Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Anthropology professor Wade Davis wants to declare war on global warming, comparing the battle against CO2 to military conflict in WW2.
Writing in The Globe and Mail, based in Toronto, Canada;
… Why have we not fully mobilized and declared war on global warming?
According to Rajendra Pachauri, former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the climate crisis could be fully mitigated and the world’s economy transformed with an investment equivalent to 3 per cent of global GDP. By way of comparison, the United States devoted 40 per cent of its GDP to achieve military victory in the Second World War. Shipyards in Long Beach and Sausalito, Calif., spat out Liberty ships at a rate of one a day for four years. Ford Motor Co. alone produced more industrial output than the entire country of Italy. Farm boys of 17, after seven months of training, were flying B-17 bombers over Germany. The U.S. and its allies recognized a mortal danger, reached an inescapable conclusion, and went to work. If climate change is the threat we now know it to be, why has the international response been so fundamentally tepid?
On my last day in Copenhagen, I put this question to Carter Roberts, head of the World Wildlife Fund. The situation, he suggested, comes down to four basic possibilities. If the scientists are wrong, and we do nothing, little changes. If they are wrong and we act, the worst that will happen will be an economic stimulus that will result in a cleaner environment, a more technologically integrated world and a healthier planet. If they are right, and we do nothing, the potential consequences are at best bad, at worst catastrophic, with scenarios so bleak as to defy the darkest imaginings of science fiction. If the scientific consensus holds, and we aggressively marshal our financial resources and technological brilliance to confront the challenge, we will be able to, for a relatively small investment, head off potential disaster and make for a better world. It was difficult to conjure a losing scenario, save that of inaction. …
Read: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/why-not-a-war-on-global-warming/article27550301/
Davis is wrong about wartime benefits to the economy. War stimulates the economy, in the same way that breaking all the windows in town stimulates business for glaziers. Some sectors of the economy do really well – at the expense of everyone else.
In a real war, defence is the overwhelming priority, so people don’t mind foregoing luxuries to keep their children safe. This is how alarmists want us all to think about global warming.
But wars are also the time of parasites and profiteers. Wars are when criminals who arrange corrupt deals with politicians wielding extraordinary wartime powers grow rich. Nobody has time to scrutinise government expenditure when the enemy is at the gates. An endless war against global warming would be, and in my opinion is, an unprecedented opportunity for the unscrupulous to plunder the wealth of ordinary people.
The truth is the world, or at least the Western world, is already pretty much on a wartime footing against global warming. People are getting fed up with the cost of it all, with the blazing hypocrisy of our jetset planetary saviours. They are also fed up with the fact the problems of global warming are largely imaginary, invented by fools and profiteers.
Tell him he’s already won.
The global temperature is shuddering at his moronity.. and has decided to retreat.
No, he’s not a moron, he knows where his bread is buttered.
complete dishonest BS. We are talking about screwing our own economy and giving the Chinese clear road ahead to taking over the world economy.
Obama has clearly stated this his “green” policies will make energy costs “skyrocket”.
If you are a well-healed university professor with academic tenure you may well feel totally unaffected by such a proposition. For the majority of people living in the real world the “worst that can happen” may well include losing their job their home, not having anywhere to live or having to choose between eating and heating.
Of course these people don’t have the thousands of dollars needed to fly around to climate conferences, staying in 3 star hotels on expense accounts.
Creating a $100bm per year slush fund with no accountability and beyond the jurisdiction of any court in the world. to fund a non elected world government, probably comes close to “the worst that could happen”.
3% Global GDP = US $2.3Trillion
US GDP in 2014 = U.S. $17Trillion
Since they are referring to the U.S. and 6 or 7 other players when they say “the western world”, and the remainder of the Western nations economies combined equals about 1/2 of the U.S., they are effectively saying the 3% GDP worldwide figure will be coming from the U.S. GDP or about 15-16% of the U.S. GDP
That would certainty fix us
I have an even easier way to “stimulate” the economy. Get 100,000 men to dig holes, and another 100,000 to fill them back in. Voila! Encomy stimulated, unemployment reduced and everyone is happy.
Trebla, your stimulus idea reminds me of Dr. Roy Spencer’s book Fundanomics: The Free Market, Simplified :
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/07/05/roy-spencers-new-book/
Breaking all the windows in town would more likely result in the invention of polycarbonate as a bullet proof substitute for glass, so all the glaziers would be homeless too.
And those 17 year old farm hands were actually men; not boys.
Wasn’t Margaret Sanger an Anthropologist ??
Izzat like an apologist for humans ??
