LOST: Backdoor Kyoto

October 4, 2007

There are many serious objections to LOST, but one of the chief is that it provides a backdoor route to implementing UN environmental treaties, including the Kyoto protocol.  

 

Here's how I think it would work. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere will increase the acidity of the oceans as some of the added CO2 is absorbed by the oceans. Some biological scientists have predicted dire consequences from increasing acidification. (These effects, by the way, are a direct effect of more CO2 and are unrelated to whether or not CO2 causes any global warming.)

 

Complaints could be filed with one of the international tribunals created by LOST. If the tribunal decided that CO2 emissions were damaging the oceans, then the tribunal could decide that those emissions must be reduced. While most countries would probably just give lip service to this edict, such a response is not possible in the U. S.

 

According to the Constitution, ratified treaties have the same force as the Constitution. Under our citizen lawsuit provisions, a private citizen, such as an environmental pressure group, could then go to federal court and force the federal government to enforce the ruling of the LOST tribunal. The ruling could go far beyond the emissions reduction targets and timetables in the Kyoto Protocol.