothing.
(1) You’ve never been to Alberta (you call them the Tar Sands, not the Oil Sands. Dead giveaway. They haven’t been called the Tar Sands since 1965.)
(2) You know zip about their draconian reclamation laws which keep producers an extra 15-20 years after they finished steaming the bitumen out of the sand restoring the land to same or better condition, and how that is protected by provincial law and fines, and possible jail time, for the execs if they don’t comply. Producers have to submit a Reclamation Plan, prove they’ve leased land to save the flora they will be disturbing, have the plan approved by the Govt, and put the money up for it in escrow before they can extract a drop, or set foot on the site.
(3) The outdoor air quality over Fort McMurray is better than the outdoor air quality over Toronto or Montreal (around 130 miles from Bill McKibben’s house). Go to Environment Canada and download the widgets so you can watch it daily. If you have a Mac, use this: https://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/information/canadianairqualityhealthindexfromenvironmentcanada.html
(4) The dumbest statement on this page is “if you count the CO2 from Canadian ‘tar sands’ that is exported (ie, outsourced) then their CO2 is pretty high.”
dc is lkely one of the many NRDC moles that infests the US federal government under the current Constitution-hating President.
HEY DCCOWBOY – Is your real name “Obama”. Go drive your electric Vehicle (EV) around in the DC snow.
I spent three hours today on horse back checking trails in snow up to my pony’s belly, stirrups dragging in the snow at 3600 feet at 52-37-50 N and 114-47 W. Didn’t notice any drug pushers out in the blizzard I was in. But I did ride by an oil or gas well every mile or less, comforting when you can’t see but 100 metres.
DCCOWBOY indeed. Every seen the furry side of a horse or the working end of a metre long crescent wrench? Not to worry, the Obaminator vetoed KXL yet again, but patience; his reign should end in a couple of years, :should” being the operative word. The oil won’t go bad in two years, there’s no best before date.
Let’s see – worth repeating: atmosphere is 78% N, 21% , other gases make up the rest of the 1% is 80 percent Argon and CO2 is 0.04%. Just exactly what is all the hand waving about?
If we stop producing petrochemicals, what are YOU and the other DCCOWBOYS going to build your urban roads from? What are you going to build your EV from? What about clothes, shoes, computers, telephones? House wiring insulation?
Do you have a clue about petrochemicals. I can live off the land. Can you?
By the way, how does it feel to be a drug user?
/sarc off.
albertalad : +100
dccowboy
First they are “oil sands”. There is no “tar” in the sand. Stop swallowing everything you hear. The oil is missing its lightest fractions because, as the biggest oil spill in the history of the planet – completely natural or course – it has evaporated.
when oil is formed deep in the earth by completely natural processes it has a blend of ingredients that is dictated by the pressure (depth) and the energy paths leading to the formation of long chain hydrocarbons. No “tar” is formed even at great depths.
Next, you are accepting the “green activist” claim that there is something inherently “worse” about cleaning up the oil spill than, say, drilling offshore in California or Texas. CO2 has very little effect on the atmospheric temperature, something for which there is ample evidence, and which accumulates daily. The Earth’s climate is utterly dominated by water, water vapour and clouds, not the trace of CO2.
There is little point in getting into bed with “big green alarmism”. It is a mish-mash of anti-science politicking that can’t even work out the difference between the La Brea Tar Pits and the Alberta Oil Sands. Big, stinking, green alarmism is not a place where angels fear to tread, there are no angels there.
Co2-reduction is useless. CO2 isn’t the cause of anything. CO2 increased considerably during the last decades. Temp did n-o-t. This has been called the ‘pause’ or ‘hiatus’ and exists since 18+ years. And if something isn’t the cause of something that doesn’t exist, talking about ‘reduction’ is blunder.
You must be a drug user then. Or perhaps you are pedaling a bicycle to power your computer made of wood and twine to post your comment. Or perhaps you are only committed to other people reducing their energy usage but not our own. But then who would read you comments, our computers would all be off and we’d be enjoying the great outdoors, sans cell-phones of course.
What are you doing on this site? You are environ mental. More mental than environ.
I wonder who this “dc”cowboy really is. Hey buddy, you should seek help for your cranial cysticercosis.
Ed Begley, Jr.? Is that you?