G
Well we once had a ‘ 30 years war ‘ so it has been tried before to outlast the enemy.
A war on climate change would of course preclude a war on poverty.
But when you are down a rat hole, one hole looks pretty much like another.
g
And Trebla, one man can fill holes at least twice as fast as another can dig them.
So you work life project will only create 150,000 jobs.
How many times does one have to repeat.
Increases in efficiency eliminates jobs. It does not create jobs.
g
Other than disruptive technologies of course.
Very well argued! Good post! My gut feeling from those I have spoken to, is that the majority of Brits think AGW is at best exaggerated, at worst just plain wrong!
Using my mother as a gauge, as she’s an obsessive consumer of “news” and an inveterate worrier: “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” is so far down the list of concerns as to be invisible. Ordinary people never DID believe the hype. Seems to be a small subset of the upper middle class who are indoctrinated by the NYT and NPR.
And most of the MSM in the UK, particularly the BBC.
Yale Climate Connections
Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies
Partners include:
Thomson Reuters
http://www.yaleclimateconnections.org/partners
Check out who the Thomson part is and their connections to the MSM in Canada.
It’s only these fantasties that worry those folks. They have enough money, enough security, so they need to remove anything that looks even slightly threatening to them.
There are many corrupt governments in the world. But when they band together as the United Nations, all is pure.
At least 190 corrupt governments apparently.
g
As the saying goes, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” So let’s throw nearly 200 wrongs together and see how that works.
Frankly you know you are dealing with people who are profoundly stupid when they profess the aim of stopping climate change. They are so puffed up with self righteousness and a sense of their own importance that they think political actions can affect the fundamental behaviour of the ecosphere.
They call us ‘Deniers’ while pretending they can stop climate from changing when it has demonstrably done so since this plant acquired an atmosphere !
Formula for a super success story,
An Indian railway “engineer” Pachauri in charge ( former chair of IPCC)
Thats like having the president of your country an ex bus driver ! ( Venezuela)
Or the prime minister of your country a drama coach (Canada).
Or the president of your country a Saul Alinsky-certified socialist radical islamic-leaning community organizer. What a great idea that was…
‘Community organizer… ‘
.. anyone?’
What were those Eastern Canadians thinking?! PS. He also used to be a bouncer (i.e. bar security guard).
Or a community organizer (AKA rabble rouser).
It’s doubtful that the lot to which the economically illiterate writer belongs would have fought WWII. It is “we” I guess, though, cause he and other hangers-on keep referring to “we” in the remarks. So maybe “we” still would’ve. Instead, it would likely be a war like the one Vietnam or the one in Iraq, where the US government gives it a half-assed effort, declares it a quagmire, and bugs out even after it’s been won, leaving all those locals that trusted it or helped its military to be eaten by the wolves.
There can also be a “war on poverty” and a “war for poverty” ongoing, at the same time, by the same government, using other peoples’ money. We could only hope the latter has as abysmal results as the former in achieving its stated aims. Squandering funds? Well, that’s assured, but it may not actually succeed in creating the poverty that would result from the hare-brained schemes.
Interesting that Pachauri is already under some effort at rehabilitation, by ignoring his apparent assaults and batteries. Not the fibs about catastrophe; those were a feature emitting from this railroad engineer. He and ex-President Clinton must have some good times together.
Most of the intelligentsia were active supporters of Hitler, believing that his kind of command and control economy was the way to go. Putting “experts” such as themselves in charge of others has been their desire for centuries.
It wasn’t until Germany attacked Russia and the real communists, that they turned against Hitler.
Can’t miss: Mark Steyn testifying in front of Senate. http://judithcurry.com/2015/12/02/senate-hearing-data-or-dogma/
We’ve declared war on poverty, drugs, cancer–and lost them all. What is this guy thinking?
Don’t forget the war on terror, and the war on want.
Let’s just hope that they don’t announce any more wars against abstract concepts.
And… the war on hurt feelings and low self esteem, indefatigablefrog. We seem to have lost those wars, too.
What we REALLY need is a war on war!
Brilliant, Trebla! Warriors for peace!
Ah, I misread you: “…the war on rant.” Makes one wonder what kind of wars we need in this world!
Right, then. An irrelevant old pervert leading the charge, and with a carbon footprint the size of Wyoming.
Which one ? there seem to be a lot of them
This coming from the same people who will bitch and bellyache about defence spending.
There is no such thing any more as “defense” spending. It’s all offense, all the time. We’re the biggest warmongers in the history of history. You can abolish the military as far as I’m concerned and maintain a Coast Guard and militia within the borders.
Another troll with no concept of history or reality.
