Inhofe: WikiLeaks climate revelations show Obama’s ‘desperation’

FROM-The Daily Caller


By John Rossomando


The revelation that the Obama administration used a covert CIA program to dig up dirt on countries opposed to the Copenhagen climate treaty shows a White House desperate to enforce its orthodoxy on global warming, Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Inhofe told The Daily Caller.

Earlier this month, The Guardian newspaper reported that State Department administration officials, acting at the request of the CIA, sent a secret cable on July 31, 2009, asking U.S. diplomats to gather intelligence on other countries’ preparations for the then-pending Copenhagen climate conference. The request also asked diplomats to be on the lookout for indications that countries were not fostering environmental cooperation and for evidence of countries circumventing U.N.-sponsored environmental treaties.

The cables do not make clear whether CIA Director Leon Panetta was directly involved in the request. Panetta has a long, documented history of environmental activism, particularly on climate change, going back several decades.

So far, administration allies are not commenting on the revelation. TheDC approached former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright last week during an appearance at the liberal Center for American Progress, but she declined to comment.

The leaked cables show the Obama administration has had particular trouble influencing the so-called BASIC-bloc countries of Brazil, South Africa, India, and China. Administration officials have sought to work with the EU to plot strategy to overcome opposition and find ways to neutralize their opposition to the Copenhagen Climate Accord.

So far, 116 countries have associated themselves with the accord and another 26 have indicated their intention to associate. The treaty would continue the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and established a mechanism for developing nations to establish emissions targets, which they have vehemently opposed.

According to a leaked Feb. 17, 2010 cable, Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international affairs, held a meeting with the EU’s climate commissioner-designate, Conne Hedegaard, looking for ways to work around “unhelpful countries such as Venezuela or Bolivia” and get the treaty into force.

The cable quotes Froman as saying the U.S. and E.U. “need to neutralize, co-opt or marginalize, co-opt or marginalize these and others such as Nicaragua, Cuba and Ecuador.”

Froman also advocated using divide and conquer tactics to confront the BASIC bloc and other Copenhagen treaty opponents, saying the U.S. and E.U. needed “to better handle third country obstructionism and avoid future trainwrecks on climate …”

The Obama administration subsequently cutoff aid to Ecuador and Bolivia last April that would have helped them reach the Copenhagen treaty’s carbon emissions targets, citing their opposition to the agreement.

“I think this goes to show that to the left-wing of the Democratic Party, national security means anything you want it to,” former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton said. “I don’t mind using any instruments of persuasion…but I think it is certainly a misallocation of priorities to be using intelligence capabilities on something like climate change.”

Inhofe expressed similar sentiments, suggesting Obama’s use of the CIA and diplomatic threats to push his climate agenda around the world are part of what Inhofe considers Obama’s larger “liberal agenda.”

“For the last 10 years, I have been largely alone on this, but people have learned to understand the economics as well as the science, and clearly we have won,” Inhofe said. “[Obama] has certain things he has to do for the far-left. One is on the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ repeal; one is abortions in military hospitals, and one is on cap-and-trade.

“He has to use every resource that’s available to him to get this liberal agenda through, knowing it won’t go through,” Inhofe continued. “I can see the conversations right now with George Soros: ‘He should be using the NSA on this.’ He’s going to use every resource and it’s not going to work, so nothing surprises me.”

As Kyoto plan collapses, Plan B emerges

FROM-Washington Times
Even after Copenhagen, carbon alarmists aren't giving up
By Dalibor Rohac


Although preparations are in place for a sum- mit on climate change in Cancun, Mexico, at the end of November, it is clear that the goal of cutting carbon emissions through coordinated action by the world's governments is dead. Nevertheless, it would be too early to celebrate, as the threat of fear-driven and economically costly climate policies is not gone yet. It is merely being transformed into a more subtle - and potentially more dangerous - agenda.

The Copenhagen summit last year was the last nail in the coffin of the Kyoto process. Under Kyoto, countries would agree to specific emission targets and then use "cap-and-trade" to allocate the limited amount of carbon emissions to various industrial uses. However, in 2009, the world's leaders failed to agree on any measurable commitment to cutting carbon emissions by this method.

In fact, they did so for a very good reason. Meeting the initially envisaged objectives of reducing CO2 emissions by 50 percent by 2050 and 80 percent by 2100 is, under current technology, not feasible without drastic reductions in economic activity and, therefore, standards of living. This may not seem like much to Western politicians and celebrities. However, for the political leaders of large emerging economies such as China and India, forestalling their current economic expansion in order to obtain very uncertain benefits some hundred years from now would be the height of folly.

