Here's something the mainstream media are guaranteed to ignore: "The biggest emissions-cutting projects under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming have directly contributed to an increase in the production of gases that destroy the ozone layer, a senior U.N. official says."

Didn't hear about this? Well, how could you, for although Reuters published its article on the subject Monday, no other mainstream press outlet thought it was newsworthy.

Not one!

Alas, there were even more worrisome revelations in this Reuters piece that folks like soon-to-be-Dr. Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio would find very inconvenient if media actually did their job and reported them (h/t Benny Peiser, emphasis added throughout):

In addition, evidence suggests that the same projects, in developing countries, have deliberately raised their emissions of greenhouse gases only to destroy these and therefore claim more carbon credits, said Stanford University's Michael Wara.

[...]

At the heart of the clash is a carbon trading scheme under Kyoto, worth $5 billion last year, whereby rich countries pay poorer ones to cut greenhouse gas emissions on their behalf, called the clean development mechanism (CDM).

The most popular type of project has been to destroy a potent greenhouse gas known as HFC 23, one of a family of so-called hydrofluorocarbons, in China and India.

The problem is that HFC 23 is a waste product in the manufacture of a refrigerant gas which damages the ozone layer, called HCFC 22, and chemical plants have used their CDM profits to ramp up production.

"This is certainly one of the major drivers now in the increase in production of HCFC 22," Rajendra Shende, director of ozone issues at the United Nations Environment Programme, which administers the Montreal Protocol, said on Monday.

For those unfamiliar, the Montreal Protocol was a treaty first created in 1987, and eventually signed by 191 nations, to phase out the international production of substances known to cause ozone depletion. As such, it appears the Kyoto Protocol is stepping on the toes of the Montreal Protocol, and media couldn't care less.

Nor are they interested in the carbon credit scam this has spawned:

CDM projects which destroy HFC 23 are especially lucrative because the gas is 12,000 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (CO2), although its overall contribution to climate change is far less because CO2 is much more common.

As a result, destroying HFC 23 spawns far more money-spinning carbon credits than any other way of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

[...]

The environmental credentials of HFC 23 projects are further undermined by evidence that chemical plants in China have deliberately "tuned" their factories to produce more of what should be a waste product, to make more money under CDM.

Chemical plants participating in CDM make twice as much HFC 23 as a proportion of the actual end product refrigerant than those in rich countries which can't participate in the scheme, said Michael Wara, research fellow at Stanford University.

"It doubles the flow of carbon credits, but there are real questions whether it's hot air," Wara said. The carbon credits are being used as carbon offsets to allow companies to continue to produce greenhouse gases in Europe.

"They've tuned the plants to double the amount of HFC 23 you would normally produce, for example in Europe or the United States. All CDM participant plants came in at 3 percent (HFC 23 versus HCFC 22), the Kyoto Protocol maximum, versus 1.5 percent in countries that can't participate in the scheme."

Add it all up, and you find that the ozone layer is being negatively impacted while developing nations like China increase their emissions of GHGs only to get rich selling carbon credits to companies in Europe so that they can "offset" the GHGs they're releasing into the air.

Put more simply, GHG emissions are actually increasing as a result of all this, while the ozone layer is being destroyed.

Any questions as to why our media won't report this? Wouldn't a truly "green" media trying to advance truly "green" concepts want to disseminate information concerning flaws in the Kyoto Protocol that are actually having a negative environmental impact? Isn't that newsworthy?

Or, is the environment really much less important to our press representatives than advancing the manmade global warming myth along with socialist economic "solutions" they deem are beneficial in the long run regardless of the apparent lack of environmental benefit?

As the latter seems likely, it appears media are taking quite a Machiavellian approach to their journalistic responsibilities, wouldn't you agree?

How disgraceful.

—Noel Sheppard is the Associate Editor of NewsBusters.