Reflections From a Murky Pond

Al Gore’s Global Warming Cultists seem to have little room in their minds for any thought beyond reducing man-made C02 in Earth’s atmosphere. Normally this is only a threat to the prosperity and freedom of the nations of the Civilized World – which is bad  enough – but sometimes their monomaniacal fanaticism is a threat to the very world they claim they have to save.

WHEN British consumers are compelled to buy energy-efficient lightbulbs from 2012, they will save up to 5m tons of carbon dioxide a year from being pumped into the atmosphere. In China, however, a heavy environmental price is being paid for the production of “green” lightbulbs in cost-cutting factories.

Large numbers of Chinese workers have been poisoned by mercury, which forms part of the compact fluorescent lightbulbs. A surge in foreign demand, set off by a European Union directive making these bulbs compulsory within three years, has also led to the reopening of mercury mines that have ruined the environment.

— Michael Sheridan
The Times Online, May 3, 2009

This is, of course, the logical result of passing legislation that the Warmists scream for. They scream and wail about Anthropogenic Global Warming – now rebranded as Climate Change – and bully politician into passing laws that further the Warmists’ agenda. Sadly for everyone these laws still do not change reality, no matter what fantasies are percolating through the minds of Gore’s cultists.

You can’t demand the rapid transition from incandescent lightbulbs to fluorescent lightbulbs without opening new murcury mines or reopening older, closed mines. You also can’t keep the prices of these items down to level that won’t inflict undue hardship on people, especially the poor, without utilizing 3rd-World nations like China who care little for the environment or the lives, health, and safety of its workers.

Someday, hopefully before irreparable harm is done to both the Civilized World and the planet, people will see the Warmists for what they are – monomaniacal, fanatic cultists. Green or Sustainable is lot more than just reducing CO2 and other greenhouse gasses, and reducing CO2 emissions at the cost of other lasting harm to planet is stupid.

Something are just too ironically funny to ignore. One of them is when important public and political figures are unable to attend a Global Warmists’ rally because of a blizzard.

From CNS News:

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had to cancel an appearance Monday at a global warming rally in Washington, D.C., that was hit by a snowstorm because her flight was delayed, her office told CNSNews.com.

Brianna Cayo-Cotter, the spokesman for the Energy Action Coalition that held the rally, told a group of reporters that she had been in contact with Pelosi and that her flight had been delayed because of inclement weather.

A blizzard Sunday night and early Monday morning blanketed the nation’s capital with snow, causing events to be canceled and delayed across the city.

House Select Energy Independence and Global Warming Chairman Edward Markey (D-Mass.), who was scheduled to speak at the global warming event, also canceled his appearance because of the inclement weather, a spokesman from his committee’s office told CNSNews.com on Monday.

That’s just too funny. Anyone with any wit – even the Anthropogenic Global Warming Advocates, though they’re mostly a self-important and humorless group – has to see the humor in both Nancy Pelosi and Edward Markey not being able to attend a Global Warming rally due to inclement weather.

Sadly, what is very much less funny is the fact that the Communications Director for the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming later claimed – in direct contravention of the previously publicly reported facts – that Chairman Ed Markey, could not attend the global warming rally because of a “scheduling conflict.”

Sometimes it’s quite amazing the level of mental contortions the global socialists will put themselves through in order to blame the Civilized World for every woe experienced on this planet. In this particular case it’s the lengths that the Anthropocentric Global Warming alarmists will go through in order to blame developed nations for the actions of the less developed and civilized nations’ voluntarily chosen courses of action.

From the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research – Oslo (CICERO) via Green Biz:

Rich countries’ invisible emissions

Almost half of the emission increase in China is due to production of exports, most of it to western countries, according to a new report.

Rich countries are contributing to the emission increases in developing nations, but this is not accounted for in international negotiations.

The report “Journey to world top emitter”, to be published in Geophysical Research Letters, states that Chinese CO₂ emissions increased by 45 percent from 2002 to 2005. Half of the increase was due to export production, 60 percent of which was exported to western countries. Electronic commodities and metals are important products.

Only 7 percent of the emissions increase was triggered through househould consumption in China, the researchers from the University of Cambridge, CICERO, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Leeds found.

Global system

– This makes us reflect on how we are a part of a global system, and how we partly drive emissions in other countries. It is important to take at least some responsibility for problems that we cause indirectly in other countries, says Glen Peters, researcher at CICERO – Center for Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo.

Electronic products, metals, chemicals, and machinery are export products contributing largely to the emissions increase.

– This doesn’t mean that trade is a bad thing. The problem is rather the type of products and how they are produced. It wouldn’t be so bad if China used its comparative advantage to produce products that meet global environmental objectives, he says.

