People send me stuff… UPDATE: See below for another interpretation
Remember how this was phrased? “sign it, it’s just voluntary!”
Recall Rio 1992 “Earth Summit” where the meme was “hey, it’s voluntary!…with a negotiating schedule attached”. Apparently, like a Roach Motel, “countries check in but they can’t check out”. This email is from UNFCCC’s list server and note my bolded section below. The arrogance, it burns.
—–Original Message—–
From: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>
To: globalmedialist-all <globalmedialist-all@lists.unfccc.int>; germanmedialist <germanmedialist@lists.unfccc.int>
Sent: Tue, Dec 13, 2011 4:46 am
Subject: [UNFCCC medialist] STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
STATEMENT BY UNFCCC CHIEF ON CANADA’S ANNOUNCEMENT TO WITHDRAW FROM KYOTO PROTOCOL
The Durban agreement to a second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol represents the continued leadership and commitment of developed countries to meet legally binding emission reduction commitments. It also provides the essential foundation of confidence for the new push towards a universal, legal climate agreement in the near future.
I regret that Canada has announced it will withdraw and am surprised over its timing. Whether or not Canada is a Party to the Kyoto Protocol, it has a legal obligation under the Convention to reduce its emissions, and a moral obligation to itself and future generations to lead in the global effort. Industrialized countries whose emissions have risen significantly since 1990, as is the case for Canada, remain in a weaker position to call on developing countries to limit their emissions.
I call on all developed countries to meet their responsibilities under the Climate Change Convention and its Kyoto Protocol, to raise their ambition to cut emissions and to provide the agreed adequate support to developing countries to build their own clean energy futures and adapt to climate change impacts they are already experiencing.
==================================================
UPDATE: There’s some ambiguity here in the announcement, upon further reading it could be interpreted that they are saying this:
“I see you withdraw from Kyoto but you are still legally bound to reduce emissions UNDER THE 1992 ‘VOLUNTARY’ RIO UN FRAMEWORK CONVENTION ON CLIMATE CHANGE (UNFCCC)”.
So maybe it isn’t Kyoto they’re saying they can’t leave, but its parent treaty, Rio’s UNFCCC, which is the model for this Spring’s upcoming UNCSD ’12.
But that’s voluntary too, so how can a “voluntary” agreement be legally binding?
G. Karst says: (December 13, 2011 at 7:26 pm)
Now there’s an idea. Supply the UN with polar bears. In the lobby of the UN HQ and the UNFCCC Secretariat: Martin-Luther-King-Strasse 8, Bonn, Germany.
IIRC, Canada has a surplus of polar bears. And the Germans *love* polar bears. And the UN and polar bears have so much in common. Although polar bears are only in walking hibernation for a few months of the year, compared to the full-time torpidity of the UN’s self-serving bureaucrats.
All in jest. I would never torture a dumb animal nor a top-level predator.
The Guardian has this “frontpage” headline on their website:
“Canada condemned at home and abroad for pulling out of Kyoto treaty
China calls Canada’s decision ‘preposterous’, while Greenpeace says the country is protecting polluters instead of people.”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/dec/13/canada-condemned-kyoto-climate-treaty
The Guardian writes:
‘Canada is within its rights to withdraw from the Kyoto protocol, according to the lawyer Josh Roberts, at the environmental law organisation ClientEarth. He pointed out that article 27 of the protocol allows any country to withdraw three years after the protocol is in force, a deadline that has passed.
In short, Robert said: “The Kyoto protocol has very few teeth beyond international diplomatic censure.” But the UK’s secretary of state for energy and climate change, Chris Huhne, said: “They are still bound by what was agreed in Durban. They are still part of working towards a legal outcome in 2015.”‘
Don’t you just love it? After admitting that Canada is fully within its rights, the Guardian quotes “windmill” Chris Huhne as saying that they can’t get away because they are bound by Durban anyway. That is the “dog in the manger” attitude that decent people face in today’s world.
Gail Combs says:
December 13, 2011 at 8:10 pm
“Actually the are alive and well and as thick as fleas on a dog in Cambridge MA. They are also found on most university campuses.
However the present breed are more the bourgoise collectivist types grown to international super-elite. Carroll Quigley, Bill Clinton’s mentor was their historian. see: Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/094500110X/”
Oh yes they are. They dominate today’s faculty. If one does not believe that remark then explain to me what a “Diversity Dean” does.
