Nick, Believe it or not this article is a major breakthrough in green politics. This is the first attempt to draw up a national Carbon budget. You might be right that it was written by a couple of giggling schoolkids but then you would have to ask yourself why it is that greens and green academics have never produced anything like this. The emissions per person line taken by british greens is just pure propaganda because it makes it seem that global burning is caused primarily by america. But america cleans up a lot of its waste through Reforestation. It’s Treeless countries like britain who are the real cause of global burning because they do absolutely nothing to clear up their waste. You complain about energy to area comparisons ­ what you mean by area is the Earth. Doesn’t the Earth matter to you greens anymore? It would be nice to get the facts and the figures for other countries and I’ll do so as and when I can. Why don’t you provide some facts and figures. Alienate moderates? Now there’s a real crime.

The mundi club cares. I agree it is surprising there weren't more demonstrations against the Animal terrorism industry over the foot and mouth mass murders. The media's been completely behind the pharmers. The pharmers have just treated these Animals like lumps of meat and yet, when they're interviewed by the media, they start sentimentalizing about "their" Animals. They pretend to love these Animals as if they were members of their own family in order to win public sympathy - whilst slaughtering these Animals because they've got a cold. Also they wouldn't slaughter these Animals if they had to buy replacements themselves. They only do so because they're given colossal subsidies to buy replacements.

The mundi club has covered the foot and mouth epidemic in detail

I can't as yet state with much confidence that britain's contribution to global burning is bigger than america's but taking a comment made by fred pearce this certainly seems to be the case. George bush is of course no friend of the Earth but the point that needs to be made is that for most of the cliumate negotiations during the 1990s it has been europe that has been blocking an agreement not america. The idea that america is the bad guy and europe is the good guy is just livestock propaganda. Take a parallel case if you're having trouble with this analysis. Global negotiations over banning stock market corruption. Europe is blaming america for not taking tough and stringent actions over insider dealing on the global stock markets. Now come on. We know that america has far more laws and far tougher penalties than any european country especially the brutish. My god robert maxwell stole £450 MILLION pounds with the collusion of many brutish politicians none of whom will ever see the inside of her majesty's nick and yet these are the same politicians who, in the senario above, would be demanding that america takes tough action against insider dealing. Get real. Europe is full of environmental hypocrites and is led in this area by the greatest lying, cheating, hypocrite of all tony blair.

Anyway let’s forget the dispute over the figures and look at the assumptions underlying the figures.

Firstly, if we compare C02 emissions then america is far and away the biggest polluter. If we also include methane then america is still the biggest polluter but less so than before because europe releases a lot of methane. When we include measures to combat cfcs the gap between america and europe decreases even more markedly because whilst america made considerable efforts to reduce emissions of cfcs europe did not. There are 40 odd greenhouse gases. If all of them were measured then it may well be that america would still be the biggest polluter but far less so than comparing just one gas. It’s just statistics. Europe wanted global negotiations over the greenhouse effect to concentrate on one gas because it put them in a favourable light whereas america wanted more gases included because it put them in a far less unfavourable light.

Secondly, and much more importantly, since the start of the global burning issue, greens have been demanding reductions in Carbon emissions but have refused to develop Carbon budgets to determine the net quantities of Carbon going into the atmosphere because europe is far less Forested than america and greens refuse to support Reforestation. It is scientifically absurd looking just at emissions and not including Carbon absorption. Why shouldn’t america defend itself by demanding that Forests should be taken into account? It is vital that Forests are taken into account in country’s contribution to global burning because this is the only way we have of saving Forests.

What you have presented above is per capita figures. This is anthropocentric. It ignores the state of the Earth’s Forests and thus the Earth’s life support system. What matters isn’t per capita figures but whether countries are able to absorb their emissions and tidy up if they cause a mess. Brutish governments are so used to decimating the country’s Forests and dumping their mess around the world they can’t quite appreciate there are any ecological limits. This is a path which brutish greens seem determine to follow.

