Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to University of Austin Research Associate Todd Davidson, preparing for war on climate change means we should disregard scientific uncertainty.
Commentary: We Should Prepare for Climate Change Like We Prepare for War
Climate change poses a more significant threat to global security than the low probability event of a ground war with China. And yet, we spent $590 billion on defensein 2017 and maintained readiness against the unlikely prospect of a large conventional war. It’s time for conservatives to recognize our constitutional mandate to provide for the common defense by addressing the rising threat of climate change.
There are three primary explanations that are used to justify inaction on climate change: The science is uncertain; we cannot afford to address the problem; and other counties will keep polluting, so our actions won’t matter.
First: Is the science settled? It does not matter—we have an obligation to be prepared to defend the country, even if the threat is uncertain.
…
Despite the uncertainty in the timing and location of military threats, we are always ready for war just in case. The same approach of readiness should be used for climate action, because despite the uncertainty in how climate change could impact the world, the threat on the horizon is real and has the potential to be catastrophic.
…
Read more: http://fortune.com/2018/04/17/climate-change-conservatives-defense-spending/
The problem with rushing headlong into expenditure is the money being demanded is utterly astronomical.
For example, Professor Aled Jones, Professor & Director of the Global Sustainability Institute, declared back in February that the $300 billion per year currently spent on renewables is far short of the money required to address the climate threat.
Waving away uncertainties when that kind of money is on the table is simply unacceptable.
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Paraphrasing Todd Davidson’s argument, to illustrate the fundamental absurdity:
Is Todd Davidson a threat to the United States of America? It does not matter—we have an obligation to defend the country against Todd and other enemies, both foreign and domestic, even if the threat is uncertain.
Before girding up for climate battle, it is important to have a good, rousing, climate hymn, to boost spirits and keep morale high. To that end, I humbly offer the following:
Onward Climate soldiers
Marching as to war
With the cross-eyed polar bear
Going on before
Onward then, ye people
Join our happy throng
Blend with ours your voices
In our triumph song
Gore the royal master
Leads against the foe
Forward into battle
See His banners go
Crowns and Thrones may perish
Kingdoms rise and wane
But the cross-eyed polar bear
Constant will remain
“First: Is the science settled? It does not matter—we have an obligation to be prepared to defend the country, even if the threat is uncertain.”
——–
Let’s prepare for an invasion of the “Lizard People” now! There have been multiple sightings. 12 million Americans believe in the existence of the Lizard People and even NASA Gavin Schmidt considers their existence possible! They are cold blooded and will eat kittens whole! The time to take action is NOW before it’s too late!
PLEASE BEAR WITH ME AND READ THE FOLLOWING QUOTATIONS….!
“The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society,
which is nature’s proper steward and society’s only hope.”
– David Brower,
founder of Friends of the Earth
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“If we don’t overthrow capitalism, we don’t have a chance of
saving the world ecologically. I think it is possible to have
an ecologically sound society under socialism.
I don’t think it is possible under capitalism”
– Judi Bari,
principal organiser of Earth First!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the
industrialized civilizations collapse?
Isn’t it our responsiblity to bring that about?”
– Maurice Strong,
founder of the UN Environment Programme
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“A massive campaign must be launched to de-develop the
United States. De-development means bringing our
economic system into line with the realities of
ecology and the world resource situation.”
– Paul Ehrlich,
Professor of Population Studies
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
These are JUST A FEW of the RECORDED STATEMENTS issued by “World Leaders”
( please see The Green Agenda at green-agenda.com )
.
This is possibly THE WORST OF THEM :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“A total population of 250-300 million people,
a 95% decline from present levels, would be ideal.”
– Ted Turner,
founder of CNN and major UN donor
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“… the resultant ideal sustainable population is hence
more than 500 million but less than one billion.”
– Club of Rome,
Goals for Mankind
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“One America burdens the earth much more than
twenty Bangladeshes. This is a terrible thing to say.
In order to stabilize world population,we must eliminate
350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say,
but it’s just as bad not to say it.”
– Jacques Cousteau,
UNESCO Courier
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
THIS WILL GIVE YOU SOME IDEA OF THE DREADFUL PEOPLE WHO ARE
PRESENTLY IN POWER and THEIR TOTAL DISREGARD FOR THE LIVES OF
BILLIONS OF PEOPLE just so they can “SAVE THE PRECIOUS EARTH ” from………..us ?