Climate-change politics

FROM-American Machinist

Dr. Paul Freedenberg

The Copenhagen global warming summit would seem like just another meaningless United Nationssponsored international forum if its consequences were not so deadly serious to the American economy. As a historical note, the last time such an event occurred – in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997 – the U.S. Senate reacted by passing a resolution that renounced any Clinton Administration commitments made in Kyoto by an overwhelming bipartisan margin of 97 to 0. Even in that boom year, because it was believed that the health of the U.S. economy was threatened, the Senate was in no mood for unilateral concessions on energy usage. The consensus in the Senate was that the Kyoto Agreement would almost certainly lead to U.S. job losses. Moreover, it was feared that Kyoto would commit the U.S. government to policies that would cost trillions of dollars over the coming decades.

The Copenhagen global warming summit would entail similar commitments. Although no one knows how we could accomplish it, the U.S. government proposed to bring carbon emissions down to 83 percent below its 2005 levels by the year 2050. This is an impossible goal with current technology. To illustrate its futility: population projections for that year indicate that the U.S. will have 420 million people living here. That means that to reach that goal our carbon footprint would have to be equal to what we were emitting in 1875. Do we really want to commit ourselves to a goal that is either so idealistic or so insincere?

By contrast, the Chinese and Indian governments are unwilling to commit themselves to concrete numerical goals. The Chinese promise only to reduce their “carbon intensity” over the coming years. That translates into a commitment only to reduce China’s carbon emissions per unit of production.

Under any conceivable scenario of technological development, we should expect the Chinese to become more efficient in their use of carbon. They are currently three times less efficient than us in the production of steel. Increasing energy efficiency is something that the Chinese would want to do even if there were no climate summit and no outside pressure to become more efficient. It is not a concession.

Although we have heard positive comments about the Chinese and Indian carbon promises out of some in the environmental community and even some Senators, certainly the U.S. government is not so foolish as to accept those pledges as sufficient commitments. The Chinese and the Indians offer the excuse that they are developing economies and should be given more leeway. What the U.S. government – indeed the world – needs to hear from China and India are specific pledges to meet new carbon emission goals, goals that would require them to install expensive new carboncontrol technologies, or a switch to new less carbon-emitting fuels to reduce carbon output – the same difficult trade-offs that the developed industrialized countries are promising to make.

Otherwise, the Chinese and Indian promises are empty, and we are likely to be worse off than if there were no Copenhagen commitments at all, because carbon intensive industries will simply move to China and India.

Given the fact that the climate change legislation is not likely to pass the Senate during 2010 in its current form, and that the Obama administration is going to be under pressure from the European Union and the environmental wing of the President’s own party to do something about climate change and greenhouse gas emissions, it is likely that we will be seeing tough new carbon-restricting regulations coming from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the coming years.\

Just as the Copenhagen conference began, the EPA issued an “endangerment finding” under the authority of the Clean Air Act. That finding was grounded in the agency’s own climate change analysis. It allows the EPA to regulate carbon-dioxide emissions as harmful pollutants and enables the Obama administration to bypass the need for legislation before imposing controls. Under its legislative charter, the EPA is not limited by the economic impact of its regulations. Thus, we seem to be about to embark on a path to reach the Copenhagen climate goals, no matter whether the Indians and Chinese make similar commitments and despite what the U.S. Congress decides that it wants to do or not to do.



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"She's a horrible woman"

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Copenhagen Summit Turned Junket?

Exclusive: At Least 20 Members of Congress Made the Trip to Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen Last Month

FROM-CBS

Few would argue with the U.S. having a presence at the Copenhagen Climate Summit. But wait until you hear what we found about how many in Congress got all-expense paid trips to Denmark on your dime.

CBS investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports that cameras spotted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi at the summit. She called the shots on who got to go. House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and embattled Chairman of the Tax Committee Charles Rangel were also there.

They were joined by 17 colleagues: Democrats: Waxman, Miller, Markey, Gordon, Levin, Blumenauer, DeGette, Inslee, Ryan, Butterfield, Cleaver, Giffords, and Republicans: Barton, Upton, Moore Capito, Sullivan, Blackburn and Sensenbrenner.

That's not the half of it. But finding out more was a bit like trying to get the keys to Ft. Knox. Many referred us to Speaker Pelosi who wouldn't agree to an interview. Her office said it "will comply with disclosure requirements" but wouldn't give us cost estimates or even tell us where they all stayed.

Senator Inhofe (R-OK) is one of the few who provided us any detail. He attended the summit on his own for just a few hours, to give an "opposing view."

"They're going because it's the biggest party of the year," Sen. Inhofe said. "The worst thing that happened there is they ran out of caviar."

Our investigation found that the congressional delegation was so large, it needed three military jets: two 737's and a Gulfstream Five -- up to 64 passengers -- traveling in luxurious comfort.

