Kyoto? Who cares?

The Kyoto protocol took effect today without the United States, which just happens to be one of the major contributors to the climate change problem. Here’s a point which will undoubtedly not change the Bush Administration’s (or the US Senate’s) mind, but might give a few of them pause:

Those who remain in denial about the seriousness of global climate change must now defend a truly ludicrous position. They must argue that the rest of the world is suffering from a mass delusion, a fantasy so powerful that over a hundred nations have independently fallen for the same alarmist myth; and furthermore that the 35 developed nations facing binding commitments under Kyoto have voluntarily agreed to measures that would severely damage their economies all for nothing.

Good luck persuading any sensible individual with that argument.
Further reading: Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles Mackay, originally published in 1841.