Okay. I was wrong. How can I have been so stupid?
I heartily apologize to all of those people whom I’ve disparaged. I should have known.
Geez, that’s the last time Wuzzie’s ever going to take an idea from me.
* Rumor has it he’s being held by George Soros.
George Soros holds him a bit lower than that.
George Soros IS a bit lower than that.
This is as good a place to put this as any: we’re fucked, guys.
Through the good offices of happyfeet, I have the UN draft report. I haven’t actually been studying it—I can’t; it’s deliberately designed to be unstudyable—but what you really need to know about it is that Science has revisited the Galileo business and decided that it’s better to be, like, the Church in that situation. They fondly imagine themselves gently informing the peasantry that freezing to death is good for the soul, and selling indulgences (parrrnme, carbon credits) to the Nobility so they can keep carrying out the Good Works.
What the report says is precisely what the international Left wants it to say: the planet is warming, it’s gonna be a disaster, and there’s nothing we can really do about it—but if they bury the United States in the Marianas Trench, the rest of the world might survive. There are enough mealy-mouthed generalizations to let American Democrats fool themselves into thinking they get passes because they bought a Prius, but if the thing gets fully implemented as envisioned they’ll be right there in the subduction zone with the rest of us, just a little later.
So my advice of the other night stands. If you’re under forty (the line isn’t bright—it’s a matter of attitude) kiss it off, marcotte any posts you may have made on blogs etc. decrying GW, cover your tracks otherwise as best you can, and go get a job with the UN or one of the captive NGOs. If you can, when one of us old fart holdouts gets called before the Sanhedrin try to get us fast deaths, but we’ll understand that you’re under surveillance and often won’t be able to do that.
For the old farts—the option isn’t open to most of us; we’ve made too much noise. The best we can do is be gadflies. What you might do while waiting for the knock is to see if you can find a very old Poul Anderson story entitled UN Man, an Ace Double from the late Fifties or early Sixties. Just don’t expect the magic trick that saves the day in the story, though.
Regards,
Ric
Ric ,
I also started wading through the SUMMARY , when the REPORT comes out that is tailored to the consensus I think there will be some major contradictions between rhetoric and fact . Concensus science is the most dangerous oxymoron ever fabricated the left .
Sorry ,….fabricated BY the left .
Bill,
I mostly don’t care for junkscience.com—they’re just as polemicized as anybody—but as recently as Friday night they had a copy of the second draft of the actual report posted. Their server sucks asteroids through wormholes, but several people have gotten the .pdfs down, and one of them was kind enough to put them where I could get them.
As of this draft the report says what the summary says, except that the report makes it explicit that anything they don’t understand gets set to “zero effect” for purposes of analysis. (Since clouds including contrails and atmospheric water vapor are things they don’t understand, they do a lot of handwaving to make that plausible.) What will be, erm, interesting is how the report is revised so that the final draft says what the Left decides the summary says.
Regards,
Ric
Revisionist Science!
I’m not worried… except.. okay, this one has been bugging me.
The U.N. doesn’t have any REAL power, do they?
Based on the answer I might be putting my Japan move a little SOONER than I had planned…
TW: Both89… both? Wait.. this must be like the Magic Hate Ball.
Ric ,
When specific instructions to authors are required insofar as REACHING A CONSENSUS , my sphincter snaps shut automatically .
BTW , that was my first foray into junkscience , and I need to qualify it …….. is the report at http://www.junkscience.com/draft_AR4/ , the real IPPC deal ?
From The Hindustan Times, front page, Monday February 5th.
Ah well. Back to the drawing board.
Meanwhile, on the Letters Page:
“It’s time the UN member nations boycotted and isolated the United States, a country responsible for killing thousands of people in Afghanistan and Iraq” K.P. Rajan.
Good heavens. You’d have thought they would be grateful.
Now if any of you can let me know the amount by which the United States subsidises the UN per annum, I will pass the news along to the Hindustan Times.
River,
At present the UN has no real power. That’s the way it was set up.
