Twelve years. That's the time we have to make drastic reductions in our fossil fuel consumption or we will reach a tipping point in the fight against climate change, and if humanity blows this deadline, the results will be biblical.
A UN report released Monday said that without sweeping global intervention, we can expect more floods and rising sea levels. More food shortages and more poverty. More extreme weather, wildfires, and droughts. The endangerment of hundreds of millions of lives, and a global refugee crisis.
The only way it can be addressed, the climate scientists say, is with an unprecedented political will, which is why environmental stewardship should be a precondition for anyone seeking elected office in 27 days.
The problem is you cannot find a GOP House candidate from New Jersey who has shown much of that will lately: Their environmental records - on cap and trade, carbon tax, and President Trump's demolition of regulations on coal or auto emissions - are generally disqualifying with the livability of our planet at stake.
They have two choices: They can acknowledge the scope of this massive challenge, and admit that this UN report means changes to how we live, how we eat, how we develop cities and agricultural systems, and "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society." *
My emphasis. I left these comments:
“Unprecedented political will?” Wrong. We’ve seen this movie before. Marxian socialism (Soviet Russia, Communist China), National Socialism (Nazi Germany). They were ideologically-driven efforts to engineer, from the top down, "unprecedented transitions in all aspects of society."
The UN report is the latest in a decades-old line of apocalyptic predictions, all of which utterly failed. Instead, we’ve seen a steady improvement in human living standards around the world, driven by expanding freedom of markets and rising use of reliable, economical energy, mostly fossil fuels. More food, more clean water, better structures, innovative industries, better jobs. The list goes on. It adds up to a vast and steady improvement in “the livability of our planet,” which is the whole point of industrialization. A climate crisis has always dogged mankind. Far from being something new, we are less at risk from climate-related danger than ever. What we need is the freedom to choose the best energy source available for human benefit, including coal and nuclear.
12 years left? Give me a break. The UN report is not science. It is more politically motivated speculation. Everyone wants to be safer from climate dangers. But “climate science” has become political because it’s not about climate. It is about power and control. “Environmental stewardship” is the latest buzzword for totalitarianism. The Left wants it because it’s a path to democratic socialism, the latest incarnation of Marxism, which requires top-down government control.
For a balanced, pro-humanist view, one must go outside the politically motivated “establishment,” to people like Ronald Bailey and Alex Epstein. As for me, the Democratic Party’s embrace of climate catastrophism is one more reason not to vote Democratic.
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If you doubt that climate catastrophism is tied to a socialist agenda, then consider the opening paragraphs of the summary for policymakers of the UN Report:
Limiting global warming to 1.5°C would require rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society, the IPCC said in a new assessment. With clear benefits to people and natural ecosystems, limiting global warming to 1.5°C compared to 2°C could go hand in hand with ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) said on Monday.
The Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5°C was approved by the IPCC on Saturday in Incheon, Republic of Korea. It will be a key scientific input into the Katowice Climate Change Conference in Poland in December, when governments review the Paris Agreement to tackle climate change.
"With more than 6,000 scientific references cited and the dedicated contribution of thousands of expert and government reviewers worldwide, this important report testifies to the breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC," said Hoesung Lee, Chair of the IPCC.
Ninety-one authors and review editors from 40 countries prepared the IPCC report in response to an invitation from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) when it adopted the Paris Agreement in 2015.
The report's full name is Global Warming of 1.5°C, an IPCC special report on the impacts of global warming of 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels and related global greenhouse gas emission pathways, in the context of strengthening the global response to the threat of climate change, sustainable development, and efforts to eradicate poverty.
The italics are in the original. The red is my emphasis. These emphasized portions speak for themselves. But let me clarify. “Ensuring a more sustainable and equitable society” does not mean more free market capitalism, the only truly equitable system because it features a government that protects individual rights. It means more forced egalitarian government policies. “Efforts to eradicate poverty” means control of business and industry and massive redistribution of wealth. “The breadth and policy relevance of the IPCC” means the report’s agenda is more about furthering a statist political agenda than dealing with some sort of “climate crisis”. “Global response” means a massive transfer of wealth from the U.S. and other advanced countries to developing countries in order to keep those countries’ development “sustainable”--that is, at a low, energy-starved (non-fossil fuel) level.
At least that’s my take on this report. It's a call for global central planning over everyone's lives and property--especially prosperous people--by powerful elites. What other conclusion can one draw? After all, who generates the most greenhouse gas? Prosperous people.
* [See United Nations, Climate Action, "1.5C is still possible but requires unprecedented and urgent actions," second paragraph]
Related Reading:
Paris Climate Agreement Adopted: New Central Plan for the World’s Economy and Climate—Ronald Bailey for Reason.com
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein
The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey
The sustainability myth—Alex Epstein
Trump Provides the Right Kind of Leadership in Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord
Paris Climate Agreement Adopted: New Central Plan for the World’s Economy and Climate—Ronald Bailey for Reason.com
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels—Alex Epstein
The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century—Ronald Bailey
The sustainability myth—Alex Epstein
Trump Provides the Right Kind of Leadership in Withdrawing from the Paris Climate Accord
1 comment:
Climate catastrophists (sp? If I spelled it the 'wrong' way, I just now changed the spelling of it) might be more open about their totalitarian designs now, but those designs on their part were obvious a long time ago.
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