There is no green organization in brutland which has a definition of sustainability and the reason for this is their emissions' fixation. Neither greenpeace, friends of the Earth, wwf, nor the global commons institute have such a definition. If they don't have a definition of sustainability then how can they say what is sustainable or not? The only organization that does is the mundi club. See http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCcarbon/13c08d_f.html#1.7.2.2

There are many greens who live in urban areas but most of them want to leave the cities for a highly subsidized PHARM in the countryside. In other words, the green movement is a front for the organic PHARMING industry and its leading figures are primarily aristocrats disenchanted with modern pharming who want to go back to the days when people doffed their caps to the village squire. The chances of the green party combatting global burning when they support pharmers is NEGLIGIBLE.

Quite strangely, since the start of the campaign over global burning, scientists and greens have rarely mentioned pharmers' role in global burning. They have refused to condemn the global pharming industry even though there is little doubt that it is the prime cause of the destabilization of the climate. It is almost as if they believe that pharmers have no impact whatsoever on the climate so there's no need to ebven mention pharmers in such debates.

It's easy to appreciate that scientists and greens have been deliberately trying to mislead the public about the cause of global burning because of their silence over pharmers' role in provoking global burning. To give but one example. Jeremy leggett, formerly of greenpeace, has written a book about climate negotiations in which he exposes the antics of the global climate coalition on virtually every page but there's no mention of the pharming industry anywhere in the book!

There may be many people who would find the statement that the pharming industry is the prime cause of global burning somewhat surprising but they should also find the idea that pharming makes no contribution to global burning even more far fetched and yet this is the implication of scientists' and greens' silence.

How many times have you heard scientists and greens condemning the pharming industry for contributing to global burning?

Pharmers responsibilities for provoking global burning are covered in http://www.geocities.com/carbonomics/MCtfirm/10tf13c_f.html#2.4

After three years of a freeze on public spending many people were hoping that in the fourth year there would be considerable expenditures on pensioners, nurses, hospitals, education, urban areas. Unfortunately what happened was that all the money the labour government had saved up over these three years ended up being spent on pharmers because of the bse epidemic, september 2000 fuel tax insurrection, the autumn 2000 floods, and the winter 2001 foot and mouth epidemic. To be the main recipients of government savings even though they brought these disasters on themselves is appalling.

The Gargantuan Subsidies given to the Landowning Pharming Elite at the Expense of the NHS, Education, Pensioners, and Urban Areas.

What’s the point of voting labour after they’ve spent four years piling on resources to pharmers whilst neglecting all other sections of society? What the point of voting at all - all political parties support massive subsidies to pharmers - even the greens.

