Kyoto

The temperatures in Moscow these days are the same as they were 30 years ago in Voronezh -- 250 miles to the south. The city is saving money in winter and doing less environmental damage by using a milder blend of road salt, because of the warmer conditions. At the same time, all of Russia is experiencing an explosion in its tick population. Plagues of locusts have appeared where they never visited before. Flooding becomes ever more commonplace. None of this confirms global warming, much less a human role in global warming -- but the circumstantial evidence is likely to be enough to prod the Russian government into action.

In a victory for common sense, America's top trading partner has become the first country to bail on the Kyoto Protocol before the nearly $7 billion in noncompliance costs comes due next year. Thus ends a pointless and pricey exercise in martyrdom. Having committed to reducing 1990-level carbon emissions by 6 percent, Canada somehow managed to go in the other direction by about a third. Not that anyone in Canada would have noticed by any tangible common-sense measure, except perhaps for all the Canadian plants and trees quietly cheering the abundance of carbon dioxide and overproducing fresh oxygen as a result.

KYOTO, Japan -- Preparing for its 1,200th anniversary, this ancient capital of Japan is trying to burnish its mystique as the repository of old customs and past splendor. But it has to contend with a national inclination to reconstruct everything in a modern way.And, for those who care about the old stuff, it may be too late."Nowhere else will you find such cultural stock," says Tomoyuki Tanabe, Kyoto's mayor.Indeed the Japanese, who tend to be precise about such matters, note that Kyoto, Japan's seventh-largest city and ancient capital, has 10 percent of the country's population but 15 percent of its officially certified "Important Cultural Properties" and 20 percent of the ultra-rare, also officially certified, "National Treasures."

When is the best time to see the cherry blossoms in Kyoto, Japan, before the crowds arrive? Your window is so small that it's almost impossible not to encounter crowds. Because the blossoms are in bloom only about 14 days (usually late March), you're likely to see lots of people at temples, gardens and parks every day enjoying the flowers. If you go, here are some favorite spots in and around Kyoto: Maruyama Park, a public park next to the Yasaka Shrine, features a large weeping cherry tree that is lit up at night.

MOSCOW - Russia took pains yesterday to back away from a top Kremlin aide's remarks that the country would not ratify a landmark accord aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions, stressing that Moscow has yet to make a decision about the international pact. On Tuesday, Andrei Illarionov, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's economic issues adviser, appeared to deal a fatal blow to the controversial 1997 Kyoto Protocol, saying Moscow could not ratify the pact in its current form. The agreement needs Russia's approval to be put into force.

KYOTO, Japan - The icons of Japanese elegance pitter-patter past the ancient temples of Kyoto, turning heads with their porcelain-doll makeup, brilliant-hued silks and steep sandals. And that's where the trouble begins. To the uninitiated - and that includes most Japanese - these visions of traditional splendor look like the increasingly rare Kyoto geisha. But they aren't. In the latest incarnation of experiential tourism, blushing teens, bank tellers, nostalgic grandmothers and other workaday women are flocking to Kyoto and paying anywhere from $40 to $300 or more to undergo a "geisha transformation."

KYOTO - There are many ways a tourist can learn the geography of a foreign city: taking guided walking tours or tour buses that circle the city or even hiring a stretch limo with a native-speaking driver, to name a few. But the best approach to learning one's way around a strange city requires no planning, costs nothing and comes quite naturally to most people: The tourist should get lost. The lost tourist, unlike someone looking out the window of a tour bus, is forced to read street names and to check out those names on a map. The lost tourist will look around, will notice things that, if unlost, she would not have noticed.

Dec. 11 1997 More than 150 countries agreed at a conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.

KYOTO - Most travelers to this 1,200-year-old city - even those visiting for the first time - bring their own Kyoto along with them. Stored away in their heads is the ancient city they've imagined: a city of silver and golden pavilions, of exotic geisha and Zen rock gardens, of moon-viewing and stylized tea ceremonies. This is the Kyoto of their expectations. But the most rewarding trip to Kyoto - or any foreign destination - is the one that comes after the tourist has visited the place of her imagination.

Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is already making waves, not surprisingly. Lately, you cannot pick up a newspaper or watch the news without some headline about greenhouse gases, global warming or efforts to combat it. Despite many questions, governments around the globe seem to be in a frenzy to respond to a public that seems to want something done and to growing pressure from green groups that demand that something be done. People may like the idea of government mandates to curb greenhouse gases, but they won't like the sticker shock that comes from many of the proposed solutions.

Dec. 11 1997 More than 150 countries agreed at a conference in Kyoto, Japan, to control the Earth's greenhouse gases.

Imagine this: The Republican governor of a large, trendsetting state works with leaders of his state legislature from both parties to enact groundbreaking legislation that requires private corporations and others operating in the state to meet stringent pro-green goals. Is this Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, 2007? It could be. But it also could be Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, 1999. The Renewable Portfolio Standards Act adopted by Texas that year required the state's energy retailers to produce 5,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

Europeans have set themselves up for a head-on collision between ecological purity and economic reality. With Congress poised to enact heavy-handed climate legislation, the United States may be doing likewise. Europe is finally realizing it cannot meet even current Kyoto Protocol commitments to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2012. Economic ministers are worried that Kyoto will harm living standards and send facilities and jobs to China and India, which aren't required to cut emissions.

BOULDER, Colo. -- Frustrated with the federal response to global warming, hundreds of cities, suburbs and rural communities across the nation have taken bold steps to slash their energy consumption and reduce emissions of the pollutants that cause climate change. This outdoorsy college town recently adopted the nation's first "climate tax" - an extra fee for electricity use, with all proceeds going to fight global warming. Seattle has imposed a new parking tax, and the mayor said he hopes to charge tolls on major roads in an effort to discourage driving - a major source of greenhouse gas pollution.

Thanks to Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, the global warming debate is back on our political radar screen. We can let the scientists sort out the accuracy of his vision of a world tilting toward ruin. But even if Gore & Co. are correct that the international community must immediately act to stem the increase in global temperatures, conspicuously absent is any acknowledgment that the Asian economic revolution has made whatever problem exists much more difficult to solve. The folks who focus on U.S. noncompliance with the Kyoto agreement as the only impediment to a global solution are as outdated in their thinking as were the explorers of the Middle Ages who thought the world was flat.

Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is already making waves, not surprisingly. Lately, you cannot pick up a newspaper or watch the news without some headline about greenhouse gases, global warming or efforts to combat it. Despite many questions, governments around the globe seem to be in a frenzy to respond to a public that seems to want something done and to growing pressure from green groups that demand that something be done. People may like the idea of government mandates to curb greenhouse gases, but they won't like the sticker shock that comes from many of the proposed solutions.

Imagine this: The Republican governor of a large, trendsetting state works with leaders of his state legislature from both parties to enact groundbreaking legislation that requires private corporations and others operating in the state to meet stringent pro-green goals. Is this Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, 2007? It could be. But it also could be Gov. George W. Bush of Texas, 1999. The Renewable Portfolio Standards Act adopted by Texas that year required the state's energy retailers to produce 5,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable sources by 2015.

WASHINGTON -- Some political and business interests in our country would saddle us with a "Fortress America" image in relation to the global warming problem. It is an isolationist stance that might have provided comfort centuries ago when two great oceans securely insulated us from political and social turmoil abroad. But isolationism is no longer practical in a world made smaller by modern communication, advanced transportation technology and nations' dependency on international trade.

WASHINGTON - When President Bush cloisters himself in a Scottish resort with the leaders of the world's other major economic powers this week, he'll have an important mission for his broader foreign policy agenda: damage control. Bush will use the annual Group of Eight summit - a carefully scripted and highly secluded series of meetings among the major industrialized democracies - to burnish the U.S. image and pledge support for the top priorities of his allies. The administration hopes to build good will for Bush's goals, chief among them bringing stability to Iraq.

The centerpiece of AFI Silver Theatre's "Cherry Blossom Cinema," Kon Ichikawa's 1983 film The Makioka Sisters, starts with a family gathering in 1938 Kyoto, when the cherry blossoms are at their peak. The bluffs of bright pink flowers softened by spring rain, framing vista-visions of hills and valleys, are schoolbook memories of Japan brought to life by a light-fingered poet. And, as the Makiokas, aristocrats from Osaka, sit in their tearoom with a view, their ceremonious beauty matches the allure of all outdoors.