.
So what if an IPA director says “He couldn’t give a rats……….about whether Climate Change Science
is proven , accepted or TOTAL nonsense”……………it is JUST A MEANS TO AN END anyway !
And that END is SOCIALISM……….and I mean COMMUNISM ……………………where YOU and YOUR
OPINION are NOT REQUIRED ! So JOIN THE ELIMINATION QUEUE !
And I notice “contributors” pussyfooting around about whether they are being “too impolite” or
“too critical” or whether they MAY UPSET SOMEONE POWERFUL !!!!!!!!!
.
FOR “Heavens Sake” …….YOUR BLOODY NAMES ARE ALREADY ON THEIR DEATH LISTS !!!!!
.
KEEP YOUR GUNS & RIFLES , GET BUSY HOARDING AMMUNITION & GET BUSY PRACTISING
TARGET SHOOTING !!!!
IT COULD BECOME NECESSARY SOONER THAN YOU THINK !!!
.
“WE” ARE NO LONGER DEALING WITH RATIONAL PEOPLE WHO CAN BE PERSUADED BY
REASON OR APPEALS TO COMPASSION AND “THEIR BETTER NATURE”……………………
AS THEY DON’T HAVE A BETTER NATURE…………ONLY AN AGENDA !
Part of that AGENDA is your elimination ( minimisation……..slaughter………attrition……..removal )
so it is NO WONDER that “THEY” have been firing up FEMINISM ( Less breeding stock ! ) .
ABORTION on DEMAND ( Less to put down later on ! ) EQUALITY OF OUTCOME ( Sure !
Their outcome is OUR REMOVAL………DEATH sounds pretty equal ! ) FOMENTING TENSION
BETWEEN MUSLIMS AND CHRISTIANS ( both with access to Nuclear Weapons !
NOW THAT SHOULD ACCELERATE THE “AGENDA” IF “THEY” CAN KICK IT OFF !! ).
.
So……….. ANY ENVIRONMENTALIST you know IS NOT YOUR FRIEND !
( Please refer BACK to the QUOTES ABOVE just in case you think I’ve got it wrong ! )
“PETA” “Animals are our neighbours, our friends and our fellow Earthlings. They are not ours to use for food, clothing, entertainment, experimentation or any other purpose”.
and so on…………..Personally I blame Walt Disney for the Anthropomorphisation of Animals !!
Just LIKE “radical anti-abortionists” ( who I disapprove of ) “animal rights extremists” ARE PREPARED TO
KILL OTHER HUMAN BEINGS as part of their PROTEST. These people are seriously weird……………BUT
with A BIT OF RE-DIRECTION perhaps…………….???……………they COULD be useful after all !? NAH !
.
The CONSERVATIVE PEOPLE and CONSERVATIVE POLITICIANS
MUST be encouraged ( and financed ) NOW , before this AGENDA becomes any more firmly
entrenched , TO IMPLEMENT CHANGES TO SAVE OUR VALUES AND OUR WAY OF LIFE !
The USA should NOT ONLY WITHDRAW FROM “CLIMATE CHANGE” DISCUSSIONS but
ALSO the UNITED NATIONS which is now shown to be totally corrupt and the IPCC in particular !
If the USA ( which pays about 25 % upwards to 28% of the total bill !! )
“These mandatory contributions help fund the United Nations’ regular budget, which covers administrative costs and a few programs, as well as peacekeeping operations. The United States pays 22 and 28 percent of these budgets, respectively. Assessed dues also finance other UN bodies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency and the World Trade Organization.”……………………etc
“Members may also make voluntary contributions. Many UN organizations, such as the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), and the World Food Program (WFP), rely entirely on discretionary funding.
………………………………and so on ………and on…………..and on……………………………….!! ”
In other words…….THE UNITED NATIONS exists BECAUSE of US finances.and ALTRUISM……………….
and YET THE UN ACTIVELY SEEKS TO DESTROY US CAPITALISM.
.There is ONLY one system that produces WEALTH…………and THAT IS CAPITALISM !
COMMUNISM and SOCIALISM are parasitic and ONLY RE-DISTRIBUTE OTHER PEOPLE’S WEALTH !
