Beyond Kyoto - Before Obama

"Kyoto" is the title for the world agreement to cut carbon emissions in order to stem the tide of global warming. However, it has many critics and has had difficulty getting off the ground. Google it to find the details. However, I bring it up because President Obama spoke at the UN today and mentioned that his Administration has done more in 9 months than has been done in the 8 years before to address carbon emissions. I honestly can't figure this guy out. Does he really just think no one knows what happened before he was inaugurated? Well, on one blog I came across a link that I found very interesting. It is an article from 2005 that discusses some then-current actions taken by the Bush Administration to address "Kyoto", but in a pro-growth, low-tax, multi-lateral fashion. Here's the link. The article starts:

"In a surprise move that caught Europe's smug moralists and the environmental movement's noisy extremists flatfooted, the United States announced in Vientiane, Laos, last week that it was joining five other nations - China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia -- in a new pact that offers a refreshing and effective alternative route to tackling the problem of climate change.

While given short shrift by the puzzled media, this is a big deal, in many ways.

First, it breaks the climate-change deadlock. This is the agreement that responsible scientists and public officials have been seeking since the failure of the Kyoto Protocol became evident at the global warming conclave in Delhi two years ago. Call it "Beyond Kyoto" - Way Beyond Kyoto...."