Climate Theater Of The Absurd
/Everything about the "climate change" political circus is completely absurd. There's a big climate confab coming up at the end of the year in Paris, and lots of unproductive parasites are looking to that event as their last best chance to solidify a permanent life sinecure for themselves in some U.N. bureaucracy before a critical mass of the general public catches on to the scam. Right now it may only be May, but the drumbeat of climate scares is getting louder every day. So today I'm just going to put a few recent developments next to each other, and you can try to figure out for yourself how any sane person thinks that any of this makes sense.
First up is President Obama's commencement address at the Coast Guard Academy last week. It was classic global warming evangelism. Global warming is a terrible and immediate crisis. The U.S. is to be committed to rapid reduction of "carbon pollution," and to revamping its electric power industry without any concern about costs. A few choice excerpts:
As men and women in uniform, you know that it can be just as important, if not more important, to prevent threats before they can cause catastrophic harm. And only way -- the only way -- the world is going to prevent the worst effects of climate change is to slow down the warming of the planet. . . . So, going forward, I’ve committed to doubling the pace at which we cut carbon pollution. And that means we all have to step up. And it will not be easy. It will require sacrifice, and the politics will be tough. But there is no other way. . . . We have to move ahead with standards to cut the amount of carbon pollution in our power plants.
Seems like the word still hasn't gotten to Obama that we've just gone through more than 18 years of no global warming whatsoever. And turning our gaze for the moment from predictions of a disastrous future to the immediate past, we find that the government has just reported revised numbers for Q1 2015 GDP, and the result is -- shrinkage of 0.7%. As reported today at Breitbart, reason number one given for the decline by Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jason Furman was -- you guessed it -- "harsh winter weather." Where had I just gotten the idea that warming was bad and cooling must be better? Is that no longer operative?
So we're on to Paris for a grand global deal to "cut emissions" and save the world. Has anybody checked in with India on that? Here's what recent Indian Minister of Environment and Forests (2009 - 2011) has to say about that (quoted in the Guardian on May 27):
The idea that India can set targets in Paris is completely ridiculous and unrealistic. It will not happen. This is a difficult concept for eco-fundamentalists, and I say this as a guy who is considered in India to be very green. Copenhagen failed because of climate evangelism. I was sitting for days with Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband, Angela Merkel, Barack Obama and Sarkozy. It was absolutely bizarre. It failed because of an excess of evangelical zeal, of which Brown was the chief proponent. Even with the most aggressive strategy on nuclear, wind, hydro and solar, coal will still provide 55% of electricity consumption by 2030, which means coal consumption will be 2.5 or three times higher than at present.
"Ridiculous," "unrealistic," and "bizarre," and sorry, we're about to triple our coal consumption whether you like it or not -- yes, Barack, that's what India thinks of your "climate" plans for them. And by the way, this guy was part of the previous government over there that was considerably more left wing than the new guys.
Here's a Bloomberg News write-up from May 22 on India's coal plans over just the next few years:
India thinks of coal right primarily as a poverty-fighting tool. It's the most vocal and influential champion of the fuel these days now that China's industrial hangover has begun. . . . Indian coal demand could jump 42 percent, or 300 million metric tons, by 2020, and India is expected to add 124 gigawatts of electricity capacity in that time, according to Bloomberg Industries. In just two years, it may surpass China as the largest importer of seaborne coal.
Shall we check in on Germany? There the government supposedly has a plan to reduce carbon emissions some 40% (from 1990 levels) by 2020. They're nowhere near that, and have figured out that the only way to get there is to close many coal plants and much of the coal mining industry. Oops! All of a sudden the labor unions are catching on that they are the targets. Die Welt had a report on May 25 titled, "German Government in Crisis Over Escalating Cost of Climate Policy." They have lots of pictures of big union-led demonstrations back in April. The Economics Minister has plans for taxes on coal and coal plants to achieve the goal, but here's the response of Armin Laschet of the Christian Democratic party:
Affected power plants would be threatened by a "wave of decommissioning and structural upheaval in the regions lignite mining area and in eastern Germany would be the result." The plan threatens "tens of thousands of jobs" in the energy and heavy industries.
Surely there's a 7-year-old around here somewhere to point out that the emperor is wearing no clothes?