Do you know what they call people who don’t fight back? Slaves.
Have you ever heard of the Mongol Horde, The Roman Empire?, Alexander the Great? The Huns? Nazi Germany? All of Europe during the 100 years was? the 30 years war? The list goes on and on. The USA honestly trying to help oppressed citizens under thumb of oppressive dictators is not even in the same playing field. While the means of providing help may be misdirected, it is not the sinister ‘warmongering’ you claim.
localherog2, I agree.
And MarkW, I agree with you as well. My question is, fight “back”? It’s quite Orwellian to invade other people’s countries and call it fighting “back” at them.
The quickest way to stop terrorism is to quit scr3wing around in other people’s countries. No one can give you freedom from oppressors. If anyone liberates you from an oppressor, without your learning how to stand up and — as MarkW notes — fight back for yourself, you will simply bow to the next oppressor.
But how we do love thinking of ourselves as the Rescuers, and them as the grateful little people.
Anyone know how many recording sites provide the temp trends for the land mass of the entire earth?
Someone told me 20,000 with most in urban areas – surely that can’t be right ? Statistics are one thing conjuring out of thin air is quite something else.
…An endless war against global warming would be, and in my opinion is, an unprecedented opportunity for the unscrupulous to plunder the wealth of ordinary people….
Which is why Davis is proposing it, I suppose…
War is a mechanism to bankrupt countries.
From Wiki
So it took Britain the major economy of the 19th century 100 years to pay for the Napoleonic Wars, only to get back into debt in the Great War, I doubt if WWII has been completely paid for yet
I think it finally got paid off last year? do remember seeing something in the media
No debt emitted by governments ever gets repaid these days. Hence, a reduction in the growth rate is a cut. Or sleight of hand becomes savings. See eg Clinton with the social security fakery. It in truth cannot be paid or the house of debt tumbles.
The Brits ran up a HUGE debt invading many distant lands during the 19th century and had more than one war, too, during their empire-building mania.
We (Brits) also sent Africans to America. (We “Brits” invented “concentration camps”) We also sent many Africans to their deaths overboard ships because there was not enough food and water for the journey. That fact wrenches my guts! Amazing Grace! (No disrespect to any African or African American who reads here).
The only thing worse than fighting a war, is losing one.
Comparing AGW to WW2 is the next illogical step from believing in AGW in the first place.
+1, excellent!
Of course if his war is successful and the enemy (CO2) is utterly destroyed there will no anthropology left for this clown to study.
I found the warmists four choices perplexing. If the warmist scientists are wrong and we do nothing the funds freed up help save lives and get people out of poverty. If the warmist scientists are wrong and we spend a truckload in a futile attempt to solve a non problem the wonderful growth that the world has experienced over the last 100 years will go in reverse and poor people again will be deprived of the opportunity to get out of poverty. The money is not cost less, it has a real impact on GDP. If the same scientists are right and we do nothing at least by not having squandered our money to not make any difference we may in the future have the funds and the wherewithal to adapt. If the same scientists are right and we take action we are still stuffed. Even under their own assumptions we will never be able to cut emissions sufficiently to make a difference and have no funds in the future to adapt.
All these scenarios suggest doing nothing and keeping your powder dry just in case. The warmists scenario means impoverish the current generation and we are all going to fry anyway. If we’re all doomed I’d rather party.
If you complain about all their crazy debt fueled spending for transfer payments and stuff people otherwise would not create and the consequences to come, these same people will give the crappy quip, “In the long run we’re all dead.” Har har. Good one, m’lord. Here though the long, long, run is all that seemingly matters to them. I know, both = more control, consistency be damned. Just sayin. The fifth option is to accelerate development and progress and do all possible to get settlements off this rock for humans, animals, and plants (desirable ones I hope), cause it perishes in any case sooner or later.
David, this my be the most likely scenario. Spend trillions on alternative energy, skyrocket the cost of energy (energy, the life blood of every economy) and keep millions in the third world poor while at the same time contributing to global economic collapse and global war.
Brilliant analysis, David S. As the old saying goes, when rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it. Don’t you just marvel at the care and compassion these warmist show for future generations yet unborn while blithly ignoring the plight of hundreds of thousand of refugees fleeing the scouirge of war right now.
Anthropology professor Wade Davis wants to declare war on global warming, comparing the battle against CO2 to military conflict in WW2.
if it cost only that much in time, trouble, and human lives, I might even be for that.
During a war, people who make up lies and spread disinformation about the enemy are rounded up and unceremoniously shot.
