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Dirk Flinthart finds that hot air rises, especially in a greenhouse

By Dirk Flinthart - posted Thursday, 15 August 2002

Errr... what? The political and economic implications of the Kyoto Protocols? Strewth! That concept is funny enough in its own right! Political implications of anything are a crapshoot, and even economists never agree on economics, so what the hell am I supposed to say about economic implications of a set of inadequate pollution controls which will never be implemented anyway? Me with my major in Entomology, of all things. Ask me for the bug's-eye view of the Kyoto thingies. Then I might have something to say!

Still, I suppose I'd better come up with something. Let me just wave the old prognosticator's wand... siddown in the back, dammit: prognostication is still legal in this state, I think. Oh. Okay: here's one: Ahem... 'Quorn' will not become any more popular as a result of the Kyoto Protocols, but due to the non-implementation of those protocols (and their basic ineffectiveness in the first place) a lot more people are gonna wind up eating the stuff. Bleah!
http://www.cspinet.org/new/200208121.html

'Quorn'. Who comes up with a name like that, anyhow? Surely a moment of genius in the history of marketing...

Anyway, then there's that 'Asian Brown Cloud' thing.
http://nandotimes.com/healthscience/v-text/story/495673p-3952940c.html

At first, I thought I had the answer. The obvious cause of a giant brown cloud over Asia was clearly the huge methane output of all those cows in India. I mean, we're talking a billion or more cattle, farting away all day long. No wonder the pollution cloud is brown, I thought. Then I found out that cows don't pump methane the way people do. They burp it instead, and it's not brown and stanky at all...

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0102/S00127.htm

But you know, the Kyoto Protocols don't say a damned thing about cows anyway. So my plan to create millions of Aged Care Facilities For Sacred Cows across India, managed by Bronwyn Bishop and funded by McDonalds, is doomed to come to naught. Pity. However, the problem has not gone unnoticed. Those cunning devils down at CSIRO Central have noticed something about Skippy which is rather different from Bessy...

http://www.pe.com/columns/jeffgirod/PE_ENT_ngirod09.a0c08.html

Anyway, the whole Asian Brown Cloud thing is a storm in a teacup. One day, what with all the stars and galaxies being constantly in motion, the solar system is going to pass through something like this:

http://www.danielsen.com/jokes/spacebeer.txt

And what are your Kyoto Protocols going to do about that, eh? Nothing in them about a rain of beer, I notice.

My personal suspicion is that George Dubya doesn't give a damn about the Kyoto Protocols. In fact, I think he's based most of his environmental thinking around this movie:

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/gvssmog/

It's the only rational explanation I can come up with. By the way, while visiting that excellent site, I must urge you to please, please play the song...

http://www.badmovies.org/movies/gvssmog/gvssmog-song.wav

It won't enhance your understanding of the political and economic repercussions of the Kyoto Protocols any more than this column did ... but it's fun in a horrid way. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'd better explore the rest of that website.