Thanks for the reference to Quigley’s book. Their essential history could have been written as early as 1979 because they haven’t changed one whit since then. Though they have made some huge advances, such as “Diversity Deans.”
Hoser says:
December 13, 2011 at 1:00 pm
If you look, you’ll find the US income tax is also “voluntary”. Just try not paying it.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/0500a.asp
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Also note that the income tax amendment (16th) was passed within a few months of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. Our hard earned
moneywealth goes to pay the interest on the “Fairydust ” fiat, made on the spot, money the Fed/bankers lend the US and State governments.In effect the Financial elite have become our Lords and we are nothing but their serfs. Heck we even give up about the same amount of labor to our overlords as the medieval serfs ~ 40%
Ever wonder WHY there has been a subtle movement, in the way of massive red tape, to get rid of small businesses and farmers???
If you are working as a wage slave for a big corporation the elite get their slice of your wealth without any effort because it is taken from you up front before you even see it.
It is independent small business people who are the threat to our “Overlords” and they do everything possible to squash them.
Farmers were the subject of a more direct assault:
It is heartwarming to see the several people here that understand who and what communists are. It renews the spirit!
Sentient and sentinel…… a beautiful thing.
Robin Kool:
December 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Robin, well said and I will personally take that to heart, and hope others will follow suit. Such name-calling has no place here. Your words let me know at least one other that has opened their eyes to the environmental movement understands the depth of deception and corruption involved.
Robin Kool;
“Sieg Heil mein UN”.
I am sorry, but that is way over the top. ‘Sieg Heil’ was a nazi greeting.>>>
I’m still fuming from seeing certain anti-semitic comments fruther upthread, but now that they’ve been dealt with and I’ve calmed down, I’d like to add my voice to Robin’s on this one. I’d be a hypocrite if I did not.
WWII was a dark chapter in man’s inhumanity to man, and sadly, only one of many. The IPCC, the UN in general, and the lobbyists greedily grasping for a share of any money they can weedle, beg, embarras or extort out of the free world are using disgusting tactics which deserve to be labelled as such. But labelling them Nazi’s, is, in fact, over the top.
We must be vigilant as citizens of the free world because the sins that we object to in this thread are indeed the kind of sins that set one foot upon a very slippery slope. We’ve seen the threats of violence from Greenpeace, and the disgusting 10:10 video. But it was reaction from, and pressure from, the skeptic community that forced those organizations to take one step back. Had we not have been succesfull, would the path to the depths of darkness that the Nazi’s descended to, taking millions to their deaths in the process, have been eagerly trod to a new holocaust?
Maybe. We shall never know, because slippery though the slope might be, they set only a single foot upon it, and then stepped back. But taking one step on the descent to hell is many, many leagues from being there.
Let us defend the path in that we not allow the UN, Greenpeace, 10:10, or any others to set a foot upon that path without pushing them back. But let us also understand that taking one step on the wrong path is completely different from having arrived at an end that is leagues away, and which is criss crossed with so many other paths that the misguided can step onto when they realize the full import of the path they are on.
The danger to human life from the CAGW scare is that well intended good deeds have been corrupted for the sake of money, greed and power. The unintended consequences may well drive billions into poverty and death. But they are just that. Unintended consequences. No one at the UN is plotting gas chambers to liquidate the human population to fight global warming. As dangerous as their corruption and unintended consequences are, let us not discredit out own arguments through lables that are emotion laden, and false.
Save the people from a terrible folly. But save them with facts, and rational arguments.
Dear Babsy:
Do you remember all those places I mentioned? They are all connected to WWII in one way or another. Now when WWII ended, and somewhere around 52 million people had died, there were some people who said: “maybe we should try to not let that happen again.”
And then the United States of America, led the world in founding the United Nations. It happened in 1945, in San Francisco. We invited over 50 countries, and everybody agreed to create an international forum that would try to make the world more peaceful. And the idea behind it was to make sure countries would speak together, and not fight so much.
Are you still following? And do you see that we should remember history and not forget it?
We agree by the way that how the U.N. involvement in climate science has been a failure, and should be scrapped or radically changed. That would be the IPCC. It must go.
Theo, what you say is true, except for this. PM Harper has already made it very clear what he thinks of the opinions of the glitterati et.al., and it leaves him entirely unmoved. The US has already acted as a bad neighbour to Canada over the Keystone decision. Which simply makes Canada’s pushing through the Gateway project all the more important. And the best part is that China and India pay a better price for oil than the US does.
