Despite what David Johnson says in “No To Kyoto,” the United States should still ratify the treaty. First, Mr. Johnson’s analysis that carbon dioxide has a “negligible” effect on global temperature is based on significant faulty assumptions. For example, he pins his entire argument upon a single scientific particularity of carbon dioxide actually being in the atmosphere during the ice age. However, this idea fails to acknowledge the global consensus of over 100 scientific organizations that agree substantial global warming is occurring now as a result of excessive carbon dioxide.

Amazingly, his argument also actually validates the theory of warming. Many scientists now believe that warming could melt the polar ice caps yielding substantial global climate variances actually leading to a massive global cooling trend, which could have caused the ice age. Johnson also ignores the “Asteroid Theory” regarding what started the ice age, which would have put so much dust in the atmosphere, absolutely no sunlight would have penetrated through to prove or disprove the greenhouse effect.

Second, Johnson fails to understand the positive economic effects of the protocol. Signing the treaty will surely facilitate a kind of “greening” of businesses towards environmentally clean technology and innovation. Competition among businesses would thus increase both domestically and internationally to assist in meeting protocol standards increasing economic growth. Also, environmental damage from global warming from flooding alone would precipitate a crisis that would certainly destroy the global economy. Former U.S. Sen. George Mitchell has even claimed the effects of global warming would rival that of a nuclear war.

Overall, because the theory of global warming is so widely accepted and because the Kyoto Protocol is actually beneficial to the world economies, it should immediately be ratified.