Add senators and staff, most of whom flew commercial, and we counted at least 101 Congress-related attendees. All for a summit that failed to deliver a global climate deal.

As a perk, some took spouses, since they could snag an open seat on a military jet or share a room at no extra cost to taxpayers. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) was there with her husband. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) was also there with her husband. Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) took his wife, as did Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI). Congressman Barton -- a climate change skeptic -- even brought along his daughter.


(CBS)Until required filings are made in the coming weeks, we can only figure bits and pieces of the cost to you.


Three military jets at $9,900 per hour - $168,000 just in flight time.

Dozens flew commercial at up to $2,000 each.

321 hotel nights booked - the bulk at Copenhagen's five-star Marriott.

Meals add tens of thousands more.

Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense, wasn't against a U.S. presence. But he said, "Every penny counts. Congress should be shaking the couch cushions looking for change, rather than spending cash for everybody to go to Copenhagen."

Nobody we asked would defend the super-sized Congressional presence on camera. One Democrat said it showed the world the U.S. is serious about climate change.

And all those attendees who went to the summit rather than hooking up by teleconference? They produced enough climate-stunting carbon dioxide to fill 10,000 Olympic swimming pools.

Which means even if Congress didn't get a global agreement - they left an indelible footprint all the same.

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The cool down in climate polls

FROM-National Post

Terence Corcoran,

As the United Nations' Copenhagen global warming catastrophe fades from memory, its emaciated remains quietly bulldozed into the freezing blue Danske harbour, public opinion had few places to go. And so it went nowhere. In fact, according to new tri-national polls released yesterday by Angus Read, the people of Canada, the Unites States and Britain are rapidly losing confidence in the whole enterprise.

Perhaps the most stunning poll result is the general lack of any confidence or hope or belief that Copenhagen could or would ever produce a binding agreement that would force the world's countries to reduce carbon emissions. To the question "Do you think the Copenhagen Accord will become a legally binding treaty in the future?", only 19% of Americans, 16% of Britons and 12% of Canadians said "yes."

Not that there was a whole lot of good feeling about Copenhagen going into last month's assembly. Under the auspices of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Copenhagen opened with 170 nations clamouring for attention amid growing public doubts about the validity of global warming theory.

Increasing uncertainty shows up in yesterday's poll numbers. Angus Reid surveyed people in all three countries in November and December, before and after Copenhagen. The drop off in public support for the idea that global warming is a fact mostly caused by human activity looks most pronounced in Canada. In November, 63% of Canadians supported global warming as a man-made phenomenon. By Dec. 23, that support had fallen 52%. Among Canadians, 13% are now not sure.

A similar trend has been noted in the United States, where confidence in global warming theory has dropped to 46%, down from 49% in November -- and down from 51% in July last year. In Britain, only 43% believe man-made global warming is a fact, down from 47% in November and from 55% in July.

In all three countries, there are signs of growing skepticism. Part of the latest fall-off may be attributable to Climategate, the release of thousands of emails from the University of East Anglia's Climatic Research Unit. The emails, exchanged among the world's leading climate theorists, show climate science to be a battleground of conflict and uncertainty.

But there may be more going on in the public mind than emailfed skepticism. The emails, after all, received relatively little mainstream media attention, and they were only released in mid-November. The trend has been underway for months, even years, making it difficult if not impossible for politicians looking for a way out of the global warming policy swamp their governments helped create.

Not one of the three leaders of Canada, America or Britain comes out of Copenhagen looking good -- or looking all that bad -- in the minds of their citizens: 47% in Britain were dissatisfied with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's performance in Copenhagen, while 48% of Canadians were dissatisfied with Prime Minister Stephen Harper's. Given that Mr. Harper was subject of nightly television and daily news reports of Canada's role as a "fossil" at Copenhagen, it could have been worse. Fewer Americans (35%) were dissatisfied with President Barack Obama's performance. On the other hand, only 40% were satisfied.

But the waters on global warming political opinion are even murkier than the simple rankings suggest. Take, for example, the 48% of Canadians who were dissatisfied with Mr. Harper's performance. As many as a quarter of their number do not think global warming is a man-made problem. Some think warming is mostly caused by natural changes in climate, and others think global warming is a theory that has not yet been proven. By deduction, one might conclude that Mr. Harper's performance was unsatisfactory to many Canadians because he did not go far enough in opposing the Copenhagen process.

Whatever the case, it is clear that public opinion on global warming is now as muddled as the science seems to be. While there appears to be growing skepticism about the theory of man-made climate change, there still appears to be a willingness to accept measures to curb climate emissions. For example, 72% in Britain support a 50% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020. How is that possible when only 43% in Britain believe warming is a man-made problem?

