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by Tom Blumer
November 29, 2010
from
NewsBusters Website
This would be really funny if it weren't for the fact that so many
supposedly informed people, including our president and those who
surround him, may actually buy into ideas being proposed at the
United Nations-sponsored Cancun climate conference, and will relish
the means by which they could be put into place.
At the
UK Telegraph today, environment correspondent
Louise Gray
feeds us the following headline and sub-headline:
Cancun climate change summit
Scientists call for rationing in
developed world
Global warming is now such a serious threat to mankind that climate
change experts are calling for Second World War-style rationing in
rich countries to bring down carbon emissions.
From all appearances, such rationing would last at least two
decades, during which there would be, by design, no economic growth.
Zero, zip, nada.
Here are selected paragraphs from Gray's grouse (bolds and number
tags are mine):
In a series of papers published by the Royal Society, physicists and
chemists from some of world’s most respected scientific
institutions, including Oxford University and the Met Office, agreed
that current plans to tackle global warming are not enough.
Unless emissions are reduced dramatically in the next ten years the
world is set to see temperatures rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by as
early as the 2060s, causing floods, droughts and mass migration.
[1]
...In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall
Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce
global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue
to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next
twenty years. [2]
This would mean a drastic change in lifestyles
[2] for many people
in countries like Britain as everyone will have to buy less ‘carbon
intensive’ goods and services such as long haul flights and fuel
hungry cars.
...He said politicians should consider a rationing system similar
to the one introduced during the last “time of crisis” in the 1930s
and 40s. [3]
...Prof Anderson insisted that halting growth in the rich world
does not necessarily mean a recession or a worse lifestyle, [2]
it
just means making adjustments in everyday life such as using public
transport and wearing a sweater rather than turning on the heating.
...At the moment efforts are focused on trying to get countries to
cut emissions by 50 per cent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. [4]
But Dr Myles Allen, of Oxford University’s Department of Physics,
said this might not be enough. He said that if emissions do not come
down quick enough even a slight change in temperature will be too
rapid for ecosystems to keep up.
A suggestion for Prof. Anderson and Dr. Allen:
You first, guys. If
you commit for the next 20 years not to use a computer or any kind
of wireless communication device, and only to travel via public
transportation, we might listen.
Too harsh for self-appointed
elitists like you? Too bad.
References
[1] - Climategate, "The Dog Ate My
Global Warming Data," other clear breaches of scientific
protocol and objectivity, and the inherent limitations of
relying on computer models to predict what will happen in a
complex world make this claim speculative at best, and needless
scaremongering at worst.
[2] - Within just a few paragraphs, 20 years of no economic
growth means "drastic lifestyle changes" but somehow not "a
worse lifestyle." Really?
[3] - By describing them as having occurred "in the 1930s and
1940s," Ms. Gray makes the World War II-related rationing
regimes appear worse than they were. They lasted six years at
most, less than one-third of the two decades desired by the
self-appointed experts. Patriotism reined in the black market to
an extent during World War II. It will require a police state to
restrain the black market that will result from a
government-enforced, popularly-opposed scam during peacetime.
Perhaps statists consider that a feature, not a bug.
[4] - "Cutting emissions by 50% relative to 1990" is cynically
manipulative math at its worst. Since worldwide emissions have
grown by about 35% since 1990 (below chart), cutting back to 1990 levels would
really require a reduction of 63% (0.85 divided by 1.35).
World Energy
Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions
1990–2025
|
Region |
Energy consumption
(quadrillion btu) |
Carbon dioxide emissions
(million metric tons) |
|
1990 |
2001 |
2010 |
2025 |
1990 |
2001 |
2010 |
2025 |
|
Industrialized nations |
182.8 |
211.5 |
236.3 |
281.4 |
10,462 |
11,634 |
12,938 |
15,643 |
|
Eastern Europe/Former Soviet
Union |
76.3 |
53.3 |
59.0 |
75.6 |
4,902 |
3,148 |
3,397 |
4,313 |
|
Developing nations |
|
Asia |
52.5 |
85.0 |
110.6 |
173.4 |
3,994 |
6,012 |
7,647 |
11,801 |
|
Middle East |
13.1 |
20.8 |
25.0 |
34.1 |
846 |
1,299 |
1,566 |
2,110 |
|
Africa |
9.3 |
12.4 |
14.6 |
21.5 |
656 |
843 |
971 |
1,413 |
|
Central and South America |
14.4 |
20.9 |
25.4 |
36.9 |
703 |
964 |
1,194 |
1,845 |
|
Total developing |
89.3 |
139.2 |
175.5 |
265.9 |
6,200 |
9,118 |
11,379 |
17,168 |
|
Total world |
348.4 |
403.9 |
470.8 |
622.9 |
21,563 |
23,899 |
27,715 |
37,124 |
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Gullible environment correspondents are apparently a bit more
likely to swallow the idea of a falsely-advertised 50% reduction
than one that in reality, after considering population growth,
involves per-capita reductions approaching 70%.
As noted earlier, the fact that there
are people in positions of power and responsibility who either buy
into globaloney (my term for human-caused global warming) or,
in
certain cases, unapologetically see it as a convenient opportunity
for engaging in wealth redistribution, means that nonsense such as
what is emanating from Cancun can't be ignored.
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