The USA has created MOST OF THE WEALTH in the world BUT for the past 30 years or so it has
“shared the wealth making ability with the rest of the world ” BY allowing jobs and entire industries to
flow from America to Europe , Asia and Africa in an “altruistic manner” DICTATED BY SOCIALISTICALLY
INCLINED US Governments , misguided into believing that THIS would DELAY OR AVERT FURTHER
WARFARE , if OTHER countries were more prosperous too !
It has been a great success………….USA now has a lot of comparable economies with whom it can trade
and create more wealth , BUT it is now in a position to be gazumped by those it has encouraged !
Petro-Dollars are now under threat from Petro-Renminbi ( or Petro-Yuan ) and THAT would enable
the socialist agenda to very quickly FINISH THE TASK OF CRIPPLING CAPITALISM !
.
Too pessimistic for you ? Sorry……………….but YOUR ANGER DIRECTED AT the EPA DIRECTOR
seems so pathetically INADEQUATE a response to what is unfolding all around you ………and yet
you fail to see that it is a mere distraction from WHAT THEIR REAL INTENTION will achieve !
.
Any ideas ?
Regards , Trevor.
( I am actually an Optimist …..just in case you were concerned ! )
.
Trevor. I think that the recorded statements you wrote about also prove that the people who made them are idiots because only an idiot would allow those views to be known by the masses. The masses that they say are a problem and must be reduced. Apparently they aren’t smart enough to realize that if or when the masses finally get their message that they will be on the top of list to be reeducated. My Dad told me many years ago that the doomsday people have always been around but no one paid attention to them in the past.
James Francisco,
With respect, I have to disagree. They are elites who think that they are morally and ethically superior because they are “saving the earth.” They believe that the masses aren’t smart enough to ever get their message. That’s why they have no reservations making these statements in public.
In a recent conversation with my son after almost 2 years of silence due to Trump’s victory over Hillary, my son vigorously defended a claim that greed is ruining the world, oil companies, insurance companies, all large corporations, etc. I defended with “Do you mean like the greedy corporations which bring us better medicines, technology, and superior agricultural technology to feed the world?”. I had to finally let that go or we wouldn’t be talking for another 2 years.
The irony is that when my ex moved to Colorado she said that the schools were great there. At the time I thought that’s great. Now I see the fruit that has born, and it raises my blood pressure. Now they have their kids. My sons 4 children, in particular, are all at the top of their classes, and have been both in Colorado, and now in California in the SF/Bay Area. One son especially has my full abilities. I could sense it immediately when I met him. I hate to think of him being indoctrinated in today’s schools system in California in the same fashion as my son was.
Humanity has always been at odds with nature and we would pray to the gods to ensure our survival. Since we are still here, that proves that praying worked. I think we should just do what has already worked rather than try something far more expensive.
(So says the atheist!)
Has anyone ever seen a study on the warming effects of the CAGW mitigations?
For example, if we were able to harvest all the solar impinging on a swath of desert, turning it into electricity, how do we know that this doesn’t create more heat than just leaving the desert alone? All the electricity becomes heat eventually, right? Wind farms ultimately create heat from wind, right?
It would be a hoot to learn that AGW mitigation creates more AGW than it mitigates.
But the science is settled. To better than 3 sigma, the data refutes the alarmist claims. CO2 may have some effect but its a very minor one and climate change such as there is is dominated by natural causes and so there is no point in spending trillions to fail to prevent the odd half a degree that might be.
The best way to tackle climate change is to develop and deploy standard weather station that can be sited well away from developed areas. It might actually be able to utilise lithium batteries solar panels and a wind turbine to power it.
If are going to prepare for a future climate war, shouldn’t we be ready on both fronts. Nobody knows what the future will bring. So we need to prepare for a hot or cold, wet or dry, etc., future. In other words the proper preparation lies in ‘resilience’.
Wise and rational thought.
In other words, we need to get as rich as possible now, so that we will have the resources to deal with whatever the future throws our way.
The science is uncertain; we cannot afford to address the problem; and other counties will keep polluting, so our actions won’t matter.
Actually, there is an even better argument against climate alarmism…
These were the bad projects. As you might see the bottom of the list was climate change. This offends a lot of people, and that’s probably one of the things where people will say I shouldn’t come back, either. And I’d like to talk about that, because that’s really curious. Why is it it came up? And I’ll actually also try to get back to this because it’s probably one of the things that we’ll disagree with on the list that you wrote down.