You have this backwards. During the war, people people who “make up lies and spread disinformation about the enemy” are usually rewarded. They are only shot afterwards, and only if their side lost.
oh something NO media picked up on..
Maurice strong died on Nov 28th
best news I had heard in ages.
Yep, he’s gone but no one knows where. http://canadafreepress.com/article/77101
The only way to make a “rational” analogy between WW2 and stopping man made global warming would be for Germany, Italy and Japan to have never existed and WW1 to have never happened. Such would have all been modeled, the population duped into believing the models were correct and that a war had to ~somehow~ be fought anyway.
So… it all comes down to that stupidly trite four pane window, the one that was used to introduce a new generation to the Poisoned Precautionary Principle (PPP) and served up with the euphoric dash of “Eureka!” … and suggestible persons are led to believe that this is a new idea and throughout human history we’ve been making all the important decisions by shooting craps or just going with the desires of greedy industrialists and tyrants, and not some evolving risk/reward ratio.
Since PPP is a “zero-tolerance” idea where “cost is no object” and can be illustrated by drawing on any handy four-pane window it is trite enough to be used to argue in favor of anything — including the extermination of Jews — it is with great relief that we see it used here to (merely) push a scam where the human race must drop everything to concentrate on this one scenario. By assigning infinite harm to so-called Global Warming it is easy to see that you must immediately quit your day job to join the Rainbow Warriors.
Here is the PPP in action. Note how by removing all doubt as to whether something is an issue at all (which is the cornerstone of risk assessment) one is left with a trite four pane window, and can lead others down the Garden Path to justifying any means. It also helps to have a strong belief in Keynesian economics, a poison principle where anything, even wasteful, pointless and harmful things, can justified because of the presumed economic stimulus they would create.
His comparison is misleading and his logic is faulty, because he minimizes the consequences of another Great Depression.
He says that the Global Depression in box False-Yes would make the Great Depression of the 30s look like a cakewalk. Based on what we know about the Great Depression, this means we would face an economic catastrophe, but also the political, social, environmental and health catastrophes he refers to. NO, I don’t believe that sea levels would rise 20 feet, but we already know that people are not very careful about the environment when they are worried about where their next meal is coming from – you can see this in Third World countries.
AND, don’t forget that the Great Depression resulted in the rise of the Nazis and ended only with WW2. So in the False-Yes box, we would have everything in the True-No box, PLUS we would have wasted trillions of dollars on a false premise (money that could have been spent actually improving the lot of the poor), PLUS we could look forward to another world war (more massive loss of life).
The reason why WWII ended the depression in the US was that Roosevelt was forced to eliminate most of the regulations that had been hampering business recovery for over a decade.
That video is only terrifying in the context of his sales tactics. I’ll bet he sells extended warranties for a car dealer.
Of course, you can build exactly the same risk analysis (I shudder to call it that) using any other eschatological (scatological?) scenario; an asteroid strike, pandemic disease (airborne Ebola for example), nuclear war, etc.
There’s really no shortage of imaginable catastrophes. Why is this one more important than any of the others? We have not been shown evidence (and I use that word very strictly) it is any more likely to occur than the others, in fact the risk of pandemic (anthropogenic or natural) is obviously greater than the risk of catastrophic climate change in my opinion.
This is where the analysis fails; it doesn’t compare the relative risks of other events of equal magnitude. It doesn’t even mention the other existential risks faced by humanity. What about an ice age? Even a “little” ice age such as occurred only 400 years ago? With a world population rapidly approaching 9 billion, a repetition of the Maunder Minimum would be devastating, far worse than a two degree increase in average global temperature and the concomitant increase in food production coupled with reduced needs for heating.
The essence of this argument is we should spend money to arrest global warming “because”; no real reason is given other than the possibility of impending doom, which is not eliminated by the action proposed. We should also tell all of our friends and neighbors to do the same. How many of your friends and neighbors would agree the planet should spend a $trillion/year to prevent an asteroid strike? It’s statistically inevitable one will occur someday. We can say the same about the next ice age.
I can think of quite a few more entertaining ways to spend time and energy myself. Catering to paranoids quivering in fear of the closet monster is not one of them. It would be much cheaper to wrap all of them in bubble pack, toss them in a steel reinforced concrete bunker with a TV set an feed them through a straw. It’s the only way we’ll keep them “safe”.
Why not hold alarmists to their catastrophist predictions? If they really and truly believe the world is really and truly going to bake to death by 2100, they should be going much farther than this: they need to be demanding that we shut down Western economies ASAP, ban any production of CO2 whatsoever, and prepare our military forces to attack anyone who allows coal power plants to operate, or any other source of manmade CO2, etc. etc.
