Mark Steyn: What planet are the eco-cultists on?

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 12/6/05 | Mark Steyn

[saquin]

Is it just me or are the global warming headlines starting to overheat a little? The Independent on Sunday gave its report on the Montreal climate conference the somewhat overwrought title: "What planet are you on, Mr Bush? (And do you care, Mr Blair?)" Nothing in the rather dull article underneath justified the hectoring hysteria. Crossword

And, to be honest, I've no real idea what it means. Is the IoS asking whether Mr Blair cares what planet Mr Bush is on? Well, no doubt he'd be startled to hear the President's moving to Pluto, but I expect he'd take it in his stride.

As to what planet Mr Bush is on, he's not on Pluto but on planet Goofy, a strange lost world where it's perfectly normal for apparently sane people to walk around protesting about global warming in sub-zero temperatures. Or, as the Canadian Press reported: "Montreal - tens of thousands of people ignored frigid temperatures Saturday to lead a worldwide day of protest against global warming."

Unfortunately, no one had supplied an updated weather forecast to the fellow who writes the protesters' chants. So, to the accompaniment of the obligatory pseudo-ethnic drummers, the shivering eco-warriors sang: "It's hot in here! There's too much carbon in the atmosphere!" Is this the first sign of the "New Ice Age" the media warned us about last week?

The story originated in Nature, the hitherto distinguished scientific periodical whose environmental coverage increasingly resembles that celebrated Sunday Sport scoop about the London double-decker bus found frozen in the deepest ice of the Antarctic. That, of course, is absurd - in reality, as the trained scientists at Nature would be the first to point out, the Clapham omnibus would be lucky to make it as far as Tulse Hill before being embedded in a glacier.

The eco-doom-mongers were speculating on possible changes in thermohaline circulation in the Atlantic - or, as the Daily Mail put it: "Is Britain on the brink of a New Ice Age?" Europe could get so chilly that shivering Muslim rioters might burn the entire Peugeot fleet on the first night. Which would be good for the environment, presumably. After that, they'd be reduced to huddling round the nearest fire-breathing imam for warmth.

But the point is, as Steven Guilbeault of Greenpeace puts it: "Global warming can mean colder, it can mean drier, it can mean wetter, that's what we're dealing with." Got that? If it's hot, that's a sign of global warming, and, if it's cold, that's a sign of global warming.

And if it's just kind of average - say, 48F and partially cloudy, as it will be in Llandudno today - that's a sign that global warming is accelerating out of control and you need to flee immediately because time is running out ! "Time is running out to deal with climate change," says Mr Guilbeault. "Ten years ago, we thought we had a lot of time, five years ago we thought we had a lot of time, but now science is telling us that we don't have a lot of time."

Really? Ten years ago, we had a lot of time? That's not the way I recall it: "Time is running out for the climate" - Chris Rose of Greenpeace, 1997; "Time running out for action on global warming Greenpeace claims" - Irish Times, 1994; "Time is running out" - scientist Henry Kendall, speaking on behalf of Greenpeace, 1992. Admirably, Mr Guilbeault's commitment to the environment extends to recycling last decade's scare-mongering press releases.

"Stop worrying about your money, take care of our planet," advised one of the protesters' placards. Au contraire, take care of your money and the planet will follow. For anywhere other than Antarctica and a few sparsely inhabited islands, the first condition for a healthy environment is a strong economy. In the past third of a century, the American economy has swollen by 150 per cent, automobile traffic has increased by 143 per cent, and energy consumption has grown

45 per cent. During this same period, air pollutants have declined by 29 per cent, toxic emissions by 48.5 per cent, sulphur dioxide levels by 65.3 per cent, and airborne lead by 97.3 per cent. Despite signing on to Kyoto, European greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 2001, whereas America's emissions have fallen by nearly one per cent, despite the Toxic Texan's best efforts to destroy the planet.

Had America and Australia ratified Kyoto, and had the Europeans complied with it instead of just pretending to, by 2050 the treaty would have reduced global warming by 0.07C - a figure that would be statistically undectectable within annual climate variation. In return for this meaningless gesture, American GDP in 2010 would be lower by $97 billion to $397 billion - and those are the US Energy Information Administration's somewhat optimistic models.

I've mentioned before the environmentalists' ceaseless fretting for the prospect of every species but their own. By the end of this century, the demographically doomed French, Italians and Spaniards will be so shrivelled in number they may have too few environmentalists to man their local Greenpeace office. Is that part of the plan? To create a habitable environment with no humans left to inhabit it? If so, destroying the global economy for 0.07C is a swell idea.

But even the poseurs of the European chancelleries are having second thoughts. Which is why, in their efforts to flog some life back into the dead Kyoto horse, the eco-cultists have to come up with ever scarier horrors, such as that "New Ice Age". Meanwhile, the Bush Administration's Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate brings together the key economic colossi of this new century - America, China and India - plus Australia, Japan and South Korea, in a relationship that acknowledges, unlike Kyoto, the speed of Chinese and Indian economic growth, provides for the sharing of cleaner energy technology and recognises that the best friend of the planet's natural resources is the natural resourcefulness of a dynamic economy.

It's a practical and results-oriented approach, which is why the eco-cultists will never be marching through globally warmed, snow-choked streets on its behalf. It lacks the requisite component of civilisational self-loathing.

Wake up and smell the CO2, guys. Sayonara, Kyoto. Hello, coalition of the emitting.

[GOPJ]

Thanks for the ping.

[GOP_1900AD]

On that note:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0917657012/026-0954821-7970040

"Greenhouse: It Will Happen in 1997"

This book was SOOOOO successful that I can only find it on Amazon UK - it's not even listed on Amazon US. The co-author, Donald I. Fine, changed over to writing drug store murder mysteries after this flop. Oh, and by the way, that's the late Donald I. Fine, esq, who was a classic old school upper east side lib.

[alwaysconservative]

Thanks for the Steyn ping!!!! Great stuff!

[knighthawk]

Ping

[John Lenin]

but I failed to detect a point

I get the impression that even if I explained it to you you still wouldn't get it.

[MortMan]

Sorry - I posted that before coffee, and must beg for caffeinated forgiveness!

[Irish_Thatcherite]

Greenpeace would badly need to read Bjorn Lomberg.

[alwaysconservative]

Exactly!!!

[JusPasenThru]

I can't believe it, but unless I missed it, no one has said the painfully obvious:

IT'S ALL BUSH'S FAULT!

[irv]

thanks for the ping. Steyn was quite gentle on the enviroloons this time around.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

European greenhouse gas emissions have increased since 2001, whereas America's emissions have fallen by nearly one per cent, despite the Toxic Texan's best efforts to destroy the planet.

Oh the irony.

[dead]

In return for this meaningless gesture, American GDP in 2010 would be lower by $97 billion

Which, in reality, would make it unusually efficient in working towards the (unstated, but obvious) real goals of the watermelon environmentalists.

[Looking4Truth]

My liberal friends wallow in ignorance. Here's the question: Do I share these facts with them in order to enlighten them, and perhaps convert them, or is that a wan hope since they love their ignorance,which is compatible with their hallucinogenic worldview? Alas, I fear, the latter. So I probably won't bother. I see a potential tag line here.

Maybe shorten 'My liberal friends' to 'Liberals'.

[Looking4Truth]

My liberal friends wallow in ignorance. Here's the question: Do I share these facts with them in order to enlighten them, and perhaps convert them, or is that a wan hope since they love their ignorance,which is compatible with their hallucinogenic worldview? Alas, I fear, the latter. So I probably won't bother.

I see a potential tag line here.

Maybe shorten 'My liberal friends' to 'Liberals'.