I thought I should write about “climate change” (formerly global warming) at some point.
I should start off my saying I am sympathetic to the conservation movement.
I was an outdoorsman most of my life. After I finished my education, I backpacked around the world for four years. I attempted to follow the spring and summer by crossing the equator during the appropriate seasons.
I had no money. Most of the time I was hitchhiking for transportation and sleeping outside in a sleeping bag with a small mosquito net to protect my head. When I had access to a tent, it was considered a luxury.
I spent time in all kinds of environments.
I lived in the Great Australian Desert, the forests of New Zealand, the tropical beaches of Fiji, the Alps in Europe, and the Sinai Desert in Israel.
I went on an expedition to Ladakh to be the first to raft the Zanskar RIver. Ladakh is a mountainous province in the northeast corner of India, now home to the Dali Lama.
The expedition entailed an arduous and treacherous eight-day hike into the Zanskar mountains. We had mules to carry our inflatable rafts. We rafted the river for another eight days, setting up camp on the river banks at night.
I have also vacationed extensively in our own National Parks. I have hiked in Alaska within shouting distance of Grizzly bears. Most of this was done without hotels. I camped outside.
So, I am very supportive of the environmental movement and the desire to preserve our outdoor spaces.
When Ronald Reagan was elected in 1980, a rightward drift in legislation was predicted. The political left saw no chance to get their own legislative agenda passed.
I was warned that various Marxist types would be infiltrating the environmental movement to use it as an alternative weapon. They would use environmental bureaucracy, lawsuits, and fines to influence and intimidate corporations into following preferred leftist policies.
This infiltration proceeded over the next couple of decades. To leftist sympathizers, this sounded like right wing, delusional, conspiracy stuff. It turned out that it was not.
Supposedly, a very large consensus of scientists, around 90 percent see global warming as a threat.
When we lived in a more rational culture, you would never see a headline like that. Scientific proof does not rely on “consensus.”
Scientific proof relies on independent investigators coming to independent matching conclusions. Scientific conclusions are proved by being reproducible; not by winning popularity contests. There certainly is room for a diversity of opinion on climate change but “consensus” is the only way it is reported.
Remember, Copernicus, Galileo, Darwin, and Einstein were out of the consensus of their time.
Large government grants for climate research attract scientists.
This might skew their judgement since saying the connection to climate patterns had no connection to modern industrial activity would cut off the money spigot. Keeping an atmosphere of alarm means more money to come.
There were several scandals involving climate change supporters in the ensuing years. The most famous was at the University of East Anglia in England. It was called “Climategate.” They had falsified statistics. That was not the only scandal.
Those scientists who disagreed were called “climate change deniers” as a denigration. The name similarity to “holocaust deniers” was intentional. The “deniers” were often sued or, otherwise, had their career paths threatened.
The RICO laws, originally designed to combat the Mafia, were now used to harass “climate deniers.” Legal intimidation has been started against Exxon Corporation for its stand on climate change.
The plaintiffs have compared Exxon to tobacco companies who had denied smoking caused cancer. This is par for the course when dealing with Marxist thugs.
There are several reputed scientists who have resisted the thwarting of free scientific inquiry. Ivar Giaever, a Nobel prize winner, thinks claims of climate change are “pseudoscience.”
Watch him at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXxHfb66ZgM. Dr. Patrick Moore, a Ph.D. in ecology, and an original Greenpeace activist, says any claim that posits that increasing CO2 levels causes increased earth temperature is “just a scam.” Got that?
He states that CO2 levels have nothing to do with global warming or the “greenhouse effect.” The earth has both warmed and cooled when the atmosphere had higher CO2 levels than now. View his interview at https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=chowder+and+patrick+moore
I came across a news article from 2012. It quotes Christiana Figueres. She was the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/climate-change-scare-tool-to-destroy-capitalism/. The web address tells you the intent of the “framework.”
So, it looks like the right-wing conspiracy nuts were correct again.
Forward to 2016. A speech by Ottmar Edenhofer, of the International Protocol on Climate Change echoes the Marxist redistributionist theme. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/another-climate-alarmist-admits-real-motive-behind-warming-scare/.
You can see a very articulate response to this by Mark Steyn. It will take all of seven minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdoRvly02Bo
Once the Marxists get control of anything, tragedy follows.
They applauded the idea of collectivized agriculture. What followed? Lenin’s famine. Stalin’s famine, Mao’s famine, Pol Pot’s famine, Kim’s North Korea famine, Mugabi’s Zimbabwe’s famine, Maduro’s Venezuela’s famine, etc. Should they collectivize the environment, expect more of the same.
The politics and the power games will prevail. The health of the environment will become a fleeting memory.
I am a firm believer in capitalism. It has worked wonderfully for the last 150 years, since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. It is the only economic model to increase the standard of living.
One thousand years of feudalism showed virtually no growth. People then had to work long days and were rewarded with short lives. Capitalism has increased human output 70-fold with half the working hours. It has doubled life expectancy.
I happen to believe the world is getting warmer.
I am agnostic on whether or not it is anthropogenic. I am also not convinced it is detrimental. It might even be beneficial.
Yet, I fully applaud President Trump’s decision to leave the Paris accords. I will never cooperate with Marxists.
Dr. Wayne Roth
Roslyn Heights
