Kyoto Failure?

                A recent video about how countries are attempting to work together to reduce emissions can be found at pbs.org.  The focus of this video was on the Kyoto Protocol, its effectiveness, and if it will be followed up by any other sort of climate agreement.  The Kyoto Protocol has been mostly ineffectual.  Many of the countries that pledged to lower their emissions have actually increased the amount of carbon that they produce the United States and Canada being two of those.  A few countries have been able to accomplish this goal, specifically the majority of those in the European Union.  The Kyoto Protocol was meant to legally bind the countries that signed it so that there would be penalties if they failed.  With the deadline of Kyoto coming up in December 2012 and the vast majority of the countries who signed it having increased their emissions, it is beginning to look like a failure.  The video addressed what options the world faces and their consequences. 

                The overall world temperature is projected to increase eleven degrees by the end of this century.  The only way that we can prevent this from happening is if we can somehow reverse the trend of increasing emissions and reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere.  I’m not really sure what specific theme to connect this to in my Sustainable Development class because it pretty much connects to all of them.  The problems addressed in this video are the major symptoms caused by the subjects we have studied.  Global Warming can be blamed on many different things; politics, mountaintop removal, the economic structure, environmental limits, and the modern definition of progress.  We have addressed all these in my class and I am now beginning to understand how they fit together, causing these monstrous problems like global warming.  Politics get in the way of governmental cooperation.  No government wants to reduce their emissions if it means lowering their GDP.  This in itself is a problem partially caused by what we consider progress.  Instead of focusing on raising the standard of living, we look only to consumption and GDP.  In this way many of our problems are connected.  We could easily reduce emissions, lower our dependence on foreign oil, and improve our economy by investing in more sustainable technology and lowering subsidies on oil products.  The reason that we haven’t done this is because the oil and coal companies are already so incredibly powerful.  They can lobby the government and prosecute any who get in their way, any who promotes cleaner alternative energy. 

                Because of these problems the world has not solved its global warming crisis.  Instead of working together to face the world’s greatest problem we sit around and argue about it.  Almost no one wants to extend the Kyoto protocol and in my opinion it wouldn’t really matter if it was extended.  The Kyoto Protocol is and always has been a way for political leaders to appease the people who do want change.  Governments are simply going through the motions of doing something simply so they can claim that they are taking steps to mend the environmental problems when in truth they are doing nothing.  Talk doesn’t save the environment, on action can, but all we have done so far is talk (specifically argue). 

                The fact that most nations have done next to nothing about carbon emissions does not surprise me.  Politics has almost always been more about showmanship than any real action.  While I do hope that something good comes out of the Kyoto Protocol and that it gets extended in a way that will actually be effective, I rather pessimistic in my opinions of its success.  It is simply human nature to procrastinate until the last second then to do a mediocre job or to hide the problem instead of actually fixing anything. 

                Lastly, was the video biased in any way?  It seemed to me that this video presented many of the facts about the Kyoto Protocol and its possible extension.  It stated the European Union’s eagerness to extend Kyoto very plainly and the statistics of how emissions have changed since 1997.  The video did try to blame political will on the problems with reducing emissions.  It stated that the United States simply could not unite in any way to reduce emissions.  I agree with the opinions of the video.  They tried to present most of the facts in an unbiased manner, but they obviously see many of the attempts at slowing and reducing climate change as ineffective.

“Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground.”

                In their October/November issue The Appalachian Voice featured a section titled “The Coal Report.”  The two pages that “The Coal Report” took up in the independent newspaper contained multiple short articles linked to coal mining and governmental policy.  One story in particular caught my eye.  “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground.”  The title itself was what drew my attention to the short, two paragraph article.  In the Ancient Sunshine theme of my sustainable development course we had discussed mountaintop removal and the dangers it presents to us and our environment.  Mountaintop removal has destroyed many communities by making the people’s land toxic and unlivable.  By forcing people off of their land mountaintop removal has also utterly destroyed their culture, their way of life.  The reason that this specific article made me look twice was because it wasn’t just a group of people worried about their homes and way of life, they were worried about their history. 

                The article describes a new community center and museum that is meant to showcase many historic artifacts and documents from the 1921 coal miner uprising which happened only two miles from the site the museum now sits on.   The second section of the article simply states that the community is asking the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to look into the Camp Branch mine permit that threatens at least one important portion of the battlefield.  I found this extremely significant because it shows another aspect of how mining can hurt a community. 

                Considering the location of the Blair Mountain community, it seems safe to assume that the inhabitants have probably seen the destruction of mountaintop removal first hand in other parts of West Virginia.  They have heard stories like the ones we studied in class: stories of sludge ponds breaking their dams and drowning innocent children, or of cancers killing 16 year old children.  Now they face the problem head on.  A strip mine has a permit to mine on land that includes a part of their history that has shaped who they see themselves as today.  It is not the giant devil-being that we know of as mountaintop removal, just a simple strip mine.  In many ways it is far preferable to the barbarous practice that destroys whole mountains, but that is also the point of what I am saying.  Any type of modern day mining causes destruction in some way.  It could be underground mining that kills workers slowly with black lung, strip mining, or the diabolical mountaintop removal. 

                To put it simply, “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground,” presents two new sides to the story that I didn’t really get from the readings I did for class.  The simple one is that it demonstrates strip mining’s ability to destroy.  Strip mining has properties that, while extremely detrimental, are severely overlooked because they pale in comparison to the effects of mountaintop removal.   The more complex aspect of the story is a simple fact that it presents to us.  Our culture is very much tied to and developed by our surroundings and our history.  When any part of this is changed or destroyed, so is a piece of who we are.  That is why the people of the Blair Mountain Community are trying to stop the strip mine.  If the Camp Branch mine destroys part of a local historic battlefield, it also destroys a part of the communities past, a part of them. 

                As for the accuracy of the article, “Blair Mountain Community Fights to Keep Mining History Above Ground,” was a simple presentation of facts.  It told us that a community center and museum had opened near a battle ground and that the people there wanted to preserve that land against a strip mine.  There is a slight bias in the article leaning in favor of the people opposed to the mine as the article only states their intention and actions.  Other than that, it is well written and to the point.