There’s a key shift in Canadian politics that no one outside this country has understood yet, let alone its signficance. Ontario is now voting as a block with Western Canada and not Quebec. For the first time in Canadian history, we have a majority government which is not dependent upon a large block of Quebec seats. The ramifications of this political earthquake in Canada are huge, and it may be the biggest shift in Canadian politics since the emergence of Quebec separatism in the 1960s. He’s also got a firm majority of new Canadians voting conservative as well. As a result, short of some major corruption scandal, Harper has perhaps permanently altered Canada’s political landscape.
And all of this has been accompanied by a very fundamental shift in Canadian foreign policy as well. Canada now finds itself at odds with EU nations over a great many issues and is increasingly identifying itself as a Pacific Rim nation, not a North Atlantic one. Europe had one last gasp at maintaining strong relations with Canada through the free trade pact, but the EU blew that with their sanctions on Canadian oil.
And as just one consequence, Canada’s response to any proposal for IMF bailouts in Europe will be as frosty as the frozen tundra around Inuvik.
Here’s the link to the CBC poll:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/inside-politics-blog/2011/12/question-of-the-day-498.html (Do you support withdrawal?)
Current:
Yes 4039 64%
No 2207 35%
Unsure 74 1%
Marion says:
December 13, 2011 at 1:44 pm
“It would and we didn’t!! Take the EU Lisbon Treaty for example – there are over 500 million people in the EU and only the politicians got to vote on it, on what is in effect a political gravy train, oh except for Ireland of course, where because of its constitution the people were given a referendum and guess what – they voted NO! That should have been the end of the Lisbon Treaty but no, that’s not how the EU works, the people of Ireland were made to vote again after much propaganda, promises and threats.The EU has no real democratic legitimacy – our politicians have betrayed us.”
Very well said. Thanks so much. People in the US should read your words and fear our own bureacratic zealots, especially the EPA and Obamacare.
Marion says:
…And one last thing try typing in the name of your local council along with Agenda 21 – you may be surprised at just how much the UN has already imposed on local planning!! (also an EU resident).
______________________________________________________
If you are in the USA try the word “Sustainable” too. It is the code word for Agenda 21.
President’s Council on Sustainable Development: http://clinton2.nara.gov/PCSD/
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timg56 says:
December 13, 2011 at 5:18 pm
“if the primary justification for the UN is to act as a body where the nations of the world can solve their differences peaceably, almost all of the evidence indicates it has failed miserably at that task.”
That’s correct. And your whole argument supports the very fact that NOTHING happens in the UN unless it is endorsed by ALL the permanent members of the Security Council. They all have veto power, and know how to use it.
Indirectly you are arguing for more power to the U.N., not less.
wayne says:
December 13, 2011 at 8:52 pm
Robin Kool:
December 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Robin, well said and I will personally take that to heart, and hope others will follow suit. Such name-calling has no place here. ……
=======================================================
You guys are right, of course, name calling isn’t productive.
However, correctly identifying the various factions is productive. While I can appreciate what you guys are saying, you should also understand that many people have been engaged in this conversation for several years. It isn’t as if people weren’t told. They were, and have been, and continue to be told. The rejection of the message, the insistence on a totalitarian resolution to this imaginary problem, puts them squarely in the position that the colorful descriptions would convey.
Today, there is no excuse. You either wish for a totalitarian resolution to the imaginary problem, or you stand for freedom, or you’re twelve.
In other words, either you are young and stupid (there is no shame there, we all have been) or you stand for this insanity, or you stand against it. Today, to claim ignorance is to claim willful ignorance.
timg56 says:
December 13, 2011 at 5:28 pm
squarehead,
I have a hard time worrying about communists….
I am more concerned with people who think that only government can solve problems and take care of people. You don’t have to be a communist or even a socialist to fall into that category.
If it quacks like a communist and waddles like a communist, if it thinks, solves problems, and takes care of people like a communist, what would you prefer to call it?
If you call it anything other than what it is, then you are complicit in the Communists’ subterfuge.
BTW, Communism is just one of many practically indistinguishable versions of totalitarianism. The name “Communism” itself is subterfuge.
Cannibalism is the correct term when speaking of the totalitarian wackos’ creed.