The Canadians are committed to extracting their oil from their oil sands and selling it to make money to create jobs, enjoy a modern standard of living, to collect taxes to provide services for Canadian people. They’re cleaning up the near surface environment of those locales in the bargain, which leak many toxic materials into local watersheds. Then our living biosphere gets to enjoy a bit more CO2 in the bargain. And you get to drive your car. Win, win, win, win, win, win, win win. And all for a little warmer temps, which is another win for Canadians.
Thank you. That’s what the Oil Sands are: Mother Nature’s Oil Spill. No one had a problem with people cleaning up the Florida coastal sand after the BP spill, but they’re bioching because Albertans want to clean up the boreal mess?
As a result of the reclamation laws, the cleanup from the first mine–I don’t know who it was, Syncrude?–produced a vibrant community with walking, bicycle, and skidoo trails, restored fauna and flora, new housing, and community centers: a small town.
The oil has oozed out of that sand for eons, since the Rockies were created. The Jesuits wrote about it in the early 1700s, and how the Indians boiled it up to use as pitch to waterproof their canoes. It is so plentiful it is in the clear Athabasca River that feeds into Fort McMurray from the Rockies in the west. When I was up there, you could paddle your canoe down the river towards Fort McMurray (well before the rapids), pull over onto the bank, flip your canoe over, and it was covered with a film of the naturally-occurring oil. It’s in the banks of the river. It can stunt the growth of the pine trees and turn them into weird-looking moonscapey trees, like the Joshua Tree of the North.
It is a naturally occurring phenomenon. And Alberta has got to be one of the cleanest places I’ve ever been, with skies to boot, including around Fort McMurray. The idea that a bunch of Americans sit down here and denigrate Albertans as a bunch of yahoos who are too stupid to protect what they’ve got–their land, air, and water–because they aren’t Americans is repellent.
It’s a major error to count energy exports such as coal or oil in a countries energy use. When Australia exports a tonne of coal to China, it is China burning it, not Australia. By counting it in Australia’s energy use, the energy-poor Europeans were trying to a) not count it in their own energy use, and b) put pressure on exporting countries to stop exporting.
Yet agin, politics is found to be poluting science.
Lot of trees there, though (and here). Think Kuwait.
We have a scape-goat, we have scape-goat !
Get that man with the goatee beard
Get him now, get him fast! they cried
Nice one. I noticed that “Amoral” is an anagram of “Almora.”
Why is it that some EU leaders want to literally return to the dark ages and fudalism?
It sounds like dccowboy would like to join them. It was such a glorious time. Disease and illness kept population lower. And it would be easier for the dccowboy’s religion to institute an inquisition to keep every toeing the party/religions line.
“Why is it that some EU leaders want to literally return to the dark ages and fudalism?”
Hey, they really do believe their windmills and solar panels will suffice. And the peddles of these contraptions constantly advertise it to them. They’re just very very gullible and not the sharpest tools in the box.
Windmills and solar panels are only viable when supported by fossil fuel energy and by-products.
Actually modern windmills and solar panels would stop working completely without fossil fuel energy and by-products. At which point windmills will be made of wood and useful only for grinding grain, and solar heating means going outside and sitting in the sun.
Why is it that some EU leaders want to literally return to the dark ages and fudalism?
They haven’t experienced it.
Not themselves; just everbody else.
(They probably and honestly do not know what they are advocating.)
Because they find themselves being overrun by Muslim Extremists who never emerged from the Dark Ages. If you can’t beat em the natural tendency is to join em.
When it comes to implementing insanity backtracking is the best tracking. They should backtrack out of all that crap.
A touch of realism?
Back tracking? Tracking? What they need is a retired railway engineer with some time on his hands to fix the track.
European Union leaders want to enshrine in international law
There is no such thing as “International Law”
For example, if you commit gross war crimes and are the USA or EU, you get to do anything you want no matter how repulsive or illegal.
If you are anyone resisting the US or EU, you are a criminal and put in prison and your nation blown up and your people starved and driven from their homes and millions butchered very brutally.
So, when the EU and US decide to not do the global warming junk, they won’t do it and will ignore all legal rules about this matter.