Internationalism, the desire for a World Government, originally grew out of the disastrous relations between Western States in the first half of the Twentieth Century. The idea was that if, say, Germany was to France as New York was to Massachusetts, wars (then seen primarily as wars of conquest) would be unthinkable. It was originally a liberal proposal, seeing the future as a single, democratic “State” comprising the whole world. The UN is an internationalist organization, but its founders were deeply suspicious of the notion, and so it was deliberately not given much if any power and so constructed as to make consensus, and thus aggrandizement, almost impossible.
There has for a long time been dissatisfaction in some quarters that this is so. Internationalism, as a movement, was quickly consolidated into the Socialist International (not under that formal name, snarkers; the concept) because of the major ideologies only Socialism claimed the whole planet as its ambit. Once that consolidation was complete (the mid-Fifties) the concept became identical, and parallel, to the Soviet Union’s intention to bring the planet under its hegemony as leader of Socialism. This naturally aroused the suspicions of non-Socialist Western States, primarily the U.S., and America’s active opposition to the extension of real power to the U.N. has been a bone of contention with the international Left for a long time. From time to time such proposals as a world income tax, payable to the U.N., have come up and been promptly shot down.
The agenda behind Global Warming is precisely that: to grant real power to the United Nations as a Government, not a debating society. What is envisioned by the promoters is a U.N. agency with the power to decree what energy usage is permissible and what is not, independent of the control of national Governments.
Harry Truman’s desk sign—“The Buck Stops Here”—has long ago gone to landfill. Our current set of politicians is determined not to take responsibility for anything whatever, because if they do and it disadvantages anyone, they might lose votes and therefore access to graft, cocaine, and fellatio. (Recall Ana Marie Cox’s description of Washington as “the Special Olympics of Sex”. This is the reason for judicial activism; since the legislatures will not act, somebody has to, and the only ones left are the judges.) Passing the buck to the U.N. is the perfect solution, from the solons’ point of view. They want to set up a situation where a constituent’s complaints merit a shrug and thumb-jerk: “They’re in charge, I’m only following orders. Vote for me anyway.” No responsibility, therefore no blame.
So I expect it to work this time. Within roughly ten years we will see a UN agency with a pronounceable acronym and the power to veto business expansion, ration electric generation, etc. etc. on the ground that such generates too much carbon dioxide. They won’t actually put up a sign saying “Everything Not Mandatory Forbidden” but that will effectively be the attitude. The chief of the agency will be a third-worlder, the bulk of its staff will be European, and any suggestion that American business might have useful input to its operations will be discarded as blatant expression of overt evil; the Chinese Red Army, virtuous arm of a good Socialist Government, will have a seat on the Board of Directors. Administration of the regulations will be by forces appertaining to your national Government, but this will be a figleaf; the orders will come from the Commission, whatever it is called. Exemptions from strict interpretations of the rules will be available for, e.g., Al Gore to come and tell you why this is the Only Virtuous Way.
Note that it may not be the UN as presently constituted; it’s entirely possible that a new treaty-based organization will be formed. The result will be the same, and you can take “UN” in the rant above as a sort of shorthand for whatever our new masters call themselves.
Regards,
Ric
Spooky coincidence.
Bill D. Cat, the answer is, I don’t know. Internal evidence suggests that it’s authentic, but I have no way of proving it one way or another. Unless the person who actually released the draft comes forward it isn’t provable. This will be enormously convenient to the likes of Steve and alphie in the next few months.
Regards,
Ric
Ric,
You know why I asked what I did . This issue has progressed from questionable science (Mann et al ) to just less than mass – hysteria , in a remarkably short time . I’d use the snowball analogy , but it just isn’t as funny anymore .
Bill, it’s a fair question. I just don’t have the answer.
As for the speed, you might as well ask why hula hoops. (And I suggest you look up a novel entitled Bellwether, by Connie Willis. You’ll find it in the science fiction section, although it just barely qualifies.) Or solar cycles or red tides, for that matter—this is the confluence of a huge number of things that have been festering for a long time.
Nobody really expected that breaking the Soviet Union would destroy the Left, although optomists hoped that at least some of them would figure out what had happened. But if this fails it will destroy them. I just don’t expect that to happen.