Call their bluff, in other words. Do you REALLY believe the world is going to end over CO2? Then why are you fooling around with carbon markets, windmills, and COP-infinity circuses? Why should we take you seriously when you do not seriously believe it yourselves?
“they need to be demanding that we shut down Western economies ASAP”
THAT … they will never do because their agenda is based on the slowly boiled frog analogy,
An Inconvenient Truth: There is no evidence whatsoever that CO2 is having ANY deleterious effect on the environment, food production, or the comfort and productivity of human beings. Quite the contrary, in fact–and it has bee ever thus.
You think for one minute the REAL “smart money” don’t know that? Read “Forbes!”
Yes. Why not! After all, the war on poverty and the war on drugs have been oh, so successful.
Don’t forget the war on terrorism too. So glad we put a stop to that!
Terrorists will kill you if you don’t kill them first.
Global warming and CO2 are actually beneficial.
I always love that there always needs to be a “czar” for a problem.
Didn’t anyone check history about how badly the czars ruled?
Yes, but I can’t say the Commie’s did any better.
It may happen that global warming/climate change will hang around in some shape or form for many decades however these things are only symptoms of a root ailment and that takes a different type of observer, researcher or whatever level of interest a person approaches the matter. It may happen that people will start to drift away from this website leaving only citation warfare between academics but that has been the trajectory anyway.
It is handy to use the contrived notion of global warming to highlight the actual problem which has gone untouched for a number of centuries however academics are simply not familiar with the exposure of such a cherished narrative even though it has been highly corrosive and disruptive for humanity .
“Rule III. The qualities of bodies, which admit neither [intensification] nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.” Newton
It means a person is allowed to apply experimental analogies such as a greenhouse and carbon dioxide and elevate it without any restrictions to planetary climate (Universal qualities) just as the fall of an apple could be scaled up to the motions of planets by removing the limits between analogies and Universal conclusions. Such a drastic correlation is going to lead to drastic conclusions and that is the intellectual atmosphere we are presently stuck with.
When all is said and done there will still be planetary climate to consider using a proper research foundations and beginning with planetary comparisons and the common traits which actually determine what a planet’s climate is. It only depends on how quickly researchers set aside the greenhouse nightmare and start to model climate using a few basic inputs in order to restore climate studies to an enjoyable pursuit as it once was.
“An endless war against global warming would be, and in my opinion is, an unprecedented opportunity for the unscrupulous to plunder the wealth of ordinary people.”
And the climate would still win!
Sure, why not a “war on global warming”, since they are already waging a war against truth, science, and basic democratic principles. What better way to further their goal of shutting down the opposition, of subverting free speech, while at the same time “rallying the troops” and encouraging new ones to sign up? Good plan.
A war on CO2 has been underway for some time now. Economic suicide is the strategy of choice.
As yet another ISIS terrorist attack on innocent people hits California, we see our leaders still demanding a war on exhaling CO2. Don’t hold your breath for when they will recognize the real dangers here.
Declaring war on a molecule absolutely essential for all life on the planet?!?!
These loons are suicidal and want to take all life out with them. They need to be locked up in a mental institution.
What else might be expected from a professor of, of all things, anthropology? Is it romanticism based on false beliefs about primitives?
The Liberal government, of the province of Ontario in Canada, has been devoted to green energy. People are noticing. The latest is the Auditor General of the province. CBC story. The good people of Ontario are paying roughly twice as much for electricity as does the rest of Canada. I haven’t read it yet but apparently the Auditor General’s report is scathing.
The thing to notice here is that the left leaning CBC is extensively reporting on this. Normally they report on everything global warming. This morning the business commentator, Michael Hlinka, covered the Auditor General’s comments on the situation. Later this morning the CBC is interviewing the Auditor General specifically on the subject.
Ontario is the poster child for the war on global warming. Here’s what it looks like. When the CBC reports extensively on it you know that it’s a scandal.
Like the governmental wars on human nature (poverty and drug use) were so effective we now can start one against nature.
Does anyone have the Earth average temperature graph, the one that shows a virtually flat line at 14F? Thanks.
http://woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:1997/plot/rss/from:1997/trend
Thanks, but the info I gave was wrong. Someone on here compiled it. It’s in F so it must be around 57 (not 14c). It shows temp going back about 30 years or so, and is therefore virtually a flat line of 57-degree data. Anyone?
That does not exist. But see:
http://theinconvenientskeptic.com/2013/03/misunderstanding-of-the-global-temperature-anomaly/
“But wars are also the time of parasites and profiteers. Wars are when criminals who arrange corrupt deals with politicians wielding extraordinary wartime powers grow rich.”