The reason why they came up with saying that Kyoto — or doing something more than Kyoto — is a bad deal is simply because it’s very inefficient. It’s not saying that global warming is not happening. It’s not saying that it’s not a big problem. But it’s saying that what we can do about it is very little, at a very high cost. What they basically show us, the average of all macroeconomic models, is that Kyoto, if everyone agreed, would cost about 150 billion dollars a year. That’s a substantial amount of money. That’s two to three times the global development aid that we give the Third World every year. Yet it would do very little good. All models show it will postpone warming for about six years in 2100. So the guy in Bangladesh who gets a flood in 2100 can wait until 2106. Which is a little good, but not very much good. So the idea here really is to say, well, we’ve spent a lot of money doing a little good.
And just to give you a sense of reference, the U.N. actually estimate that for half that amount, for about 75 billion dollars a year, we could solve all major basic problems in the world. We could give clean drinking water, sanitation, basic healthcare and education to every single human being on the planet. So we have to ask ourselves, do we want to spend twice the amount on doing very little good? Or half the amount on doing an amazing amount of good? And that is really why it becomes a bad project. It’s not to say that if we had all the money in the world, we wouldn’t want to do it. But it’s to say, when we don’t, it’s just simply not our first priority.
http://www.ted.com/talks/bjorn_lomborg_sets_global_priorities/transcript?language=en
“For about 75 billion dollars a year, we could solve all major basic problems in the world.”
You’re not getting it. WE is the problem. They want WE in charge. If we had WE, WE could solve all problems.
Current subject, there’s this climate change ‘problem.’ If we had we, we could fix it.
Davidson is simply promulgating the false logic of the climate alarmists and politicians that was formalized at the United Nations Rio de Janerio Earth Summit in 1992. That conference produced the Rio Declaration Principle 15 (now Precautionary Principle), which states: “Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.” Politicians have interpreted Principle 15 to mean that science can simply be by-passed when formulating policy. If one can hypothesize a one percent possibility of out-of-control global warming, measures should be taken to prevent global warming. The cost-effective part of the Principle is ignored.
The fallacy of such an application of the Principle is that the probability of irreversible environmental damage associated with a warming earth may be no greater than the probability of irreversible environmental damage associated with a cooling earth. Policies that might be appropriate for the warming case would be diametrically opposite to those appropriate for the cooling case. Under this reality, this application of the Precautionary Principle makes no sense whatsoever. The damage that would be done by acting based on the wrong premise, a warming or a cooling planet, nullifies arguments to take any action until the science is right.
Davidson advocates that “we should prepare for climate change like we prepare for war.” The focus on only one extreme outcome is the same false logic that got the U.S. in the first Iraq war, the one-percent solution. Ask Cheney about it.
My recommendation is to seek advice from a competent statistician and, meanwhile, stay away from Las Vegas. When politicians get in the way of scientists and change the rules of the game, the outcome is not going to be good.
“First: Is the science settled? It does not matter—we have an obligation to be prepared to defend the country, even if the threat is uncertain.” How arrogant!! So your belief about the seriousness of the problem over rules all other opinions? We have centuries of experience dealing with bad actors throughout the world so spending money on defense is justifible. But there is absolutely no evidence of climate change happening as models claim. The comparison is not valid.
Given its ‘faith based ‘ rather than ‘fact based ‘ area this does make sense .
Of course there a ‘reason ‘ why they need to take this approach.
Bingo, as they say.
Not the same at all because one HAS occurred before and the other, climate change (global warming) influenced by puny humans, has never been observed before to claim that it has ever happened before.
In another example despite the uncertainty that aliens may wipe out all life on planet Earth in future. We should be ready and spend billions/trillions in case this threat ever occurs in future, despite also never been observed in the past.
The final point being evidence has been increasingly against the climate change conjecture and that is not the case for war.
According to Todd Davidson we should be spending trillions on detecting Bertrand Russell’s orbiting tiny teapot postulate going around the sun out beyond Mar’s orbit.