I agree but I didn’t make my point well enough. There is no such thing as “International Law”. There are ad hoc agreements between states, but such agreements are only followed as long as it suits those states to follow them.
Even when states enter into specific treaties between each other, Vienna conventions beside, they can just denounce them, if that much effort was deemed necessary. In fact states adhere to treaties as long as they find them useful. Machiavelli 101.
So I would assume that you will be leaving the EU or the USA personally, very shortly to fully register your “outrage” at their behavior?
…….. or not.
Or unless you’re Russia, China, Japan, Vietnam, Sudan, Iraq, Indonesia, Nicaragua, Rwanda, Turkey, Ethiopia, or Pakistan among others. All with far worse records of state-sponsored murder than the US or the EU.
The EU suffers from such moral cowardice that they can’t even police themselves properly, much less commit murder abroad.
You make Pravda proud of your efforts.
emsnews
Yeah, right. Funny thing, those claims of yours. Seems like the Communist Russia (USSR if you “forgot” ) killed some 45 millions under communism. YOU didn’t complain – did you? Communist China killed some 60+ millions of its citizens. YOU didn’t complain, did you? Communists in Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, North (then North and South Vietnam), East Germany, Nicaragua, Laos, Cambodia, and throughout Africa killed millions – and YOU didn’t complain did you? Iran had a series of protests for freedom recently – and its brutally repressed through rape, sadism, and torture. YOU didn’t complain did you? Muslim extremists the past 15 years have killed 109,000 in over 24,000 separate acts of violence and terrorism. But YOU decide to complain – with lies! – about what was being done to stop that kind of violence and terrorism by the US and the EU.
Yeah. You’re come piece of work. The anti-capitalism of the CAGW religion shines boldly through.
emsnews
Please feel free to volunteer as a human shield for ISIS
What “legal rules” you talking about ems and what war crimes are you referring to? Better just go back inside there young fella and a do a bit more learning and a little less listening to other older Trolls. You just are ready yet.
To the winner belong the spoils, including history and application of law.
Why are we recycling the CO2 story when the data says that CO2 is not causing global warming?
I think the current data is reasonably compatible with raw CO2 forcing, but without feedback loops (which comprise two thirds of warming in the CMIP5 models).
The EU has been hurting economically, going green and energy-starved.
It is high time they should stop digging that hole.
…EU ‘Backtracks’ On CO2 Targets In UN Accounting Fudge…
EU ‘Backtracks’ On EVERY Target In Accounting Fudge.
There. Fixed that for you. Watch the Greek deficit magically disappear, and all the ‘No’ votes at an EU referendum magically turn to ‘Yes’….
The EU hasn’t had any accounts signed off since, well for about 20 years. Graft and corruption within the EU bureaucracy is so rampant that it is unmeasurable. Nothing about the EU surprises me any more. 4th Reich perhaps?
+1
Do you have something to back that up, Admad? As far as I’m aware, the European Court of Auditors (http://www.eca.europa.eu) is independent and reports to the European parliament, which is elected directly by citizens.
…This means the growth of existing forests could be used towards EU targets, which analysts say could mean the 40% drops to 35% in reality. …
All that means is that the EU will only have to lie and fiddle the figures to pretend they did 35% rather than 40%…
So let’s give the alarmists some GOOD news for a change. Not the definition of “climate optimum” or anything like that which makes warming good. That’s only the truth and these people want to be heroes. They also want tax dollars.
Fact is there IS something going on which is truly dangerous to the environment–the killing of life by bad agriculture and dams. Many alarmists or warmists are already concerned about these things, and they even have the solutions, such as permaculture and frequent movement of livestock.
A lot of us are Republicans; and Republicans are natural “conservationists.” One of many baleful effects of CAGW alarmism has been to shut down the Republican conservation voice. There has been too much focus on the nonsense–CAGW claims–and very little on those ways The enviros are right. Make them right and we can achieve our aims.
The yowling is dangerous. It could precipitate real and effective ways to lower the biosphere’s temperature–and the actual effect of that would be death. It could lead to sequestering The Gas Of Life deep underground. It already has led to severe attacks upon fossil fuels, which has crashed the global economy. There is less funding for conservation–and for taxes. There is one of the Big Presents we can give our enemies: in exchange for recognizing that a Presidential candidate is a POLITICIAN, not a scientist, and a few other little corrections, we can restore the global economy and suddenly, there will be the additional tax dollars they have been aching for.
