Out of step?

On 16th February, the Kyoto protocol finally comes into force, and fact which will be cause for much rejoicing among greenish people everywhere. In fact, this protocol is likely to be merely a barrier to economic growth, with a barely-perceptible effect on global temperatures. Bjorn Lomborg has made this case against it much more eloquently and authoritatively than I can. Now, on Kyoto-eve, Rosemary Righter also strongly criticizes this rigid and ineffective instrument of policy in today's Times (see link). Read it and weep...

The sooner the world's policy-makers realise that Kyoto is a dead-end, the better. This realisation may come when rapidly growing economies such as China, India and Brazil thank the currently-developed world for politely slowing its economic growth to enable them to catch up, but decline to follow our example. It may come as evidence builds up that average temperatures are not, in fact, inexorably rising around the world. Or there may just be an acknowledgement that the ability to model one small factor in global climate brings us no closer to understanding the major cycles which take the world in and out of Ice Ages. Whatever the catalyst, the sooner we start adapting to change rather than trying vainly to prevent it, the better off we will all be.