Gail Combs says:
December 13, 2011 at 7:53 pm
Torgeir Hansson says:
December 13, 2011 at 12:27 pm
….Where we agree is that CO2 poses no threat to anyone. In cases where there is a whiff of CFCs, PFCs, mercury, benzene, toluol, and the list goes on, different story.
________________________________
That is criminal trespass. C. Chemical Co. got sued for it and lost in 1972 when I worked for them (all of three months till I found something better)
This was BEFORE the EPA existed or OSHA for that matter.
__________________________________
The EPA, OSHA, and the Clean Air Act were the inventions of the Nixon Administration. Environmentalism reaches across the political aisle—or at least it used to. Now we have militant people on the left who see climate change as a hammer for wealth redistribution. I have no faith that many Third World nations would use the money for mitigation (of what, exactly?) Aid to developing nations is still appropriate, but for the opposite: economic development. Not that the U.S. gives much to speak of, so the point is moot for this country.
The real issue in the U.S. is not communists infiltrating our government or the public discourse. It is corporations having undue influence over our government. They are in a position to feed at the trough of climate change legislation, and influence legislation to enrich themselves. Take a look at Al Gore’s and Rajendra Pachauri’s business activities, and the point becomes clear.
@Hoffer
Farting in the general direction of the United States can be prohibitively expensive for hosers. I’d be careful if I were you.
The Canadian Human Rights Act Section 3 prohibits discrimination based on national origin.
Section 13(1) addresses the issue of hate speech. The section states it is a discriminatory practice for a person or a group of persons acting in concert to communicate telephonically or to cause to be so communicated, repeatedly, in whole or in part by means of the facilities of a telecommunication undertaking within the legislative authority of Parliament, any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt by reason of the fact that that person or those persons are identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.
Section 13(2) makes clear that posting hateful or contemptuous messages to the Internet is prohibited. Section 54(1) allows a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to order a respondent to cease any discriminatory practice, to compensate the victim where the discrimination was wilful or reckless by an amount not exceeding $20,000, and to pay a penalty of not more than $10,000.
The “naivite” excuse is getting a bit old. As is the “Noble Cause” attitude, which both distorts science activity and analysis, and not only accepts, but demands the subordination of all nations and persons to the economic and regulatory abuse already rampant in the EU and in many aspects of North American life.
Polite rebukes and disputation with those determined to enforce collaboration with a lie and submission to the liars is not on. It’s not just useless, it’s tantamount to dangerous passivity.
If you track the posting patterns and history of those poor souls being “abused” here and on other skeptic sites, you will encounter more than enough evasion and distortion to justify the epithets. And a persistent presumption that only science illiterates and trouble-makers are susceptible to doubt.
In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, the only winning strategy is Tit For Tat; after one free pass, give next time what you got this time.
Sean Peake says:
December 13, 2011 at 6:38 pm
“Torgier Hanssen, sounds like a California loon—guess Norway wasn’t crazy enough.”
Thanks for the name calling, Sean. It sure helps foster a robust dialogue.
Now about Norway: a country with a sound economic footing, peaceful, pro-USA, capitalistic to the core yet featuring a social safety net for the needy. No poverty, very little violence (with the exception of the right-wing monster Andreas Behring Breivik), and a generally happy population. High productivity. Lots and lots of money in the bank. A large and healthy energy industry.
Oh, by the way: run for the last fifty years by the Norwegian Labor Party.
Go figure.
Torgeir Hansson;
And the idea behind it was to make sure countries would speak together, and not fight so much.>>>
Still waiting for you to name a single instance in which they were succesfull.
Torgeir Hansson;
Are you still following? And do you see that we should remember history and not forget it?>>>
Since you find remembering history important, could you please remember an example of a single instance in which the UN prevented a war and tell us what it was?
In fact, they were formed from the primary purpose of preventing genocide, preventing war between nations was an after thought (albeit a natural one). But let’s go through recent history and see who is being saved by who:
Albanians from the Serbs and Croats – NATO
Kuwait from Iraq – NATO
Marsh Arabs and Kurds from Iraq – NATO
Families in rebel towns in Lybia – NATO
Afghanistan from the Taliban – NATO
Now let’s look at who doesn’t have NATO to depend on and instead gets just the UN protecting them:
Rwanda – NATO forces ordered to stand down
Darfur – sinkpit of human misery
Congo – another sinkpit
Somalia – another sinkpit
Iran – where you girls are executed for talking to a boy. But exectuing a virgin is illegal, so they are first raped, and then exectuted.
