On the eve of the 1998 United Nations climate change conference in Buenos Aires, U.S. Senator Robert Byrd sent a letter to President Clinton urging him not to sign the Kyoto Protocol. Doing so, he said, would not "do more than plug the holes in one end of a leaky boat, while leaving the biggest emitters of the developing world free to drill more holes in the other end of the boat. The net result is the same -- we all sink." Today we are in a different boat. Next month, ministers from 192 nations will gather in Copenhagen to …