That’s true, but I think with CAGW the corruption will be on steroids. At least during wartime the politicians, hustlers, and the common people all have a similar vested interest in their side winning. So the profiteers aren’t going to fleece the people too bad or they’re going to be up a creek too. And, eventually the war ends. With CAGW there’s really no enemy so the corrupt have nothing to lose.
Don’t know why such tw8ts keep on with if else then or not…la.la.la. Ok…its money always!
Where anything related to this planet and its wider environment goes one way or another wildly or not we are finished. I thought we were creeping into the Sun anyway?
Too cold and its a real miserable extinction whereas warm means a good time all round..for a while perhaps? No amount of money with/without hand wringing will halt any of it.
One of UK’s older power stations in Northumberland has gone to biomass after scheduled shut down. I assume thats chippings from the USA. The freaking EU again! And the UK Gov.
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-15-6214_en.htm
“One of UK’s older power stations in Northumberland has gone to biomass after scheduled shut down. I assume thats chippings from the USA”
Biomass???–isn’t that something produced in large amounts in the halls of congress???
The war on CO2 would make the Road Warrior look like a picnic. Great plot for a sifi movie. The armies of the world running around destroying every last oil field, coal mine and refinery. Then the army of Right realizes that it no longer has fuel for its trucks, tanks, planes and ships, which themselves must be destroyed as evil fossil fuel users before they fall into the hands of the rebel refiners. Ultimately the military androids turn on the humans, wiping them out as the last identifiable human sources of the evil gas. Meanwhile, the plants, which have gone into productive overdrive feasting on the human CO2, create a precipitous crash in CO2 levels when the human supply suddenly disappears, driving the level below what is necessary to sustain plant life. The only survivors are the androids.
If the looneys on the left want a war against Climate Change then all the sane people on the right should enter that war DEFENDING Climate Change !! To arms !! LOL
Thanks, Eric Worrall.
I have been in a data war against global warming scammers since “An Inconvenient Truth” appeared on the scene and we were hit with a hockey stick.
[Removed dupes. .mod]
Meanwhile, the G&M also carries an editorial today that details how much Ontarians are overpaying for electricity, courtesy of the clueless Liberal government. Quotes:
“For example, the auditor finds that the province is paying twice as much for wind power as American utilities, three and a half times as much for solar power and, in the most exceptional incident of economic illogic, has a biomass plant in Thunder Bay producing electricity at 25 times the average price in the rest of the province.”
“Let’s try to put those numbers in context. Electricity overpriced by $170-billion is equivalent to $12,326 in excess costs for every man, woman and child in Ontario. Over 27 years, that averages out to $457 per person, per year.”
Thanks, Eric Worrall.
I have been at war against the global warming scam since we hit with a hockey stick and an inconvenient truth appeared on the scene.
Any time the criminal enterprise of the US federal government declares a “war” on something I am assured of two things. The war will deprive me of property and take away my liberty.
War in this context means spending orgy which is what climate change is all about anyway. They have already tried Marshall Plan and moon shot. Next up is Great (global) Society.
If this proposed War on Climate is waged as vigorously as Obama’s War on Isis, we have nothing to fear (except ISIS, of course).
” Why have we not fully mobilized and declared war on global warming?” Because the vast majority of people consider tilting at windmills a waste of time?
Especially against windmills they’ve constructed, using their own imaginary hockey sticks.
Not eliminating ISIS, Al Qaeda, et al decreases the population’s concern with AGW and the polls are certainly showing this. This is made even worse for the left when their supreme leader employs subtleties and naïveté in describing the Jihadists. He and his ilk use harsher words when relating to AGW – it has become their own ‘cut off your nose to spite your face’ conundrum.
Republicans are Obama’s REAL enemy–THEY would strip him of his gravy train planes and all the other perks he abuses, including a much-anticipated position as Politician of the World.
I really wish senate Republicans had that much spine.
But it’s true that Obama’s only chance to be King of the World as UN Sec/Gen depends on getting another Democrat elected POTUS.
I think that’s the central deal at this point, between O and Hillary. Notice how the treason charges pending against her have quietly gone away…
Would this war on climate change also include the incarceration and “disposal” of those termed deniers?
It will happen as soon as they can… although ‘re-education’ will likely be the catch-phrase.
Isn’t history a wonderful guide for those who chose to look at it instead of rewrite it?
