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Travis Tokarek
Calgary, Alberta, Canada
Canada

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What will be the long term effect of Canada from abandoning its Kyoto Protocol Commitment? Have we lost our will?

Up until now, the only saving grace we had was our cap on Greenhouse emissions. Not only as a means to protect our environment, but as a means to LIMIT consumption. Our society has a thirst for energy, and a thirst for wealth. These are inherit to the human psyche. The more we have the more we will succeed and be "on top". Do we really think we can have 7 billion people "on top"?

We are running things the wrong way! Innovation and science are no longer motivated by creativity and progress but by profit alone.

I am SICK of hearing the question "is there a market for it?"

WHO F#CKING CARES! Do you want your children to embrace personal success and status, or do you want them to grow up with compassion?

Most of the talks I see on here today seem to be about empathy. Everyone agrees the solution to the problem is empathy. Well, I can tell you, MANKIND WILL NEVER EMBRACE EMPATHY AS LONG AS PROFIT IS THE DRIVING FORCE BEHIND HOW WE LIVE OUR LIVES!

Good-bye Canada :( you are losing grips with the quality I loved most about you...

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Varlan Allan 10+
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Dec 6 2011: Travis my viewpoint is that CO2 emissions are not the cause of "global warming" and that I think the bigger issue of the Kyoto Protocol should be dealing with waste management and the 3 R's. There needs to be more support for conservation of resources and a stabilizing of economic forces to where things are sustainable.
One problem I agree with you on is the Greed and Lust for money. (I'm guilty of it as well!) This is one of the driving forces behind Unsustainable practices.

But Steven is also right we must think positively about how to turn things around as anger leads to anger. We need to come up with something more realistic than Kyoto.

Maybe RSS = Resource Sustainability Services where the government offers companies help to discover new technologies for better synergistic company to company solutions that create new things from waste materials and environment cleaning services?
- Travis Tokarek
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  Dec 7 2011: There is substantial evidence that CO2 emissions are the cause of global warming ( I prefer the term climate change). The CO2 cycle is not regulated on human CO2 emissions alone, that much is very true, but the release of CO2 by combustion of hydrocarbons (from humans) is greatly accelerating the natural cycle. I don't think the Kyoto protocol is the solution to emission, because what is done cannot be undone and we will still require energy from the combustion of hydrocarbons. My major concern is that withdrawal from a commitment is implying that there is no benefit to pursuing that commitment. If we withdrawal from the protocol, I feel as though the whole "green movement" will start to diminish. I am just saying, that even though we will benefit economically, I am concerned that Canada will lose focus of innovation for the sake of sustainability. Whether this is in the form of research funding or national pride. I hope I made my concern a bit more clear, and I do appreciate the feedback.
  - Varlan Allan 10+
    
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    Dec 7 2011: Please site the "substantial evidence". And can anyone with any degree of accuracy prove they new what the climate was like 10000 years ago, I suspect highly unlikely considering that even such things as radio carbon dating are considered to be inaccurate estimators of age and climate? The world has been changing for thousands of years, creatures have adapted to these changes. Now, it is no different.
    - Travis Tokarek
      
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      Dec 7 2011: The most substantial evidence stems from work in 1960 by Charles Keeling. This of course is evidence of an increase in CO2 concentrations post-industrial era. The proof of climate change comes from my second source. It is filled with quite a bit more scientific jargon, but shows CO2 concentrations from the last 270,000 years using concentrations locked in ice core samples from the Antarctic (here is a supplement that shows the increase in global temperature with increase in CO2 concentration, http://www.rocketscientistsjournal.com/2006/10/_res/CO2-01.jpg). The keeling curve is incredibly fascinating actually, if you are not interested in reading the article, here is a quick summary in my own words.
      
      Charles Keeling recorded the atmospheric CO2 concentrations from 3 permanent recording stations around the world. His findings, when plotted on a curve, produced a strange pattern, and can be seen in a rather rudimentary way here : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_Carbon_Dioxide-en.svg . This pattern shows seasonal rise and falls and is explained by the change of seasons. In the spring, when plants take in CO2 from the atmosphere and convert it into sugars, there is a trough in the curve, but when fall hits and the leaves are consumed by bacteria and fungi, the released CO2 is reintroduced into the atmosphere. The trend to note though, is not the up and down pattern, but the increasing slope of the overall graph. This is due to human contribution, the proof lies in the superposition of the keeling curve with the ice core data from the antarctic.
      
      http://sio.ucsd.edu/special/Keeling_50th_Anniversary/images/keelling_tellus_1960.pdf
      
      http://www.sciencemag.org/content/283/5408/1712.abstract?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Fischer%252C+H.%252C+M.+Wahlen%252C+J.+Smith%252C+D.+Mastroiani+and+B.+Deck%252C+1999%253A+Ice+core+records+of+atmospheric+CO2+around+the+last+three+glacial+terminations.+Science%252C+283%252C+1712-1714.&searchid=1&F
  - Varlan Allan 10+
    
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    Dec 7 2011: As fellow Canadian I also feel your pride Travis. I'm living in asia and tell everyone about the natural wonder that is Canada. I think the Kyoto Protocol was an important aspect of Canadian pride and it did represent the country as a representative for the Environment. In addition it did assist in the innovation area because it made others come up with cleaner, more efficient ways of doing things. There are other ways you can change it too. Vote! Did you know that only 10% of canadians actually voted in the ruling party. That means 90% of people have very little say because of their "relaxed" political views.
  - Varlan Allan 10+
    
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    Dec 9 2011: Thanks for your supporting evidence Travis.
    My next question is: What is the proof that the human made co2 is the actual cause of the increase temperature and not some other phenomenon such as solar flares, el nino, tectonic movements, deforestation? Just because information coincides does not validate it as the cause.
    - Travis Tokarek
      
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      Dec 10 2011: Greenhouse gases retain infrared radiation that the planet emits. I don't want to say that this is common knowledge, but I don't feel like it is something I need to site a source for.

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