Globe warming is always the big danger out there in the future and it has been for 30 years during which the Arctic should have become ice free, polar bears, penguins, cariboo, walruses…done in, children not knowing what snow Is, the Westside Hwy under 10 ft of water, crop devastation ….a billion climate refugees, the disappearance of coral islands and delta’s … Such a failed laundry list, a temperature trace that has proven to be 200-300% too high despite the desperate jiggering of records and a 20 yr pause in temperatures actually has removed uncertainty considerably. The construct is a tiny teapot.
Is the science of imminent attack by space aliens settled? It does not matter—we have an obligation to be prepared to defend the country, even if the threat is uncertain. We need to have recordings of Slim Whitman’s “Indian Love Call” available to all, and especially for broadcast over public address systems and loudspeakers. And that’s only for planet Mars.
This is simply an academic progressive appealing to a stereotype.
Mention ‘war’ – that’ll get’em conservative deniers on board.
Just like mentioning ‘money’.
I’ll say this – they believe their own bigotry.
An absurd twisted strawman falsehood.
A) Todd Davidson equates America’s entire military complex as based on the currently fallacious claim that there will be a war with China.
B) Davidson then amplifies any to date falsified climate risk as a greater threat than war with China would be.
Over the top delusion comes to mind; with the following thought that this “associate” is off his meds.
C) Davidson fill in more specious assumptions to bolster his fantasy while diminishing non-climate items of import.
At least Huxley knew he was writing about fantasies caused by drugs.
Hmmm…aren’t China (and India) leaders in the emissions of dreaded gas CO2?
A ground war?
Maybe we should “save the world” and just Nuke them both now.
According to the “Catastrophic Anthropomorphic Global Warming” dudes, a Nuclear Winter might be a good thing.
We have an obligation to ignore idiotic, self-contradictory statements, even if they are uttered by highly credentialed academicians.
Wait, don’t liberals advocate “cower in place” as the best defense?
Incidentally, now that some classrooms have been issued buckets of rocks in case there’s an “active shooter” — (as opposed to those lazy, I’ll-get-around-to-killing types) — I am circulating a petition to ban high-capacity buckets. There is no plausible situation ever where anyone would need more than 2 or 3 rocks.
And no high-caliber rocks. Pebbles are more than adequate.
I used to frequently watch Charlie Rose on PBS. I got to the point where I’d rather watch the narcissistic celebrities talk about themselves and some dopey movie they were promoting than the scientists. That’s because the scientists seemed to be on the show to talk about some huge breakthrough on the horizon if only they had more money. One wanted to send men to Mars. Another was begging for money for Alzheimer’s. Another for cancer. Another for ebola. And on and on. They seem unaware that money doesn’t grow on trees. That we serfs have to actually earn the money before the government can confiscate it and funnel it to them for their pet projects under the guise of saving the world.
Um, that’s the University of Texas at Austin, not the University of Austin. Either way, these idjits cause me embarrassment as a Texian.
It could be worse; his name could be Naomi.
Way ahead you, prof.
“Enemies foreign and domestic”.
That’s why many of us are skeptics….and not PC.
(I’d like to see the day when “Politically Correct” actually meant politics that “Constitutionality Correct”. Nobody’s going to hear that in your classroom!)
“We must launch a war against the pink unicorn horde set to invade our shores at any moment! Does it matter that no one has ever seen a pink unicorn, or that it’s scientifically impossible for them to exist?! NO!! We must spend the $100 TRILLION dollars demanded by the Paris Unicorn Accord to mitigate the threat! Our very existence is at stake!
Surely the conservatives can see that this logic is bulletproof, and they must therefore agree to spend our great-great-great-great grandchildren into debt so we can save ourselves from a fairy tale!”
These people are so disconnected from reality that they’ve become laughingstocks.
To Hotscot and Allan MaCrae……………………………..Ah YES !
“We” ( most of my direct ancestors were Scottish !! ) owe a lot to GLOBAL WARMING !
A mere 10,000 years ago SCOTLAND was COVERED with about a kilometre or so OF ICE !
And THAT is where ANAESTHESIA and ‘SCOTCH’ were BOTH INVENTED !!
Without benign global warming Scotland would be uninhabitable and “we” would not exist !
Again, why did George Bush even bothered to argue that Saddam did have WMD, when he could just claim that Saddam could possibly have some or could possibly have the intention to maybe think about acquiring some?