Bon Ki Moon and is precious UN are funding ISIS. If Bon can get ISIS to destroy Washington DC then Bon and company will annex New York City to keep the pesky and foulmouthed New York citizenry from complaining about his “diplomat’s” diplomatic immunity when it comes to double and over parking and using their Roils Royce limos to rundown the rat-faced crackers on the streets of New York around the UN Central Command.
Maybe because it will be as successful as the war on poverty, drugs, cancer, terror?
‘Anthropology’ professor. Sigh. I see things like this and I think, ‘maybe Darwin was wrong.’
Yep. The “stupid” gene appears to be taking over. Maybe Ma Nature is tired of us.
“Nature abhors a moron.”
—H.L. Mencken
Trudeau is jetsetting a sound the world, throwing taxpayer’s money away to everyone except the 1 in 10 Canadians living in poverty. The sad fact is that wvetone of the 25000 Syrian refugees coming to Canada will get double what we give retired seniors in Canada. After a lifetime of paying taxes the average Canadian would be better off to tear up their citizenship and come to Canada as a refugee.
But in Trudeau’s mind we are better of giving away billions to other countries while tens of thousands of little old ladies across Canada will be eating cat food for dinner, because that is the only meat they can afford.
I say we should go ahead and let the global warming cult form their Nu Earth Unicorn Brigade and wage a full out war on CAGW. In fact, I have footage of what this war may look like:
The “Moral Equivalent of War” (MEOW) is one of those tropes with which liberals always approach policy.
Jonah Goldberg explains it all:
“Ever since philosopher William James coined the phrase “moral equivalent of war,” self-described progressives have sought to galvanize the masses for collective purposes. They have loved the idea of war-without-war precisely because they want a public that follows in lockstep and individuals who will sacrifice their personal ambitions for the “greater good.” This is what John Dewey, James’s disciple, called the “social benefits of war.” Dewey, later a famous pacifist, supported WWI because he believed it would usher in an age of collectivism and crush laissez-faire capitalism.
“The yearning for a moral equivalent of war is an understandable desire, perhaps even noble in its intent. But it is not democratic. It is fundamentally authoritarian, which might explain why so many environmentalists envy China’s ability to ban plastic bags without reference to a vote or a court or anything other than the will of the China’s technocratic rulers. Indeed, the authors of “The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy” openly question whether the crisis of climate change should render liberal democracy obsolete. For some it seems the moral equivalent of war requires the moral equivalent of a police state.”
“Green is the New Red, White & Blue?” By Jonah Goldberg • April 25, 2008
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/green_is_the_new_red_white_blu.html
Walter Sobchak,
‘The moral equivalent of war’ is nothing but a deceptive remapping of the ‘Noble Cause Corruption’ fallacy that motivates ethics-challenged fellow travelers who need a convenient excuse to plan out the lives of others, as they attempt to re-engineer society.
Their main obstacle is that people in general like the way things are under a free market. That system provides a wealth of goods and services at the lowest possible cost. But eco-corruption causes the cost of basics like energy to skyrocket. When that happens we’re told it’s ‘for the greater good’, but if it was ever put to a vote, people would vote for 6¢/kwh electricity over 30¢/kwh windmill power every time.
DB. I have noticed that most people that try to plan out the lives of others, do a poor job with their own. I have noticed that there are a lot of these people.
James F,
Yes, we see them comment here on occasion…
Both ‘wars’ can be summarised as follows: ‘Wall Street, the big banks and billionaires benefit from both war and global warming’. This is the few at the expense of the many.
For America, with its indoctrinated hatred of ‘socialism’, you need to invent a new term for ‘the many overcoming the few’. It’s not this time about imposing marxism on the world after you overthrow the corrupt. It’s about restoring the principles of markets regulated only as necessary for the benefit of society (i.e. you try and regulate as little as possible but understand that human nature and the real world mean that some regulation is actually best for the most people).
If you don’t invent that term and imbue in it positive connotations, then I’m afraid you have a problem. Unless you can find another small group of rich people to beat up the current group of rich people who happen to have the same principles that you have.
How many really rich people have you met who, once they win a battle with other rich people, don’t want to take advantage and get even richer themselves?
I’ve met zero.
Who was it that said “the first thing in war to go is the truth”? Looks to me that we are pretty deep into the war on global warming. Does anyone have an exit strategy? Let us demand one.
Why won’t we declare war on global warming?
Because CO2 is not a dangerous enemy. We all breathe it out, and plants breathe it in.
Article V Convention of the States. Demand it from your local govt.
