By Bob McDonald, Quirks & Quarks

The end of the Kyoto Protocol, and our inability to do something about rising carbon emissions, is like arguing over rising water in the bilge of a boat, rather than fixing the leak.

Every time I step on my boat, I open a little hatch in the floor of the main cabin that provides access to the bilge at the lowest point in the hull, and the little pump that removes the small amount of water that collects there. I pay very close attention to the level of the water in the bilge because if it rises, that is irrefutable evidence that the boat is floating less and can't keep doing that for too long.

There are a number of ways to deal with a rising bilge, some more effective than others. I could go into denial, ignore it and hope that the problem will go away on its own. Besides, all boats take on some water; it's probably perfectly natural. I'm just imagining that there's more water down there than there was yesterday.

I could ask for an expert opinion and be told I need a bigger bilge pump, which the expert would be happy to sell me. In fact, I could support the local economy by purchasing bigger and bigger pumps to keep the boat afloat as the water continues to fill the bilge faster. The bigger the leak in the boat, the more money the pump seller earns, so there is little incentive for him to plug the hole.

I could even pay someone to manually throw water overboard. As they say, "There's no better bilge pump than a scared sailor with a bucket."

Meanwhile, I can remain on deck, sailing in the sunshine, knowing the boat is still afloat - thanks to technology and skilled labour.

But eventually, if the leak in the boat continues to grow, the water will rise above the floorboards and the evidence that the boat is sinking becomes abundantly clear. Finally, there comes a tipping point where the rate of sinking increases exponentially as the boat loses buoyancy and it's on its way to the bottom - no matter what.

The boat sinks because the root of the problem was not dealt with, despite strong evidence that the water was rising.

This same process of not dealing with the source of a problem, despite hard evidence, has been the hallmark for the last 20 years, since the idea of an international protocol to deal with the issue of climate change came up at the UN Rio Earth Summit in 1992.

Back then, scientific evidence showed that the Earth's average temperature was rising, like water in a bilge - a trend that has been increasing its rate since the Industrial Revolution. The United Nations had asked the scientific community if this rising trend was due to human activity, by forming the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), involving thousands of climate scientists from more than 100 countries. The answer from the panel was yes, again and again, with each report over the decades.

With the realization that there was a serious problem of rising temperatures and the source was burning fossil fuels, the Kyoto Protocol was designed in 1997 to do something about it. But right from the beginning, there was resistance and a number of tactics to delay its full implementation.

A large campaign of denial claimed that warming has been happening since the last Ice Age, so it's perfectly natural. Misinformation or partial data were used to cast doubt on the real science. Dirty tactics, such as hacking into private emails of a climate science institution, tried to discredit the whole scientific process. None of it proved to be true.

Meanwhile, profits in the fossil fuel industry, which stood to benefit from lack of action, continued to grow.

Governments, especially in Canada, fearful of a negative impact to the economy and possibly the loss of huge tax revenues from the fossil and automotive industries, were reluctant to ratify the Kyoto Protocol into law. Canada did ratify, but failed to meet its targets, and finally pulled out entirely in December 2012.

The denial, delay tactics and indecision have delayed action long enough that the deadline for the treaty has passed. Throughout it all, the temperature of the planet has continued to rise, ice caps are disappearing, vegetation is moving north, ocean temperatures have risen, weather patterns are changing and the predictions of the IPCC have come true or been exceeded by a steadily warming world.

Scientists are now warning of a tipping point of 400 parts per million (ppm) concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. After that threshold, they predict the climate warming trend will be irreversible and could accelerate. Current levels are around 390 ppm.

So here we are, sailing along on a fossil fuel-based lifestyle and the source of the problem has not been addressed. 

The IPCC is preparing another report with more scientific evidence of climate change and stronger warnings for policy change.

Will that advice be heeded with action, or will we enter another two decades of running around the problem rather than dealing with it?

Perhaps the best lesson from Kyoto is how poorly we are at making decisions about important changes, and how we don't get our priorities in the right order to prevent those changes from happening.

The question now is how much longer will we wait until we become good captains of our Earthly vessel?