9/28 - Research Response

While I had heard how large the Waxman-Markey bill is, it didn’t really resonate until I opened up the document and attempted to look at it. Just from looking at the table of contents, which was more then 10 pages, it was evident how detailed this bill is. I did not get too far into the bill, because I am not well versed in the legislative lingo used and it was a very daunting and overwhelming task to try and make sense of even some of the bill. It is kind of scary to actually see the bill and know that is what our congressmen are looking at, and wondering how much of that bill is actually read by anyone who votes.
I did have better luck researching the COP15 conference coming up this December. I found it interesting that it was difficult to determine from the COP15 website what exactly was going to be discussed at the conference, or what the purpose of the conference was. The “About COP15” link on the website provides you with information about who can participate and how, but not about what will be discussed at the conference. I’m not sure why that is, fortunately other site had that information available.
From what I understand, one of the main issues at the conference is going to be the follow up of the Kyoto Protocol. That act, which expires in 2012, was an international agreement for developed countries to cut their greenhouse gas emissions. With the expiration coming quickly, there needs to be some new plan which will hopefully be even stricter then the Kyoto Protocol.
What I find fascinating is the approach to legislating the particulars that will be discussed at the conference. For example, how do you determine what percentage of greenhouse gases must be cut by what time period? It is all of these numbers that need to be decided upon, but there seems to be very little guiding principles for which to make these decisions. Clearly science is telling us that we need to vastly reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, carbon footprint, etc. But science can’t tell us how exactly how much must be reduced by what date. Thus it falls to the politicians to negotiate between the science and essentially the business interests, which represent the other perspective.
This task seems similar to the one discussed in our last class, of deciding how much pollution is too much and attempting to evaluate health risks and those many other factors. However in this case, the problems and consequences are all magnified because it is on an international level, thus effecting the entire world.