by Mandatory Marcus

Created on: September 04, 2007

Yes. Resoundingly yes.

It strikes me as odd that the voices on the side of the debate who are for the Kyoto treaty immediately deteriorate the debate to an over simplified position statement that essentially reads; "we are for stopping global warming and you aren't."

Though my opinion is that we should absolutely and without reservation back out of the Kyoto treaty, that does not mean I am advocating irreversible climate change. The Kyoto treaty is a noble idea in theory, and a pointless homage to noble ideas in practice.

Excluding nearly 140 "developing" nations from the additional restrictions and costs imposed on companies from "developed" countries places the "developed" economies at an ongoing competitive disadvantage in an increasingly global economy. Of course like any good profit maximizing firm will do, companies operating under the specter of an increased cost structure will look to reduce that cost structure. Most notably you can expect much of manufacturing processes to be outsourced or simply moved to those areas of the world not under the same restrictions. In other words those 140 "developing" countries will be doing the work that would otherwise be done here...and done without the restrictions the treaty seeks to impose.

It is unquestionably to everyone's benefit to explore actions that will reduce emissions that may contribute to global warming, or pollution in general. The question is which actions should actually be undertaken; and the Kyoto treaty is certainly not one of them.

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