bal emission standards (GES) that would reduce the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere and, hopefully, prevent or at least retard the trend toward global warming (Bessieres, 2001). It was this issue that the Kyoto Protocol addressed.
There are several arguments in favor of GES that the U.S. should respond to in a positive manner. According to Michel Bessieres (2001), an environmental scientist with the United Nations, the promulgation and enforcement of GES will help to reduce temperature increases and to prevent the development of an environment in which crop failure becomes commonplace, certain diseases (e.g., malaria and cholera) are able to spread opportunistically, and in which the North/South economic and quality of life divide will inevitably increase. Manimoli Dinesh (2000) suggested that a second reason for instituting the GES is that a finite and non-renewable energy resource - oil made from petroleum products - will be conserved and scientists will be encouraged to develop alternative, less invasive energy sources.
Another reason for implementing and enforcing GES was identified by Robert Matthews (1999), who argued that a failure to control C02 emissions now has the potential to spur an even more rapid increase in Earth's temperature in shorter order than is currently predicted; such an increase could have the effect of setting into motion a "climate flip" that would potentially destroy (or at least seriously damage) the production of needed foodstuff to support the world's population and lead to other climatic dislocations negatively impacting upon life.
In the first instance, Bessieres (2001) makes the case that
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