Monday 15 October 2007

Peaceful warmism?

The hook the Norwegian Nobel Committee used to give the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPCC and debate-dodging, media-shunning, unsafe-for-children ecodunce Al Gore is that climate change could lead to "increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states." As some wise person said, “I don’t know what’s so peaceful about global warming. As far as I can tell, every time someone brings it up a fight breaks out.”

In fact as far as "divisiveness" and "conflict" goes, the whole issue drives a deep wedge between developed countries and those who would like to develop, but who will be kept from becoming rich by the politicisation of the very technologies needed for their development. By making an international crime out of attempts to increase production and raise living standards, it sets up possible conflicts, even wars, between countries.

The arrogance and indifference of environmental campaigners towards the suffering in the third world is well known -- reducing greenhouse gases at the cost of trillions of dollars “is one of the least helpful ways of serving humanity or the environment” points out Bjorn Lomborg, and these are trillions "not available for addressing the problems bedeviling the Third World––disease, malnutrition, sanitation, and economic development, the real and pressing needs of current generations that we can solve so easily and cheaply before we try to tackle the long-term problem of climate change, which will be massively expensive and accomplish so little.”

Al Gore and the IPCC have turned the arrogance and indifference of well-fed environmentalists into public policy.

As Julian Morris explained on Al Jazeerah last week, in effectively demanding that developing countries reduce their use of fossil fuels, Gore, the IPCC and (by endorsing their calls) the Nobel committee are essentially "promoting global disharmony." Said Morris,
Around 1.5 million women and children currently die from the use of dirty fuels, such as wood and dung*. Replacing these fuels with electricity, even from coal-fired power stations, would substantially improve the lot of the very poorest people on the planet – but this is opposed by people who promote restrictions on fossil fuel use.
So a prize for "peace" is at least surprising. As John Beralu argues,
this choice, more than any other Nobel Committee selection, marks the end of a 105-year era. In direct contradiction of Alfred Nobel's last will and testament, the selection of Gore essentially means the Peace Prize can no longer be said to be an award for improving the condition of humankind.
UPDATE 1: Says Andrew Walden,
An “inconvenient” court ruling was not Gore's only hurdle. Gore had to beat back another last minute challenge -- this one posed by the protests of pro-democracy Buddhist monks facing murder and torture at the hands of Burma’s socialist dictatorship... The Nobel committee has reached a new low by honoring a pompous, self-enriching fraud whose work is aimed largely at keeping the third world in poverty by blocking industrialization. Any Burmese monks able to escape the slaughter should immediately demand a recount.
UPDATE 2: And the Wall Street Journal has a list of dozens -- indeed thousands -- of others who the Nobel Committee had to overlook in awarding the gong to Gore, "men and women [who] put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression. Let us hope they survive the coming year so that the Nobel Prize Committee might consider them for the 2008 award."
-------------------
*Acute Lower Respiratory Infections are among the leading causes of death for infants and women, and are predominantly caused by chronic inflammation resulting from the inhalation of toxic indoor air pollution, predominantly caused by burning wood and dung – e.g.: Majid Ezzati and Daniel M Kammen (2001) “Indoor air pollution from biomass combustion and acute respiratory infections in Kenya: an exposure-response study” 'Lancet' magazine, Vol 358, pp. 619 – 624.

8 comments:

Comrade MOT said...

"men and women [who] put their own lives and livelihoods at risk by working to rid the world of violence and oppression.

That is what altruism is not some thing that you manage to equate with socialism/authoratariansim.

Anonymous said...

You really should see a therapist about your Gore Derangement Syndrome.

Anonymous said...

oh eddie, you're sooo convincing!

The trouble with weenie turds such as you is that you'll believe anything, just so long as there's a hero (such as your Gore creature) and that other people will be forced to live according to your code of beliefs.

Since it would appear you believe in environmentalist muck, how about you stop being a hypocrit and live by it. That means no car, no electricity, no plastic products, nothing that involved the use of industry to win material from the environment and turn it into useful product, nor should you be using anything that involved the consumption of fossil fuels or nuclear for that matter.

Get on with it you dishonest thing. Until you succeed in being environmental you are nothing but a liar and a conman.

How about it?

LGM

Anonymous said...

LGM -- Calm down, you're pushing your heart rate up. Have you taken your pills yet today, hmm? At your age, you've got to watch your blood pressure :-)

Anonymous said...

Paul Krugman on the roots of Gore Derangement Syndrome:

So if science says that we have a big problem that can’t be solved with tax cuts or bombs — well, the science must be rejected, and the scientists must be slimed. For example, Investor’s Business Daily recently declared that the prominence of James Hansen, the NASA researcher who first made climate change a national issue two decades ago, is actually due to the nefarious schemes of — who else? — George Soros.

Which brings us to the biggest reason the right hates Mr. Gore: in his case the smear campaign has failed. He’s taken everything they could throw at him, and emerged more respected, and more credible, than ever. And it drives them crazy.


(I included that bit about James Hansen because I thought it might appeal to PC's love of conspiracy theories. How about it, Peter? When will you right the definitive post linking the IPCC to the socialist New World Order?)

Denialists are losing credibility by the day, and what they deserve is mockery.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/15/opinion/15krugman.html?_r=1&n=Top/Opinion/Editorials%20and%20Op-Ed/Op-Ed/Columnists/Paul%20Krugman&oref=slogin

Anonymous said...

eddie

Your post confirms what I wrote about you.

1/. You rely on your "heroes" to convince yourself that you have a valid position. This is a variation of the appeal to authority argument. In essence the argument runs thus, "the fuhrer has spoken and the fuhrer is always correct, so when I say what the fuhrer says I am correct also." Illogical. It's a mindless approach. You need to learn to think for yourself.

Now one of the weaknesses of your approach is when your hero is wrong. Take this Krugman creature for example. Krugman was debunked as an economist years ago. His pronouncements just don't hold up. On examination his economic arguments are found to be facile and weak; false. One can't rely on anything he says uncritically. Yet you did!

As for Soros, I note that he did well on currency manipulation against irrational statists (fair enough- now watch the same things occur with carbon trading schemes!) and yet when he invested in businesses he lost billions. An excellent currency speculator but not at all an industrialist. What does that tell us? It means that outside of a certain speculative and currency trading arena Soros is an unreliable source of knowledge. Yet you cite him as an authority. Oh dear.

Now that's the trouble with your approach of believing in such heros. You rely on them even when they are wrong.

2/. Now you were challenged to live by your own values. I know you won't. What's the matter hypocrit? Too much a liar to live according to you own ideology? Come on, let's see you live without "harming the environment." No products of industrial civilisation for you!

LGM

Anonymous said...

LGM - No serious enviro is saying we should live without electricity. What an absurd notion! If that's what you believe mainstream environmentalists are saying, then you truly are deluded.

Anonymous said...

eddie

I'm saying that you should follow your enviro mumbo jumbo ideology consistently. And guess what? That means electricity is a big no no for you.

You are a hyprocrit sonny boy.

LGM