Saudi Arabia – just announced yet another woman being beheaded for being a witch.
The Arab League is warning Syria not to mass murder itz citizens. 5000 dead and counting,The ArabLeague is doing nothing, the UN is doing nothing, if anyone is going to save those people it will be NATO.
The UN Human Rights Commission is as corrupt as the IPCC. The excoriate Israel for building a fense, but say nothing about the terrorists that fence was built to keep at bay. They excoriate western nations for our treaties with natives, while ignoring the killing of “witches” and “girls who talked to a boy” in muslim theocracies.
Their emergency administration plans such up 40% and often much more for administration fees of their committees, and the corrupt dictatorships they deliver the aid to siphon more off still as bribes to let the 10% or so that actually gets through to be delivered. Major programs like “Oil for Food” wound up being nothing more than a golden opportunity for administrators to siphon hundreds of millions into their own pockets while the money went not to food, but to military goods.
Show me a UN success story. Show me ONE. Why is my country paying billions of dollars for a UN that cannot prevent war, cannot save people from genocide, accuses free countries of human rights infractions while covering up the worst human rights violations in the world, and UN employees getting rich off the largess of western nations.
Stop telling us WHY it was formed. We already know that, no one is arguing that point. But when asked to show why we should keep it, you cite not their success stories, but their original goals. Goals are laudable. But as a farmer would say, goals implemented poorl;y result in a failed crop. You want food, your goal to grow it laudable, but only if it is practical. The UN is not.
squareheaded says:
December 13, 2011 at 9:28 pm
timg56 says:
December 13, 2011 at 5:28 pm
“BTW, Communism is just one of many practically indistinguishable versions of totalitarianism. The name “Communism” itself is subterfuge. Cannibalism is the correct term when speaking of the totalitarian wackos’ creed.”
The idea that we are dealing with a threat from communists or communism in this country at this time is wrong on its face. You would be much closer to the truth if you spoke about corporatism or fascism.
The warmist argument is fundamentally different. Communists have never cared one whit about the environment. First of all let’s acknowledge that it was first used by the Thatcher Administration in the UK to beat the coal workers’ unions around the ears with. Second, it is better seen as a meme that was propagated by the environmental movement, gained momentum, and became a useful tool for a whole set of rascals to get their hands on public and private money—governments included, but the governments we are talking about are elected, and it is the institutional pressures in government organizations that make them go along.
Once the electorate discards the meme, so will governments.
Robin Kool says:
December 13, 2011 at 7:00 pm
Interesting that you’d equate “warmists” with the UN’s UNFCCC. I read “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” when in high school, and later in college got through both volumes of “The Gulag Archepelago” by Solzhenitsyn. These books accurately deal with man’s complete inhumanity to their fellow man and awaken your senses so you can identify the same characteristics in other organizations.
And admittedly, these books were about as heavy a read as I could endure. But what I found is that both epitomize the same general approach the hard-core climate movement has taken towards the rest of mankind in so many ways it’s uncanny–it doesn’t matter whether they’re socialists or communists, their goal really is to “save the world” for themselves in the guise of helping everybody else and make everybody else pay tribute to them–through force, of course.
Now if you disagree with my assessment , please read either or both of these books and return and report. In the meantime, I don’t believe we should ignore any organization just because their actions are Nazi-like or have striking similarities to the mindset employed by communists. Indeed, if such similarities are found, it would be criminal NOT to recognize them for what they are and to call them out accordingly. The Nazis of Germany and the communists of Stalin’s era were horrible and hideous, no doubt, but not much different in the beginning than what the hard-core climate movement has become. It may see like a far-fetched comparison, but then I’m betting you haven’t read either book (or anything similar) and haven’t really dug into the depths of the UN either.
Torgeir, lunatics such as Andreas Behring Breivik are not right, left or center. They are people who seek for and find an excuse to be lunatics. For every murderous savage such as Breivik, I can find two others that claim the banner of leftists. Attributing his behavior to conservative ideology is a valid as stating Jack the Ripper was cleansing the streets of whores.
You seem like an intelligent person. Why don’t you try to argue from an intelligent position?
[SNIP: Sorry, but that’s not really funny and not appropriate. -REP]
That’s true, David. But then, neither did the National Socialist German Workers Party in the beginning.
Let’s not compare an aftermath with a fomenting front. Or if you do, compare the two at similar stages of development.