Posted on 09/13/2008 10:37:45 AM PDT by reaganaut1
In his latest [book], "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Thomas L. Friedman makes it clear that he wants to improve conditions for mankind. "I start from the bedrock principle," he writes, "that we as a global society need more and more growth." But because of climate change (hot), ever-more people (crowded) and higher material aspirations of all in a competitive global economy (flat), he believes that the world's growth is leading us toward catastrophe.
Mr. Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, describes this threat in the grimmest of terms. We should expect disasters "of a biblical scale," humans are an "endangered species" and none of us "are going to make it." Climate change is presented as a "survival issue" that "will undermine the quality of life for every person on this planet and eventually imperil life on earth itself." Our planet is the Titanic that has already hit the iceberg, "but some people just don't want to leave the dance floor."
...
Toward the end of "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," Mr. Friedman wonders why we can't just implement the sort of policies he prefers. "What is our problem? If the right things to do are so obvious to the people who know the most about the energy business, why can't we put them in place?" Maybe the reason is that most people recognize a bad deal when they see one.
He cynically seems to suggest that it would help "if a few more Hurricane Katrinas hit a few more cities." Incredibly, he even flirts with the need for a dictatorship: "If only America could be China for a day," where we could cut through special interests, bureaucratic obstacles and worries of a voter backlash and simply "order top-down, the sweeping changes" needed.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Thomas Friedman is an influential NYT opinion columnist and author of "The World is Flat".
The LEFT clamors for Communism pushing their EXACT ideology.
You first.
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,944914,00.html
They will keep trying. Soon it will be “The Sun is Disappearing” during the next eclipse.
Who decides who lives and who dies? The editorial board of the New York Times? The faculty of Harvard?
History, and the importance of humanity in world, began when I was born. Anything that happened before is meaningless; doesn't exist.
OK.
I have this delusion that all my thoughts are new, innovative, profound and critical. The future of the world depends on it (maybe I can make a few bucks selling a book to the neurotic as an added bonus).
So that's what I'll do.
Since I was born, let's limit it just to the latter half of the 20th century*:
How many doom, gloom, apocalyptic books have been written (and conveniently "forgotten?").
Shall we start a list?
* Pay attention, dammit! Forget Malthus!
That never happened.
The “Population Bomb” of this decade...still waiting for the starvation around the entire world from that book...
“The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate…”
–Paul Ehrlick, The Population Bomb (1968)
As it stands today, the proposed cure is worse that the disease. The lack of movement on this issue is an indication that the scientists have not sold their case to the public, only to the elites. Will the elites try take it upon themselves to prevent energy use by the people? Last time I checked man does not have a coat of fur, and needs to cook most food for proper digestion. Al Gore's proposal to cut combustion by 90% in the near future is nothing less than openly recommending the greatest crime against humanity ever contemplated. An authoritarian Gore-type regime would make Hitler and Stalin look like small-time amateurs in terms of producing human calamity.
Flock of Siegel
Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity answers Grist’s questions
What’s your job title?
I work for the Center for Biological Diversity as director of the Climate, Air, and Energy Program.
What does your organization do?
The Center for Biological Diversity works to protect imperiled plants and animals, the wild places they depend on, and, by extension, our own well-being. We are probably best known for our legal work related to the Endangered Species Act, but we do all sorts of different projects to promote biodiversity conservation.
One example: we offer free endangered species ring tones for your cell phone.
“One example: we offer free endangered species ring tones for your cell phone.”
You can’t make this stuff up, folks.
Let me be clear: Lomborg's a nut, too, just like that shrill and weepy Freidman. Anyone who relies on the UN's IPCC cr*pola ought to be gently helped back to the institution and sedated.
Opinion has turned. My five kids no longer believe the Global Warming Lie and, in fact, ridicule the media. Several of my grandkids are even harsher regarding the Big Lie Media.
In their deep pondering, sooner or later they will ask themselves, "Who has the guns?".
Free Clue:
It's not them.
“The urge to save humanity is often a false front for the urge to rule”
H.L. Mencken
(Did Mencken know ALGORE?)
Entirely predictable, a progressive liberal pining for a totalitarian government with only them in charge.
Another moron useful to the simpletons who want to destroy what nations have worked for hundreds of years to achieve.
THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING EXCEPTING IN THE DISTURBED MINDS OF BOZOS SUCH AS AL GOREBAL.
It is closer than we think. It was Bill Clinton's aide who coined the phrase "Stroke of the pen, law of the land...pretty cool!"
(And Senator Obama has promised both "change" and to make government "cool again".)
Putting on my cynic hat for a second, I don't think they've overlooked these things at all. Instead, these are precisely what have motivated their love of global warming. Global warming provides the cause that all must rally around. It means putting aside differences for the sake of the great collective good. It means bigger and more powerful government. It means government gets to boss business around. It means government gets to play the role of hero and savior for literally all of humankind.
These are the kinds of things that make lefties tingle (maybe a better term for them would be postmodern cosmopolitan elites or something). In fact, I doubt if they really care whether global warming ever gets solved. Instead, what inspires them are all the good things that comes with working on the solution.
I have been an admirer of Mr Lomborg for a long time; read his books.
The moonbats must be wearing him down if he begins his remarks with this statement.
Of course global warming is real. The consequences are exactly the same whether the cause is 100% natural or 100% anthropogenic. The debate is about what is the driving cause. The evidence and expert opinion is not not settled, and the cause is not known and may never be known.
Further, the IPCC report is 100% a political report, not a scientific one.
Thus beginning his remarks by conceding the moonbat view of "things are settled", and not should we, never mind can we do anything to prevent it becomes the silent, still unanswered question.
Of course the costs are astronomical. What's new? Every one of these nutcase "reports" and "doom scenarios" would literally bankrupt the entire planet, if we listen to the moonbats.
What we need to do is keep the collection of insane books in a prominent library to remind ourselves of the dazzling popularity of these books.
Whatever happened to the ozone hole that was supposed to kill us all?
You haven’t heard? Canada saved the world on that one. I think it was some moonbats in Montreal (or somewhere) that saved our sorry hides on that one. There was a post on FR not too long ago and I have since forgotten the names of the players.
Living out in the country where from my house you can’t even see the neighbors- and I tell the change of seasons by the stars, I am eternally grateful the mentally ill congregate in hives on both coasts.
‘Who decides who lives and who dies? The editorial board of the New York Times? The faculty of Harvard?
In their deep pondering, sooner or later they will ask themselves, “Who has the guns?”.’
‘Free Clue:
It’s not them.’
Don’t be complacent. The NYT and the faculty of supposedly elite universities continually push the Federal government to enact their leftist schemes, with considerable success. The Feds have lots of guns.
If the average temperature of the planet increased by 4.5C, the average would be a nice 19C - close to room temperature but we would still need blankets at night. Some disaster.
True, but if we had a Waco every other day, something would break.
Debate Must Replace Scaremongering of Green Climate Alarmists
Global warming on Free Republic
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