GUEST,petr - Just one or two points regarding your post

"...global warming. It is in fact accepted by most of the worlds scientific community." - Incorrect, plainly not so, it is a subject that is "hotly" disputed by the worlds scientific community with a 50-50 split at the moment.


"The world largest greenhouse gas contributor and polluter is the US, and while China Brazil and India are excluded from Kyoto historically those countries did not create the problem - the west did. That is the US and Europe." - Who did what in the past is irrelevant, what is done is done, can't do anything about it. If you are looking to future remedies China, Brazil and India must be brought into it. Since Kyoto the signatories have failed miserabley to meet the targets that they themselves set. Whereas the US has made progress. Oh by the way Petr even if the Kyoto targets were met it would reduce the temperature by 0.07 degrees centigrade - you would even be able to measure it. Kyoto is a dead duck, and it never was a solution, at best a feel-good sticking plaster. GWB and the American approach was the correct one - attack the problem from the technological side of things and include all - it has produced results for them.

"..signing Kyoto would not obviously have prevented Katrina, but the evidence is that hurricanes have been increasing in intensity as well as frequency (this turned out to be a record year)." There is no evidence at all linking this years hurricane season to global warming - intensity and frequency of hurricanes is cyclical.

"it didnt help that the bulk of the National Guard was off in Iraq either.." Except for the fact that the bulk of the National Guard are/were not "off in Iraq" as you seem to think.

Your figures regarding temperature differences and effects are all relatives not absolutes. Nobody can plan for worst-case scenario in relation to potential natural disasters, if they did life on earth would be impossible. For example to put plans into effect to ensure that people are safe from the potential natural disaster of the super volcano under Yellowstone, you would have to evacuate most, if not all of the USA, build extremely vast and robust geodomes and power them with their own nuclear power stations. The prospect is ridiculous it just would not happen. Alternatively you try and find a way to relieve the pressure in the chamber that is building beneath Yellowstone.

If the planning and equipment and management were all so poor, how come it all worked when Rita struck a couple of weeks later - couldn't be because people did do what they were told to do when they were told to do it. And that plans in place were implimented.