Ka-ching. Your sins are forgiven. (Future sins will require further expense.)
How much carbon dioxide has been prevented from entering our atmosphere because the Panama Canal was opened a century ago, and ships no longer had to make the long trip around South America? Well, the US ought to take credit for it. That must be a trillion tons of CO2 at least.
Alberta oilsands mines the oil and then covers the mine with forest. The Saudis pull it out of the ground flare all the gas and replant nothing. Which leave the better result Dccowboy. I have had oil sand i my hand it is damp and soft like sand on the beach. All we do is clean the sand and replant forest.
+1
Chris, wrong about Saudi flaring. Read up on the Master Gas System, Jubail and Yanbu. The MGS has been in place since the early ’80’s. Keep on cleaning up the oil spill. 🙂
I don’t see this as “backtracking,” but rather broadening the scope of the assessment. They cannot just sit back on existing forests, but they are measuring the *change* from current conditions, i.e., allowing land use practices to account for new carbon uptake. This is a great win for free markets, in my mind, because it broadens the options that private citizens and companies have.
You mean we don’t have to stop driving cars, recharging our cellphones and using electric lights to save the planet?
Who knew.
I smell a new Sequestered Carbon Accounting Method in the works.
Moving Goalposts:
“Prof Hans-Joachim Schellnhuber (0:18 mark), Director of the ultra-alarmist Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, for example, claimed on German public television on July 3, 2011, that the 2°C target indeed was “international law” and that CO2 emissions needed to start falling by 2020 if humanity was to have any chance of reaching the 2°C target.
On December 3, 2014, Schellnhuber admitted that the 2°C target was not international law (0:53) and then postponed the year CO2 emissions would have to start dropping by an entire decade, to 2030.
Suddenly we got goalposts that were not international law and had been moved out another 10 years.”
http://notrickszone.com/2014/12/15/christian-schoenwiese-hans-von-storch-2c-target-purely-political-one-from-scientists-disguised-as-politicians/#comments
Talking of Canada, the temp. lows of winter 2015 breaks all records. Hang onto your hats, Solar Cycle 25 here we come.
But,but Canada is not the whole world ,duh.
And besides that is just weather
///src
And lets not forget the EU:
http://article.wn.com/view/2015/02/06/Winter_snow_breaks_Europe_records/
Then there is the USA:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2015/02/02/383229171/northeast-braces-for-more-snow-from-storm-that-blanketed-midwest
Maybe the forecasts of the ’70’s were not so far fetched. Just received a copy of Lamb’s “The Changing Climate”. His description of the winter of 1962-3 being the coldest since 1795 makes a lie of the AGW story we are being pedaled.
Well, according to Environment Canada’s YYZ forecast for Wednesday, I’ll have to worry about a sunburned nose and frozen toes.
Issued: 6:33 PM EST Tuesday 24 February 2015
Tonight
A few flurries ending after midnight then partly cloudy. Amount 2 cm. Local blowing snow this evening and after midnight. Wind southwest 30 km/h gusting to 50 becoming northwest 20 after midnight. Low minus 16.
Wednesday
Mainly sunny. Wind west 20 km/h becoming light early in the afternoon. High minus 10. Wind chill minus 25 in the morning. UV index 3 or moderate
.
Wednesday night
Clear. Increasing cloudiness after midnight. Low minus 16.
Thursday
Sunny. High minus 10.
Friday
Sunny. Low minus 19. High minus 8.
Saturday
Sunny. Low minus 14. High minus 6.
Sunday
Cloudy with 30 percent chance of snow. Low minus 13. High minus 3.
Monday
Cloudy with 30 percent chance of flurries. Low minus 10. High minus 1.