Want a war on “global warming”? Fine. Start with putting out all of the coal seam fires that are burning in just four countries: China, Indonesia, India and US. It would be expensive, require international cooperation, would require development of new engineering technologies and techniques but it would eliminate the daily equivalent CO2 emissions as removing ALL North American automotive traffic and require no change in lifestyle or onerous regulations.
crosspatch,
Maybe they could use all that sequestered CO2 to put out them coal seam fars!
Win-win!…
…oh, wait… What was I thinking??
Well. It would definetly be one of those very long slow wars… one where the enemy has the element of surprise (which coastal town that has developed to close to the water shall I hit with my mighty typhoon today? Which government body has blocked natural wild fires and is overdue for a bolt of well-placed lightening followed by a puff of wind to blow the flames towards the houses that shoudl never have been built? Shall I make it happen in California? Or New South Wales??? Ah… its a canny enemy! ), It is also no doubt, a war where the media will be flagging in its attempt to keep hysteria going… “We now enter our 3rd decade where temperatures increases have yet to exceed one degree this century and the sea levels have only risen a sluggish 15cm, but there is now only 50 years until the polar ice caps collapse instantly into running oceans of water- we must attack NOW!”
Another social scientist! You would think the climate scientist proponents would start to worry about social scientists taking over operations of the clime syndicate. I guess there is little to choose between them these days – it’s really a political movement now.
The war on global warming would involve a lot of stealth fighting equipment. The enemy itself is invisible. I guess we can identify it in greening of the planet and could strafe it with agent orange.
” If they are wrong and we act, the worst that will happen will be an economic stimulus that will result in a cleaner environment, a more technologically integrated world and a healthier planet.”
Actually, no. We would have dug huge mines to smelt copper for thousands of miles of copper transmission and distribution lines, burned mega-tons of coal in steel mills and concrete kilns, pultruded tons of glass fibers, converted mega-barrels of oil into lubricants, electrical insulation and epoxy, cut thousands of miles of access roads and covered them with excavated and crushed stone, transported many thousands of multi-ton assemblies many thousands of miles and erected them so as to disturb both natural and inhabited areas, all to build windmills. Repeat for PV installations, etc.
If we are wrong we will have made the planet dirtier, noisier, and uglier for nothing. We would have consumed resources and wealth for nothing. We would have destroyed industries with high productivity and replace them with industries of lesser productivity for nothing.
There are consequences for being wrong. Just saying “sorry” at a later date will not recover the losses.
I hope they leave the windmills in place as monuments to the stupidity of man. So we won’t get fooled again.
As a child I would look at photos of the pyramids and wonder how a society put so much of its wealth into these “wonders”. How it was that the best minds of the era devoted their lives to perfecting every nuance of these worthless edifices.
Today I watch the unfolding of this “climate” tragedy and I understand why those workers followed the money and toiled away their entire lives shaping stone for no purpose. I see how educated and “sophisticated” leaders can fool themselves into believing that any work which keeps people busy is acceptable, even if fantastic quantities of hard-earned wealth are consumed in the process of building objects of little or no value.
Sadly, this seems to be a pattern. It has happened before. There is no reason to believe that “modern” man is any less susceptible to this irrational behavior.
The problem is that without regular maintenance, they will fall over and hurt people and property. The good news is that the scrap values will be considerable.
I would anticipate that a cottage industry will emerge to “reclaim” copper power lines feeding the most remote windmills, even as they are spinning. Just another hidden cost of renewable power.
Walter, you are correct. Barring societal collapse, any decommissioned equipment will be recycled so as to remove toxic substances and eliminate the liability tail of an attractive nuisance. The foundations will likely remain in the ground. Perhaps one day their existence will puzzle inquisitive minds.
Sciguy54. I’m with you on the pyrimids. The most amazing thing to me about them is the huge effort to build them was for no good reason. I wondered how many good solid homes could have been built instead.
“sciguy54
December 3, 2015 at 6:44 pm
…workers followed the money and toiled away their entire lives shaping stone for no purpose.”
Workers? The people who actually built them were slaves. It was either shape stone, or die!
“But wars are also the time of parasites and profiteers.”
I submit we already have a war on global warming.
I fully support a “War on Global Warming”. Remember the “War on Drugs” – more drugs. Remember the “War on Poverty” – more Poverty. Remember the “War on Illiteracy” – more Illiteracy. Remember the “War on Terrorism” – more terrorism – oh, that one hasn’t finished yet.
Roll on more Global warming and green the planet!
(I suppose I had better say “sarc”?)
As global warming increases temperatures worldwide but particularly in the northern hemisphere the balmy conditions particularly where I live will lead to reduction in fossil fuels for heating etc. this will lead to a reduction in CO2 emissions and therefore to global cooling without any need to declare war.