Oil price is a sign of global health for the environment  Type:
Think Pieces Written by Dr Eamonn Butler | Monday 4 October 2004
Dr Eamonn Butler takes a closer look at the Kyoto agreement and
what it means for the world. He questions whether the expensive
agreement is a worthwhile way to solve the global warming
problem and suggests that we could be doing plenty of other
things to tackle the issue which are far cheaper.  Russia has
signed up to the Kyoto agreement and oil now costs $50 and more
a barrel. But counter-intuitively, the Russian decision is bad
news for the world's long-term environment, health and economy -
while the oil price is actually rather cheering.  The media
coverage of Russia's long debate on Kyoto reminds me of the 1962
apocalypse movie, The Day the Earth Caught Fire, which closes
with a printworker at the Daily Express waiting to learn whether
the front page should read "World Doomed" or "World Saved".
After months of saying "World Doomed", the papers this week were
suddenly saying "