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Posted on 09/24/2007 12:42:31 PM PDT by CedarDave
One can tell – with a high degree of confidence – what topics are expected to be raised here, this morning when it comes to discussing the key challenges of today’s world. The selection of the moderator and my fellow-panelists only confirms it. I guess it is either international terrorism or poverty in Africa. Talking about both of these topics is necessary because they are real dangers but it is relatively easy to talk about them because it is politically correct. I do see those dangers and do not in any way underestimate them. I do, however, see another major threat which deserves our attention – and I am afraid it does not get sufficient attention because to discuss it is politically incorrect these days.
The threat I have in mind is the irrationality with which the world has accepted the climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future of mankind and the irrationality of suggested and partly already implemented measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity, the two goals we consider – I do believe – our priorities.
We have to face many prejudices and misunderstandings in this respect. The climate change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about nature or scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, about one – recently born – dirigistic and collectivistic ideology, which goes against freedom and free markets.
I spent most of my life in a communist society which makes me particularly sensitive to the dangers, traps and pitfalls connected with it. Several points have to be clarified to make the discussion easier:
1. Contrary to the currently prevailing views promoted by global warming alarmists, Al Gore’s preaching, the IPCC, or the Stern Report, the increase in global temperatures in the last years, decades and centuries has been very small and because of its size practically negligible in its actual impact upon human beings and their activities. (The difference of temperatures between Prague where I was yesterday and Cernobbio where I am now is larger than the expected increase in global temperatures in the next century.)
2. As I said, the empirical evidence is not alarming. The arguments of global warming alarmists rely exclusively upon forecasts, not upon past experience. Their forecasts originate in experimental simulations of very complicated forecasting models that have not been found very reliable when explaining past developments.
3. It is, of course, not only about ideology. The problem has its important scientific aspect but it should be stressed that the scientific dispute about the causes of recent climate changes continues. The attempt to proclaim a scientific consensus on this issue is a tragic mistake, because there is none.
4. We are rational and responsible people and have to act when necessary. But we know that a rational response to any danger depends on the size and probability of the eventual risk and on the magnitude of the costs of its avoidance. As a responsible politician, as an academic economist, as an author of a book about the economics of climate change, I feel obliged to say that – based on our current knowledge – the risk is too small and the costs of eliminating it too high. The application of the so called “precautionary principle,” advocated by the environmentalists, is – conceptually – a wrong strategy.
5. The deindustrialization and similar restrictive policies will be of no help. Instead of blocking economic growth, the increase of wealth all over the world and fast technical progress – all connected with freedom and free markets – we should leave them to proceed unhampered. They represent the solution to any eventual climate changes, not their cause. We should promote adaptation, modernization, technical progress. We should trust in the rationality of free people.
6. It has a very important North-South and West-East dimension. The developed countries do not have the right to impose any additional burden on the less developed countries. Imposing overambitious and – for such countries – economically disastrous environmental standards on them is unfair.
No radical measures are necessary. We need something “quite normal.” We have to get rid of the one-sided monopoly, both in the field of climatology and in the public debate. We have to listen to arguments. We have to forget fashionable political correctness. We should provide the same or comparable financial backing to those scientists who do not accept the global warming alarmism.
I really do see environmentalism as a threat to our freedom and prosperity. I see it as “the world key current challenge.”
Václav Klaus, Ambrosetti Forum,Villa d’Este,Itálie
www.klaus.cz
Presented at last week's UN climate meeting.
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Vaclav Klaus is awesome. Living in a former communist state this guy can recognize deception when he sees it and doesn’t give a rip about PC. We need more like him who are willing to speak honestly about this issue rather than the current crop of lemmings populating the scientific, political and entertainment fields pushing this hoax.
There’s no doubt it’s a leftist agenda; I have no doubt they’ll prevail based upon their record of success so far. They’ve successfully permeated the multiculturalism and diversity agenda into the public schools; they’ve succeeded with the gay rights/gay promotion agenda; they are succeeded nicely at the promotion of the ABC agenda, (anything but Christian) while at the same time launching a general “anti-Religion” front; they’ve succeeded in promoting anti-family legislation while simultaneosly successfully implementing the “child as property of the State” programs; their operatives at MSM outlets censor and filter the news; they’ve continued to hold on to control of Public Universities; and now they are working to end mobility, property rights, and general prosperity as we’ve known them.
The U.S. defeated Hitler, won the cold war and is now morphing into a Marxist, one party state? In 25 years they will have taken over without ever firing a shot! Don’t think it can happen? Follow the headlines daily coming out of England. So few seem to recognise tyranny when it’s in their face. In the city I have to live around, Houston, a one party (Democrat) dictatorship of a Leftist Mayor acting in concert with a similarly leftist City Council penned an ordinance banning smoking in Bar/Lounge liquor sales only establishments. Try to disregard the typical mindless hatred of smokers and think for a moment about what it really means. It means and it is happening as we speak, (I know and have represented many Bar/Lounge owners)that countless hundred of the establishments will be out of business in 3 to 6 months. They are typically sole-proprietorships. As the owner of one reported, the resultant business failures will mean a 30% to 40% reduction in jobs in the industry in Houston. And, all of this was done without so much as a vote by the citizens.
If “THEY”, who can unilaterally destroy an industry, what can they do to you? Who is next?
I do know “what” is next in Houston. Taxing transportation, i.e. vehicle miles driven or imposing an annual commuter tax on those who live outside the city and commute to it/through it and they are trying to turn all Interstates into Toll Roads and all this to force people onto their awful mass transit. The irony is rich. Save the sheeple from second hand smoke only to force them onto mass transit where they will be contaminated with God only knows what communicable disease. (TB is rampant among the immigrant population that rides the busses today). Save them from smoke so they can be shot at the bus stops.
“There’s no doubt it’s a leftist agenda;”
Agreed. That’s how it started, anyway. Now it’s capitalist marketing fodder. Everything is advertised as “green” or some variation of that. The commies started it, the capitalists ran with it.
Carbon dioxide is without question the most beneficial chemical compound that exists on earth. To limit CO2 is to limit life.
Take a look at reality: Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine
Scroll down the page to read the facts.
BTTT
...and you any I are gonna pay dearly for it.....
There are benefits to CO2 enrichment, and there are also costs. That's just how things are.
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Global Warming on FreeRepublic
Global Warming Hysteria with Limousine Liberal "feel-good solutions:" NO!!
The new MEME of the ecco-communists is that the OLD climate data does not matter because humans were not here. ONLY NEW data matters.
IOW they are using one point to create a line.
I tried to “chant” that. It’s just not going to work at the next rally, LOL! :)
I loathe EnviroWackos. See my tagline.
Gorebal Warming has been GRrrreat for Eureka!!! I don’t think we have had fog more than 8 or 10 days since May. To wake up the sunshine 20 days in a row does things to the minds of the Natives here...
Freedom, YES! Greens, NO!
MUCH better. ;)
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