Regards,
Ric
It seems this sort can’t even be bothered by the GW threads here at PW, like it’s their sense that this issue is already in the bag. Academia, media, NGOs are all rowing in the same direction. Labor seems to be the only entity of the left that seems to have any awareness at all that the endgame may not be to their benefit, which lends a certain nuance to every report I hear on NPR denigrating Ford and GM. That the UAW is still aligned politically with those who are seeking to implement the GW agenda is in itself not at all a hopeful sign that this agenda can be derailed.
My other insight from the full-court press this weekend… It seems that we are hearing a much more explicit message that individuals – hybrid-driving, lightbulb-changing, recycling, individuals – are definitely to be applauded, however, their efforts are too little too late. In fact, no serious attention is given to any idea that anything but a mandatory cap on CO2 emissions offers any hope for forestalling disaster. Like Ric says … “anything they don’t understand gets set to “zero effect†for purposes of analysis” … and they are quite particular on which areas are worthy of further elucidation.
Ric, as odd as it is to find myself saying so, I see the likes of the Russians and the Chinese saving us from such a scenario. Repulsive though they may be, they do believe in sovereignty, and I don’t see them accepting dictates from a gaggle of Euroweenies any more than they do so now.
Well, if Tip’s now nearly ancient dictum on all politics holds true, then the “chattering class” here in D.C. (da capitol) are experiencing nothing more than the “Gore Effect”…
After 36 hours of PBS/local/national reporters in this area giving us the news of this latest screed, we awake to 10 (F) degree temps.
J
Fear the Manbearpig, or he shall overcome!!!
Stop criticizing on ideological grounds.
WHAT DO YOU THINK OF CARL SAGAN?
No, Pablo, they’ve got that, which does seem like a loose end at first glance, very neatly tied off.
The Russians and Chinese are exempt—the Russians because they’re already doing what’s required (destroying their industrial base) and the Chinese because they’re still (in their rhetoric) good collectivists.
Russian emissions are already low and dropping, and in any scheme requiring the West to pay when they emit carbon the Russian oligarchs get most of the money—witness New Zealand. The only visits Russians will get from the minions of the New World Order will be to deliver checks, and they’ll leave enough pretenses of continued national sovereignty in place to enable the beneficiaries to ignore reality for a long while; apres moi, le deluge.
Chinese emissions are good collectivist emissions, and as such fall in the same category as, e.g., Saddam gassing the Kurds—regrettable necessities of the struggle against the Capitalist West. As such they don’t even get mentioned, much less included, and will sit this one out. Their dance card will be pretty full at the next ball, though.
Regards,
Ric
It is hardly any wonder. Posting links to information that does not wholly support the ‘there is no AGW’ mantra, produces unsubstantial responses, ad hom and, your speciality, snark.
That you then whinge and whine that no one is interested in substantial debate is quite amazing.
PLEASE bring some global warming to northern Minnesota! The temp this morning en route to work was a balmy -33.
Brrr.
There’s something so incredibly anal, and not a little scary, about people feeling compelled to add the “A” to “GW.” Reminds me of the contortions some people will go through to avoid using the word filibuster.
happyfeet, you WAG.
um, what is the “A” for? I missed it somewhere.
Ric,
What do you mean Bellwether, by Connie Willis is barely science fiction. It’s one of the most science fiction books ever written. It is fiction about science.
Most so called sf is just fiction in which Engineering just happens to be a bit more advanced than at present.
To get back to the issue, the one world state types will not be able to remain allies with the Russians/Chinese/Indians/… It’s like Hitler and USSR, the strains are too great, it will break and they’ll be at eachother’s throats soon enough. As long as the anglosphere can be like Churchill’s Britain and hold out until they do.
Now let’s drop the ‘G’.
Isn’t it warm here in Louisiana?
And still you wonder why…
Not that there aren’t capable individuals here genuinely interested in the science.
It’s just that any debate, heck, any information, deviating from correct ideology is ‘policed’ by various forms of distraction.
anthropogenic