Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

While we’re at it. . .

Don’t miss the usually sensible Jonathan Rauch in the National Journal: "A fairer assessment would be many degrees cooler [than Gore’s]. It would hold that climate change is real and deserves action, but that the problem is nowhere near as overwhelming as the rhetoric commonly suggests, and the solutions nowhere near as difficult. As problems go, in fact, climate change appears to be one of the most convenient that humankind has ever faced."

Meanwhile, a global warming expedition to the North Pole has been cancelled. One of th eparty got frostbite from the cold.

Discussions - 4 Comments

The suspension of critical thought surely does not come cheaply, who’s payroll are you on?

Let me posit what I have reason to doubt: the current climate change is almost 100% man-made. There thus exists a global problem that calls for global solutions. How will the nations of world cooperate? In an atmosphere of urgency, yes, but in an atmosphere of cheap anti-Americanism, Abbie-like accusations of "payroll sceptism," religious devotion to protecting mother earth against demonic coroporations? Absolutely not. Will they act under the leadership of a corrupt UN? The EU/Davos/NGO crowd? Eco-activists who increasingly drum sceptic scientists into line?

Or how about in an atmosphere of ecomnomic downturn? Consider this bit from Rauch’s article: "On the other hand, the more precipitously we act, the more we disrupt the economy. A coal-fired electric plant lasts 40 to 60 years; gradually replacing dirty old plants with clean new ones is much more efficient than abruptly decommissioning old plants and replacing them with -- well, with nothing, because electric plants take years to build. Besides, the best carbon-cutting technologies are still in development. ...This argues not for passivity, and not for delay, but for gradualism: setting up policies that will tighten the screws on greenhouse-gas emissions over the next few decades. The convenient truth about global warming, then, is that radicalism is as pointless as it is impractical. Slow-but-steady is not only the easiest approach; it is also the most effective."

Rauch is in fact far too cheery on this whole subject...given his application of Mancur Olson’s rational choice theories regarding collective action problems in his (excellent) Government’s End he knows how difficult gaining global cooperation will actually be.

A "world community" that cannot even cooperate to keep Iran from gaining nuclear weapons soon, and which loves to demonize the pretty moderate and mild-mannered W., is not one that is capable of making the collective sacrifices the global warming alarmists envision, for the sake of very long-term gains.

I think global warming is caused by too many hippies smoking dope. They should all be locked up for the sake of Mother Earth.

The original post in this thread is evidence that not only hippies smoke dope.

Leave a Comment

* denotes a required field
 

No TrackBacks
TrackBack URL: https://nlt.ashbrook.org/movabletype/mt-tb.cgi/10036


Warning: include(/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2007/03/while-were-at-it-1.php on line 495

Warning: include(): Failed opening '/srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/sd/nlt-blog/_includes/promo-main.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/opt/sp/php7.2/lib/php') in /srv/users/prod-php-nltashbrook/apps/prod-php-nltashbrook/public/2007/03/while-were-at-it-1.php on line 495