The
“people’s climate march” was notable for the amazing energy, economic and
climate illiteracy displayed by the mostly young people parading along New York
City streets September 21.
Their
chants, rants and placards demanded that we stop climate change (that’s been
ongoing throughout Earth and human history), eliminate fossil fuels (that
supply 80% of the energy that makes their modern living standards possible),
ban fracking (which is largely responsible for reducing the carbon dioxide
emissions they blame for global warming that ended at least 18 years ago), and
abolish capitalism!
*
Al Gore grinning for a photo op with NYC Mayor Bill DiBlasio and UN Secretary
General Ban-Ki Moon. This is same Al Gore who got a C and D in his two college
science courses, told “Tonight Show” audiences that the Earth’s interior is “several million degrees” (the core is actually nine thousand deg F), and refuses to debate
anyone on climate change or even take audience questions he has not
preapproved.
*
Actor Leonardo DiCaprio basking in the NYC limelight, releasing a series of movies claiming that climate change is immediate and
dangerous, and marching with other people’s anti-tar sands and “100% for
the planet” signs – after arriving in the Big Apple not via commercial jetliner and subway.
*
Actor Mark Ruffalo denouncing Climate Depot director Marc Morano
for daring to ask whether celebrities like Messrs. Gore and DiCaprio are
appropriate spokesmen for “stop global warming” campaigns – considering how
much they enjoy multiple mansions, global vacations, and private jets, yachts,
SUVs, helicopters and limos. Questions like that are “off-limits,” Ruffalo
declared. “That is a question you shouldn’t be asking
here today, because that defies the spirit of what this is about,” he said. “Anyone who attacks Leonardo DiCaprio is
either a coward or an ideologue.”
Wow!
I wasn’t aware that asking inconvenient questions or pointing out inconvenient
truths was improper – especially when posed to people who put themselves
forward as paragons of virtue for leading campaigns that inevitably restrict
access to energy, lower developed country living standards, and keep the Third
World impoverished – while the leaders enjoy lifestyles that are many times
more profligate, carbon-intensive and carbon dioxide-spewing than the average
American or African citizen’s.
But
surely the most surreal episode of the march was Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. saying
Morano and I and thousands like us should
be jailed for expressing doubts about “dangerous manmade climate change.”
“I
think they should be in jail … with all the other war criminals.” Republican
politicians too – “those guys are doing the Koch brothers bidding and are
against all the evidence, saying global warming does not exist. They are
contemptible human beings,” he fumed, for our “war on science,” I presume.
So
RFK the younger wants to punish us for the “crimes” of exercising our First
Amendment rights, demanding actual evidence to support alarmist assertions,
saying people’s needs for reliable, affordable energy must be part of the
conversation – and insisting that those needs take precedence over absurd
claims that climate change is “the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass
destruction,” posing “greater long-term consequences” than ISIL, terrorism or
Ebola, as Secretary of State John Kerry insists.
Mr.
Kennedy needs to read the Constitution, reflect on the once proud history of
free speech and civil rights in the United States, and acknowledge the harm his
policies are causing. He also needs to get his facts straight.
None
of us says global warming or climate change “does not exist.” Global warming,
global cooling, “climate disruption” and “wild weather” have been “real” since
Earth began. What we challenge is alarmist assertions that human carbon dioxide
emissions have replaced the powerful, complex natural forces that caused
repeated ice ages, little ice ages, warm periods, droughts, storms and other
fluctuations throughout history. We dispute claims that any climate changes
will be dangerous, and are our fault.
We
vigorously refute claims that CO2 is “pollution.” This is what we exhale. It’s
the trace gas (0.04% of our atmosphere) that enables plants to grow, and makes
all life on Earth possible.
We
debunk talk of countless “disasters” that Climate Armageddonites – from
President Obama on down – blame on fossil fuels and insist “are happening right
now.” The planet hasn’t warmed
for 18 years. The nearly nine years since Wilma in October 2005 is the longest
period since 1900 (and maybe the US Civil War) without a category 3-5 hurricane
hitting the United States. Floods, droughts and other events are all within
historic patterns, as readers can see in my new report, Climate Hype Exposed
– how pseudo-science is used to justify policies that hurt jobs, liberties and
people.
Just
as crazy, RFK Jr. made it clear that he and his wife will not give up their
$5,000,000 Malibu home or “reduce the, uh, our quality of life in order to have
a, uh, rational free market, in order to, um, stop the use of carbon and to
divorce ourselves from a fuel that is destroying our planet.” But they, many of
the NYC marchers and climate alarm leaders are surely doing all they can to
reduce your quality of life.
The
policies RFK & Comrades demand would raise the price of fossil fuel energy
that powers our modern world, creates and preserves jobs, and improves,
enhances and safeguards lives. In Europe, they’ve made energy so expensive that
millions of pensioners and other poor families cannot afford to heat their
homes properly – and thousands die needlessly
from hypothermia every winter. We’re heading there,
too.
They
cause millions of deaths every year in developing countries – by preventing
construction of state-of-the-art coal and gas-fired power plants, and depriving
people of reliable, affordable energy. More than 2.5 billion people worldwide
must still use wood, charcoal, coal and dung in open fires to heat and cook;
well over a billion still do not have electricity, still do not enjoy its
wondrous blessings.
As
a result, millions die every year from lung diseases due to constantly
breathing polluted smoke from cooking and heating fires, from intestinal diseases
caused by spoiled food and tainted water, and from countless other diseases of
energy deprivation and poverty. The vast majority are women and children.
My
colleagues and I would gladly go on trial and even serve time for “treasonous”
speech against the climate alarm establishment … and for “polluting” the
atmosphere with plant-fertilizing, life-giving CO2.
But
then we would insist that Mr. Kennedy and his comrades also be tried and
sentenced: for eco-manslaughter and crimes against humanity, for the disease
and death their policies cause and perpetuate.
The
International Criminal Court might be the proper venue, just as RFK suggested
for us. But perhaps the climate demagogues and anti-fossil fuel zealots should
be tried – and serve their sentences – in countries that have suffered the most
at their hands, for their war on women,
children and the poor. Conditions in those Third World prisons are
notoriously worse than in the zealots’ mansions, and in the comparatively posh
modern jails and prisons found in most of the USA and Europe.
Alternatively,
these true climate criminals could be sentenced to do community service, while
living like the natives: in mud huts, breathing their air, drinking their
water, being bitten by disease-infested insects, and having to walk miles to
basic medical services when they inevitably contract malaria, pneumonia or
dysentery. That could make alternative community service a death sentence –
akin to what Mr. Kennedy and his self-righteous friends are imposing on so many
unfortunate people.
It’s
time to refocus. The world needs abundant, reliable, affordable energy, to
create opportunity and prosperity, improve and save lives, and enable us to
adapt to whatever climate changes might come. Misguided noise about climate change
“deniers” and humans replacing natural forces in controlling Earth’s climate
serve only to distract us from the critical job at hand.
Paul
Driessen is senior policy analyst for the Committee For A Constructive Tomorrow
(CFACT) and Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and author of Eco-Imperialism: Green power - Black death.
Addendum
Robert F. Kennedy on skeptic groups: 'These front groups
are snake pits for sociopaths. Run by venomous carbon industry toadies, they
stable a craven menagerie of propaganda wizards, slick biostitutes, tobacco scientists,
snake oil hucksters, voodoo economists and other so-called "experts"
employed to publish beguiling studies, appear on TV and radio, and write
deceptive articles critiquing the "flawed science" predicting climate
change.'
No comments:
Post a Comment