The G8 & World Youth Day

1) The results from the recent G8 conference is that President Bush has been right all along about the global warming situation and how best to address it—with technology and involving all of the countries of the world who are major polluters, which includes India and China—and it folds in accountability.

This is a much better plan than Kyoto, as this editorial notes. An excerpt.

“The headline was that the nations pledged to cut global greenhouse emissions by half by 2050. Yet for the first time, the G-8 also agreed that any meaningful climate program would have to involve industrializing nations like China and India. For the first time, too, the G-8 agreed that real progress will depend on technological advancements. And it agreed that the putative benefits had to justify any brakes on economic growth.

“In other words, the G-8 signed on to what has been the White House approach since 2002. The U.S. has relied on the arc of domestic energy programs now in place, like fuel-economy standards and efficiency regulations, along with billions in subsidies for low-carbon technology. Europe threw in with the central planning of the Kyoto Protocol -- and the contrast is instructive. Between 2000 and 2006, U.S. net greenhouse gas emissions fell 3%. Of the 17 largest world-wide emitters, only France reduced by more.”

2) World Youth Day in Australia is next week and this posting on Mercator Net addresses the significant response of young people to Pope Benedict. An excerpt.

“The celebration of World Youth Day, which must be the largest gathering of young people on the planet, begins next week in Sydney. It is expected to draw 500,000 people from Australia and around the world. At its centre is Pope Benedict XVI.

“To understand why an 81-year-old cleric has such pulling power with the younger set, MercatorNet interviewed Dr Tracey Rowland, whose book Ratzinger's Faith: The Theology of Pope Benedict XVI, has just been published by Oxford University Press. According to Sydney’s Cardinal George Pell, "It is a sign of the times and a portent of the future that this excellent volume was written by a young married woman" well on her way to "becoming Australia's leading theologian".”

“MercatorNet: Benedict XVI is 81 and doesn't have the charisma of his predecessor as Pope, John Paul II. But it is said that he draws bigger crowds and that people respond warmly to him? Why is that, do you think?

“Rowland: In Rome it is said that the young people came to see John Paul II but that they come to listen to Benedict. The two pontiffs are definitely different personalities. John Paul II wanted to be an actor before he became a priest, but Benedict only ever wanted to be a priest. One was very much at home on the stage, the other is more at home in a university common room but both in their own way have been great communicators.”