Good news for the environment

Some good news on the environmental front: the US Senate has rejected a measure calling for mandatory greenhouse gas limits (see here and here for why this is good) and President Bush has been talking up nuclear energy (finally).

Europeans meanwhile seem to have completely lost what little is left of their minds: as evidence emerges that European countries are totally unable to keep to the Kyoto targets, and that European industry is in crisis because of high energy prices, the EU announces that it wants to cut energy consumption by 20% by 2020.

Is this a joke? How difficult can it possibly be to understand that the insistence on limiting energy and carbon dioxide, which are essential for the economy and for life and plant growth, respectively, is stupid, and damaging even to the environment? The enormous cost of these operations (which, by the way, have very limited results) takes away the resources that are necessary to actually solve our environmental problems, through research and technology, not to mention the positive effects that a slightly warmer atmosphere will probably bring.