When Mr. Gore and the rest of the U.S. delegation brought the Treaty back to the U.S. Senate for ratification, nearly four years ago, it did not take too many public hearings, or an extensive debate, to realize that a great many scientists in the climate field disputed the Kyoto findings and Gore s publicized fears. Americans should not have to carry the overwhelming share of downsizing their economy for everyone else s benefit. This November s meeting in the Hague was intended to force the U.S., Japan, Australia and Canada to take medicine to ruin their economic health while the rest of the world continued on its merry way. To counter such pressure, the American Farm Bureau Federation and other organizations in Canada and Australia came up with what they saw as a better offer. Since trees, and all forms of plant life, are enormous consumers of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere while giving off oxygen, large countries with great forests and enormous crop acreage should be given environmental credit for thus improving the quality of Earth s atmosphere.
Small countries envy and are very jealous of the bigness of the U.S., Australia and Canada.
They particularly resent the notion that our tens of millions of acres of trees and vast farmland should be allowed to offset America s alleged industrial sins in terms of air pollution. However, the basic Farm Bureau idea made a lot of common sense. The Washington establishment from the White House, USDA and State Department to the Congress, even offered possible financing of a major new conservation reserve and tree planting program to enlarge the amount of our rural acreage devoted to improving the atmosphere. The American people should not be overly disturbed. After all, the thrust of the Treaty was that by 2010, the United States and Japan, along with Western Europe, Australia, Canada and Brazil, would sharply reduce use of the gasoline-powered combustion engine, coal fired electricity consumption and all further exploration for petroleum and natural gas.