Dec 16 2009
Global Warming Talks Retreating Into Nothingness
The great socialist, liberal, progressive, left (pick your preferred label(s)) movement has run its course. Being made up of fictional fantasies one would typically find in a Disney cartoon land (corporations bad, humanity bad, nature under attack, liberals saving the day with platitudes, etc), it is no surprise this thin tissue of unrealistic, simple-minded ‘policies’ has run aground. People are not evil, being alive is not a sin against nature (we are nature’s boldest creation after all), corporations are not evil, government creates 100 problems for every one it solves and CO2 is not a pollutant.
This week the liberal heart was ripped out of Obamacare, leaving penalties for not being insured but no cost savings, no increased services and no Nirvana. The Public Option (government rationed care) is gone. A bold Senator from Connecticut did his job and represented his state over the political party’s agenda, and pulled the legislation back from the far left brink.
And now in Copenhagen the same thing is happening, as all the dire predictions of pending doom are melting away into a puddle of watered down nothingness:
The United Nations’ effort to muster global action against climate change appeared to move backward Tuesday, as the world’s leading economies traded barbs over the most basic questions about how to divide responsibility for curbing greenhouse-gas emissions.
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As the wrangling continued, a new draft agreement circulated Tuesday moved backward from an earlier proposal, lacking any targets for carbon cuts and financing.
The new draft stipulated that developed countries were historically responsible for most global emissions of greenhouse gases and so “must take the lead in combating climate change” by abating their carbon emissions and providing money and technology to poorer nations.
We ‘developed’ countries have also brought a myriad of technological advances that have and can saves millions of lives. Our medical breakthroughs alone have made the developing world a better place, as does our communications technology, computer technology, transportation technology, etc.
We have not hoarded these capabilities, and we have distributed drugs and services to those in need without any question or payment.
If you measure our efforts in CO2 alone it simply means we provided the plants needed ‘air to breathe’, thus keeping the circle of life healthy. If you measure how many lives we have touched (including the 100’s of millions now living free of oppressive regimes from Europe to Japan, Africa to Iraq) we have nothing to feel guilty or in debt for.
Maybe those who have never been able to turn our efforts of support into a positive social trajectory are the ones who owe humanity for continuously blowing their chances and not cleaning up their act. The good will of the average citizen of the developed countries is not bottomless or endless – and in fact may have already run dry.
It is long past their turn to be good stewards like the rest of us have been for decades.
There are three tip-offs that the opinion you are listening to is one from the Left. They are the phrases “environmental concern,” “controlling costs” and the word, “sustainability.”
Any of these words signal that the speaker has absolutely no idea of how market forces work to insure that the demands of the consumer are met by the producer.
Mandates are the approved tool for overcoming market forces. Mandates protect the environment, control costs and provide sustainability. Mandates are good. Market forces are bad.
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In the Senate health care bill the mandates for insurance without a government option is to buy it from the insurance companies. So the Senate bill will be a big boon to them unless you pay your fine (tax) for not having health insurance. Either way, to help those evil health insurance company or to levy a tax on those who can’t afford health insurance is not going to paint the liberal democrats in a good light. It violates the 5th amendment takings clause by forcing a person into a contract without any compensation other than the right to stay alive. I don’t think the Supreme Court is going to want to stretch Wicker that far. It also violates the rule of contract law.
Copenhagen is really lost because the developing countries must end their corruption, socialist economies, dictators, and lack of the rule of law.
Very well stated A.J., Great commentary.
Maybe us “skeptics†were a bit too cynical as well. This state of affairs should have been foreseeable given the failure of “Cap-n-Tax†in the US Congress. We should have known that all of the West wasn’t really going to give the “developing†nations a “free lunchâ€; that’s solely the job of the US. With the “free lunch†off the table, they now must argue over “scraps.â€
I often say how history repeats itself. So how does it feel to be Galileo, AJ?? The earth really doesn’t revolve around Al Gore.
AJ, this is huge. Make sure to see the stories (linked from Anthony’s post above) to Jeff Id’s and Steve McIntyre’s blogs.
It seems CRU selected only the very warmest stations to reflect the temperatures of a huge portion of the planet and ignored stations that did not report the desired result. If taken all together as they should have been, there is no warming in Russia. This is a pattern we have seen recently such as selecting the one single station with the most warming to represent the entire continent of Antarctica.
CP
Just using the OJ strategy.
If it doesn’t fit you must omit.
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Ah, well, you have to evaluate the health care situation from a “spread the wealth” perspective. It appears they are going to get their subsidies for the marginally functional. (The House bill, as I recall, extends subsidies to families of 4 with a household income up to $88,000). As an exercise in patronage, this effectively secures the political loyalties of tens of millions. It futher appears that they will strip insurers of the ability to underwrite. The costs of this will inevitably be passed to other policyholders.
One would think they could at least have considered ways of providing adequate medical care to the indigent other than by buying insurance for them. I suppose this has to do with some notion of “insurance equity.”
CP, saw it and just got a post done it. Yes, it is huge.
Frankly, this is now sounding more like a negotiation on setting a World Industrial Plan with climate change as a pretext. More or less locking in industrial output and market share globally (which would explain why big business was so interested in getting in on the ground floor of “Cap-nTax”). Given the the two largest up and coming industrial countries, China and India, are trying to opt out, it seems pointless if at least the underlying pretext has no validity. It seems that the lackeys at the UN thought they could sucker them in, but these folks are no fools.
I keep trying to imagine what happens as 2nd and 3rd world countries realize that they have been dupped or mislead or just plain negotiated badly. We are talking trade wars, the likes of which have not occurred in over a century, and that means quite possibly real wars as well. Using a phony pretext, like AGW, will only make this possible outcome even more likely.