Tag: climategate

John Kerry’s Think Tank Calls for War With Russia Over Climate Change

Recently-appointed Special Presidential Envoy for Climate John Kerry has announced his intention of dealing with the pressing issue of global warming as a national security concern. “America will soon have a government that treats the climate crisis as the urgent national security threat it is,” the 76-year-old former Secretary of State wrote. “I am proud to partner with the President-elect, our allies, and the young leaders of the climate movement to take on this crisis.”

The announcement drew praise from many professional climate activists and groups, perhaps assuming that Kerry was taking his lead from Bernie Sanders, who has for years been saying the same thing. Executive Director of the Sunrise Movement, Varshini Prakash said his statement was an “encouraging move,” while 350.org’s Bill McKibben, predicted Kerry would be an excellent climate czar. Yet, as media critic Adam Johnson argued, Kerry’s proclamation should deeply concern progressive activists and will likely lead to expanding the already bloated military budget.

Kerry is a founding member of the Washington think tank, the American Security Project (ASP), whose board is a who’s who of retired generals, admirals and senators. The ASP also hailed the appointment of their man, explaining, in a little-read report, exactly what treating the climate as a national security threat entails. And it is nothing like what Sanders advocates.

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Joe Biden Exploring Ways to Tie Climate Change Legislation to Coronavirus Relief

Biden, whose environmental agenda is heavily influenced by the recommendations of a unity task force set up with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) after the Democrat primaries, has proposed spending $2 trillion over four years to combat climate change.

A major portion of the money will be used to create one million new jobs in the auto industry by boosting the production of energy-efficient vehicles. In order to achieve the goal, Biden is backing legislation, introduced by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), to incentivize individuals to trade in their gas-powered vehicles for ones running on either electricity or hydrogen.

The former vice president has also proposed to adopt a 100 percent clean-electricity standard by 2035. A similar idea was initially raised by Gov. Jay Inslee (D-WA) during his own ill-fated run for the Democrat nomination in 2019. If implemented, it would ensure that all electricity produced in the United States would be “carbon-free.

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Climate Catastrophism and a Sensible Environmentalism

A tragic dissonance has emerged in most popular climate arguments: a childlike refusal of accepting the lesser of two evils, of trading off one goal for another. The more ardently you push climate policies, it seems, the more strongly you hold romantic and unrealistic beliefs about how we can repent for our environmentalist sins. In impossibly short times, it is believed, we can effortlessly transition to 100% renewable energy; overhaul society completely, but at no cost whatsoever; and our restrictive climate policies will even boost our economies and create jobs! 

You must presume that the world is a pretty sinister place if greedy capitalists, supposedly in it for the money, are all leaving these “obvious” opportunities on the table. 

Never mind that renewables ‒ or more aptly called “unreliables” ‒ can’t power a modern civilization, that their intermittency problem is light years behind where its proponents assume it to be, that they’re not energy-dense enough to provide us with the energy and electricity we want. Without the amazing help of fossil fuels we couldn’t do half the things we’re currently doing ‒ living, eating, flourishing, helping, traveling (well…), producing. 

None of that matters; we need to fix the climate, activists say, and quell CO2 emissions urgently. But while we’re at it we must also ensure equal gender representation on corporate boards, and shut down tax havens, and confiscate the rich’s productive assets. And naturally, end racial inequality, and most certainly regulate who may use a public bathroom carrying this or that gendered sign on it. 

A cynic, perhaps reaching for a tin foil hat or the closest religious text to understand how this could possibly make sense, would conclude that catastrophists are not really addressing the problem they say they are. Alternatively, climate change can’t be that bad if the same Green New Deal bill that saves humanity is littered with minimum wage laws and paid maternity leave and a range of other social policies that just happen to align with what the hard-left has long wanted.

But we don’t have to be cynics to derive this conclusion: its proponents freely and openly say so. The British organization ‘Extinction Rebellion,’ whose infamous promoters chain themselves to trains and block London roads for media attention (or sling fake blood at buildings), happily confess that they do things that feel right rather than what would have material impact for their cause. 

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No Nobel For Greta… Thank Goodness

So, the Norwegian Nobel Committee has awarded the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize to the World Food Programme for its efforts to combat hunger and to prevent it being used as a weapon of war.

They did not give it to Greta Thunberg, one of the favorites.

This is quite right, too, since she did not deserve it.

Far from encouraging peace, she has spread discord and division. Far from making the world a happier, safer place, she has helped make people fearful and pessimistic. Along with Extinction Rebellion, she has peddled the notion that we all have to stop doing the things we enjoy, such as travelling and trading globally – to live narrower, more restricted lives that have less impact upon the planet.

Perhaps she’s right that if we all bought and journeyed locally, travelling to nearby villages by horse and cart, it might make a smaller footprint on the environment. When we did live like that, however, mothers died in childbirth, children died in infancy, people died of plague, and life for many was tragically short and squalid.

It was the Industrial Revolution and its wealth creation that made possible the advances in medicine, sanitation and science that have made better lives possible for so many. The notion that we have to stop modern industrial technology in order to save the Earth from extinction is as false as it is dangerous. The reality is that we have to use that modern industrial technology to solve the problems we face.

A plausible candidate for next year’s Nobel Peace Prize might be the Duke of Cambridge. Along with Sir David Attenborough, he has launched the Earthshot programme, which will give prizes for innovations and inventions that help solve environmental problems. Five prizes a year, each of one million pounds, are to be awarded for ten years to teams that produce novel ways of addressing issues such as climate and energy, nature and biodiversity, oceans, air pollution and fresh water.

This is exactly the right approach, just as Greta Thunberg’s is the wrong one. The aim is to stimulate ambition and innovation to explore and invent novel ways to help the Earth solve its problems. The result will be a huge stimulus to solutions involving technological change, rather than ones that require behavioural change. Instead of using the stick to bully people into living more simply, it will provide an incentive to help us live more cleverly.

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