Exactly, what’s wrong with CO2. The entire planet is greener by 20% than it was 30 years ago. See: Carbon emissions helping to make Earth greener. For the first time, researchers claim to have shown that the increase in plant cover is due to this “CO2 fertilisation effect” rather than other causes. What’s The Problem?
clipe –
am sure North Americans are not impressed by CAGW doom’n’gloom stories at present:
24 Feb: Daily Mail: Evan Bleier: Invasion of the Snow People! Massive snowfall is forcing North Americans to dig snow tunnels to get around this winter
Pictures of snow tunnels have been posted on social media in recent weeks
Canadian couple dug a 25-foot long and six-foot high tunnel in their backyard
Man used keys to set off his car horn to figure out which way to dig in snow
One tunnel in Massachusetts took ten hours to dig and measured 40 feet
One man is now shipping and selling ‘historic Boston snow’ from Bay State
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2966868/Snow-tunnels-Canada-new-way-around.html
23 Feb: USA Today: Doyle Rice: Snow on the ground in 48 states
http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/02/23/snow-cover-48-states/23885439/
Equivocation, dissembling, obfuscation, ‘moving the goal posts’, and deceit – sounds like it was Our Dear Leader Obama and the EPA issuing the latest Executive Directives, doesn’t it? All based on ‘science’, of course…..
Conversely, arctic sea ice is approaching a ‘low’ maximum this winter….. as warmer air off the pacific rotates up into the arctic behind the arctic cold that is sliding down across the eastern 2/3rds of the US.
Its completely dark 24 hrs up there right now. OpenArctic water in the winter vents incredibly large amounts of heat to space, as a negative feedback. Further, The sea ice anomaly is due almost exclusively due to low ice in the Sea of Okhotsk, everywhere else is at near normal ice levels. Bad news for warmists.
One can’t be anything but amused. There will ultimately be four kinds of countries taking positions on this matter:
1. Greedy – they think they’ll be able to get money out of it as a reward for having failed economies. Zimbabwe.
2. Honest – those who simply walk away and say so. Canada.
3. Dishonest – the ones who sign agreements that sound all high and mighty but don’t mean anything. China
4. Slimeball – sign meaningful agreements, then game the system. Yoohoo! EU!
Point of Order, Mr Hoffer
The EU ain’t a country (yet). If some of the more extreme maniacs in Brussels and elsewhere get their way though …
Erm, isn’t it the case that when a tree falls and rots – or is burnt – the CO2 is released? Thus forests are not carbon sinks, they are neutral. So, if true, the whole exercise is a fraud?
Living, thriving forests emit a great deal of CO2 at night – the first major discovery of the new CO2 satellite.
There is no photosynthesis at night, no need for a satellite to tell us.
Can’t wait for NASA to start posting OCO-2 satellite data.
Sounds to me like they plan on rolling out a revised Sequestered Carbon Accounting Method!
Note that this timing fits exactly as Greece teeters financially again and France’s Hollande pushes the basic economic and labor reforms that have been ignored for years in place of debt games and other stall tactics. Yes indeed, reality is better at the marathon race. In other words, the French have either realized or admitted that there is a no-growth future for them without some action.
The good news is that there are already genetically engineered trees that grow faster and ‘sequester’ more carbon per tree per year, ideal for planting politically green forests.
The bad news is that the Sierra Club has already started a campoaign against them:
http://vault.sierraclub.org/biotech/trees.aspx
(I had to laugh at the statement on the SC page “Corporations, as Milton Friedman pointed out, exist not to be ethical but to make money.” – as if prolonging poverty is ‘ethical.’)
The EU has taken a step to the right direction. Literally. The European parliament has a right wing majority for the first time. The EU institutions’ management has been reorganized accordingly a couple of months ago. Promising to realize they haven’t been sitting on their thumbs.
This is perhaps why the Nordic watermelons (including Sinn Fein
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_United_Left%E2%80%93Nordic_Green_Left) are now fighting against EU more than under the reign of ex-communist Barroso. Paradoxically, this time they find an ally in Front National, Golden Dawn, Jobbik, UKIP etc.
“Why is it that some EU leaders want to literally return to the dark ages and fudalism?”
They don’t…they want to wean themselves off of imported(Russian) energy without violating ‘free trade agreements’ .
Unfortuantely…they have to have a reason other that won’t violate free trade agreements in order to tax imported energy disproportionately….hence CO2 taxes.
The other challenge they face..having convinced the ‘greens’ that commie coal,oil and gas are bad is to convince the greens that nuclear is good. On this point they have failed.
So they set goals that can only be met by massive rollout of nuclear and the greens just keep on insisting that windmills will magically load balance themselves.