As far as you are concerned the only factor that should be of relevance to climate negotiations is anthropogenic emissions. This means ignoring the absorption of Carbon by Forests, the soil, Wildlife, chemical weathering, as well as the albedo effect of Forests, the heat effect of Forests, etc. Greens and environmentalists are supposed to be concerned precisely about such things and yet you say we shouldn't take any interest in them. Presumably you take this view because, as the global commons institute argues, it would then be possible to equalize Carbon emissions throughout the world. You argue "What counts is what a country's human population releases." Does this mean that you take into account only Carbon emissions from fossil fuels - not the burning of Forests, crop stubble, peat, etc? You argue "Absorption of CO2 should not be credited to countries at all, since the absorption is done by Earth's living resources, which we human all share." What this means is that it doesn't matter to you if all the Forests in country A have been chopped down whilst all the Forests in country B have been protected - the people in country A would still be entitled to the same emissions' allowance as those in country B? If this is the case then the strategy you are pursuing has nothing whatsoever to do with environmentalism. Even worse is that you're providing absolutely no incentive for people/societies to preserve their Forests/wilderness areas/Wildlife. In effect you are encouraging people to burn down Forests/kill off Wildlife because they could derive an economic benefit from it and it wouldn't count against their allowance of Carbon emissions. You're letting the biggest Earth-wrecking nations off the hook. It seems to me that a strategy in which all oomans receive the same emissions' allowance no matter how destructive oomans are they, is a recipe for an ecological disaster. I know the global commons institute is promoting an emissions'-only strategy in which it regards the oceans and the atmosphere as"commons" but i didn't realize it also includes the land, Forests, all natural processes, the Earth's Photosynthetic capacity i.e. the Earth's life support system. I'm shocked by this. You're strategy is not interested in the Earth's life support system, nor are you concerned about all the contributions being made to global burning - your sole concern is an abstraction, a single factor, Carbon emissions. Dave puts its very succinctly,"The whole picture has to be seen, not just little pieces that can lead to an incorrect conclusion and hence, misdirected actions." So, what happens then when you have equalized per capita Carbon emissions around the world only to find that your complete disinterest in understanding global burning has triggered off a global burning disaster? All that your emissions-only approach amounts to is a mathematical device for bringing about global equality between oomans .. you just hope that achieving this equality will also at the same time stabilize the climate. You are more concerned with global equality than with stabilizing the climate. I've been criticizing the inadequacies of the emissions-only strategy for the last seven years or so. If the cgi and the rest of the emissions'-only brigade had stated that what they were doing was presenting only a mathematical technique for bringing about global equality between oomans i could quite easily have accepted that this approach had some merit. However but what the emissions'-only brigade have also been doing is defending their strategy by criticizing/scorning Reforestation as if they weren't in the slightest bit interested in the Earth's life support system or in sustainability. And yet they still pretend to be green! What sort of environmentalist is it that seeks to bring about global equality whilst denouncing Reforestation and the Earth's life support system? Since participating in this e-group i'm really pleased that other people besides myself are beginning to realize, at long last, that the emissions'-only brigade have been dismissing Reforestation as if it was a complete irrelevance and that there is a substanbtial truth behind my allegation that they are the greenless greens. Since bush kicked the kyoto treaty into touch the emissions'-only strategy is dead. I say well done george. Even if all country's around the world supported kyoto it would never have been able to combat global burning because of its absurd dismissal of Reforestation. Climate negotiations over the last decade have been a farce so george has to be applauded for having the decency to refuse to keep up the hypocrisy. As i've been arguing for the past couple of years, the emissions-only strategy has got nowhere over the last decade and it isn't going anywhere. It's dead. Deceased. Gone to meet its maker. The only option left is a more comprehensive strategy which takes Reforestation into account i.e. a global Carbon budget. But the cgi will never change because they're all hard bitten propagandists from the anarcho/tribo/localist mould i.e. people who believe they can protect their own part of the climate in their own area without taking notice of what the rest of the world is doing. We

Can't do anything about Forests because they could never absorb all current Carbon Emissions. "I understand that an average tree sequesters about 13 pounds of CO2 a year. The IPCC estimates that an excess of up to 35 billion tons of CO2 will be added to the atmosphere over the next century. That will take one heck of a lot more trees, and forests, to soak up all that extra carbon. We better get busy. Or, alternatively, we could reduce the number (and size) of the GHG inaudible bombs going off on the planet on a daily basis." (MT Neuman 9.5.2001 Climate Concern 2201). Mtneuman writes that the average tree sequesters 13 pounds of CO2 a year. Ok. So how much Carbon did it absorb during the year? How much was released back into the atmosphere? How much ended up in the soil? How much ended up in the Wildlife which depends on the Tree? How much ended up being pumped through the Trees' roots into the soil and then triggering off rock weathering and the permanent removal of Carbon on the ocean floor? Unless scientists take account of all of these factors then statements that Trees aborb only 13 pounds of CO2 a year are pretty useless. It is wrong to assume that all those who support Reforestation do so as a means of avoiding reductions in Carbon emissions. What should count is a country's Carbon budget - the difference between what it absorbs and what it releases into the atmosphere. Global equality is possible only on the basis of equal Carbon budgets not equal Carbon emissions.