Carbon leakage

International climate agreements do not account for how emissions cross national borders because of imports and exports. In the Kyoto Protocol, every country is responsible for emissions on its own territory.

The process where a country reduces emissions on its own territory but increases imports is known as «carbon leakage».

– We do not need to completely redesign Kyoto, but we could include incremental changes that address carbon leakage and competitiveness concerns. Climate policy could be designed in similar ways to existing tax policy. For example we could design carbon taxes in a similar way to value-added taxation which covers imported products. In that way the consumer would pay for the emissions caused by his or her consumption, Glen Peters says.

Following exports, capital formation – primarily construction – is the second largest driver of the emissions increase in China.

Putting aside the argument that Anthropogenic Global Warming is nothing but a sham for moment, this attempt to blame the “rich nations” for China’s emissions is still nothing but a very poorly disguised attempt at global socialism. It’s just another Leftist dream of robbing the wealthier and more developed nations in order to redistribute their earnings to poorer and less civilized countries.

Not one single person outside of the PRC, much less any civilized nation, demanded that China take the shortest, easiest, and messiest road to industrial and international commercial might. The Chinese decided all on their own how to progress into a more modern industrial / commercial model.

But of course it’s our fault; it always is in the minds of these people.

It seems we in the Developed World can’t go a single day without being bombarded by various doomsaying rants about the Global Warming Crisis and ecological catastrophes in general. The various proponents of the disparate green agendas do their best to inundate us daily with admonishments to join their cause or else….

Since this is more off-putting than effective in gaining support for the Green movements – some of which , in IMHO, are valid enterprises for mankind – I thought I’d make a suggestion for a more effective technique for marketing the Green agenda to America and the West.

Got Green?

LOL – That’s a Green Movement I could get behind!

I mean really come on! The environmental activists don’t have a great track record for getting the general populous through browbeating them into submission. I think they and the Earth would be better served by trying to win the heart and…er…umm…minds(?) of the people.

Back in 1992 Al Gore published Earth in the Balance, which was the relatively quiet first shot in the war of Global Warming v. The Developed World. Gore followed up this work with the 2006 release of An Inconvenient Truth, which was the first real frontal offensive by the Global Warming movement against the various commercial and industrial powers of our world. Years later we are deeply entrenched in a protracted battle over this issue.

This is sad and maddening because the entire perceived – or possibly manufactured – Global Warming crisis is based on the postulate that the Earth is growing warmer and that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are the primary cause of this warming.

From Merriam-Webster Dictionary:

Postulate
Pronunciation:\?päs-ch?-l?t, -?l?t\

Function: noun
Date: 1646

Definition(s):

1. a hypothesis advanced as an essential presupposition, condition, or premise of a train of reasoning

The adherents Global Warming have based their whole platform of radical change on a hypothesis. Worse they continue to base their actions on this hypothesis even though what evidence they had to support it was always in contention and has later been countered by later evidence that they discovered themselves. Personally, I would describe that as an wildly inaccurate postulate from which to continue to propose an agenda.

We don’t actually have any proof that the planet is warming at all. Much of the earlier evidence that supported that hypothesis has since been called into question.

• Global ocean temperatures have not risen
• The West Antarctic Ice Sheet is over an active volcano
• Global surface temperatures have been stable for 10 years
• Sea levels may not be rising since the late 1990s

The Global Warming adherents are still clinging to the science of the last decade, which has been called into question by later findings. That is both foolish and poor science. The closest they seem to have come to altering their hypothesis to fit with the changing available facts is to rebrand Global Warming as Climate Change.

I’m am not saying that the Earth’s climate isn’t changing, nor am I saying it isn’t growing warmer. I am saying that it isn’t proven by any means to be doing so. I think more research has to be done. I certainly think though that people shouldn’t be taking drastic, society changing actions to curb Global Warming until it is somewhat more rational to believe it’s happening; a less emotional satisfying but more reasoned approach seems to be called for.

On the other hand, none of the contrary evidence is significant enough to complete refute the hypothesis of Global Warming or Climate Change. Perhaps the Earth is growing warmer – but is mankind’s greenhouse gas emissions the primary culprit? The followers of Al Gore describe it as Anthropogenic Global Warming and would certainly have you believe so.  Sadly for them, this is also a postulate that multi-disciplined evidence questions.

• The “Hockey Stick Graph”‘ was proven to be a fraud
• Astronomers have found other planets are warming as well
• Global temperatures don’t coincide with CO2 levels

So, in the face of contradictory evidence what should people do? Should we really overturn the industries and whole societies of the Developed World because of an innacurate postulate, or should we approach it with all due caution and not loose sight of issues beyond CO2 emissions?