People may just be confused and turned off by the politics. Mario Canseco, vice-president of Angus Reid Public Opinion, said in an interview yesterday that his impression from secondary sampling is that many people were turned off by extremists on both sides. By that he means that radical seizure of public events at Copenhagen, and the extreme positions taken, has served to confuse people rather than rally them. If the trends in the table below show anything, it is that the radicals are losing the battle.


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Copenhagen's Dodged Bullet

Modern men have lived through 20 sudden global warmings.

FROM- WSJ


By PETE DU PONT
Al Gore said the other week that climate change is "a principle in physics. It's like gravity. It exists." Sarah Palin agreed that "climate change is like gravity," but added a better conclusion: Each is "a naturally occurring phenomenon that existed long before, and will exist long after, any governmental attempts to affect it."

Over time climates do change. As author Howard Bloom wrote in The Wall Street Journal last month, in the past two million years there have been 60 ice ages, and in the 120,000 years since the development of modern man, "we've lived through 20 sudden global warmings," and of course this was before--long before--"smokestacks and tail pipes."

In our earth's history there has been both global warming and global cooling. In Roman times, from 200 B.C. to A.D. 600, it was warm; from 600 to 900 came the cold Dark Ages; more warming from 900 to 1300; and another ice age from 1300 to 1850. Within the past century, the earth has warmed by 0.6 degree Celsius, but within this period we can see marked shifts: cooling (1900-10), warming (1910-40), cooling again (1940 to nearly 1980), and since then a little warming. The Hadley Climatic Research Unit global temperature record shows that from 1980 to 2009, the world warmed by 0.16 degree Celsius per decade.

As for the impact of reducing global warming, Bjorn Lomborg, director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center, outlined in The Wall Street Journal that Oxfam concluded that if wealthy nations diverted $50 billion to climate change that "at least 4.5 million children would die and 8.6 million fewer people could have access to HIV/AIDS treatment." And if we spent it on reducing carbon emissions? It would "reduce temperatures by all of one-thousandth of one degree Fahrenheit over the next hundred years."

***
All of which brings us to the Copenhagen global warming conference. It involved 193 nations getting together to discuss the threat that global warming poses to our planet and what can be done about it. The goal was to create a global agreement that extended and expanded the Kyoto Protocol so that a global organization could influence and monitor all nations' efforts to reduce their CO2 emissions.

Global warming believers did not get their way, either in extending the Kyoto agreement or in forming any global organization to tell all of the world's people how to lead their lives.

But developing nations did get something--a promise of support for $30 billion over the first three years and a goal of growing it to $100 billion annually by 2020.

The developing nations saw climate change as an enormous financial bonanza if, under the banner of the environment, they could get wealthy nations to transfer wealth to them. The wealthy nations of course saw this as a trap: Why would they want to depress their economic growth by giving money to developing nations? The truth of the Copenhagen agreement is that developing countries want cash from other countries with few strings attached.

So the final Copenhagen deal did not establish greenhouse gas emission targets or specifically address how nations must limit temperature increases to no more than 2 degrees Celsius, but it did agree that CO2 emissions could be measured, reported and verified by . . . well, someone. That, in China's terms, means "developed countries must take the lead" in making emission cuts and providing financial and technical support for developing countries.

As for the U.S., President Obama's, Sen. John Kerry's, and Rep. Edward Markey's support for global-warming control is very strong and long lasting. So passage of the Waxman-Markey or Boxer-Kerry cap-and-trade legislation will be high on their agenda. The problem is that most Americans are changing their mind about the global warming propositions: A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that Mr. Obama's approval rating on the subject has dropped to 45% from 61% in April.

***
In truth, the world dodged a bullet in Copenhagen. There could have been significant damage to many nations' economies if the warming alarmists' full agenda had been adopted.

But of course the game has not ended. Here in America, Mr. Obama, Congress and the Environmental Protection Agency all seem committed to regulating our behavior and consumption under the guise of addressing a crisis that is not a crisis. They will do so in a way that will not meaningfully reduce global temperatures, but will substantially hurt the economies and opportunities of the world's people.



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Climate Change: The Religion of Copenhagen

FROM-Big Government

by Caroline May

During the recent COP-15 Conference in Copenhagen, the United Nations claimed it wanted to maintain religious neutrality. It was a lie. Global Warming is the established religion at these international events.

This was made especially clear when, days before the event’s commencement, the Denmark Foreign Ministry rejected a donated delivery of Christmas fir trees. “We have to remember that this is a U.N. conference and, as the [Bella] center then becomes U.N. territory, there can be no Christmas trees in the decor, because the U.N. wishes to maintain neutrality,” explained Ministry official Svend Olling.

Religious objectivity, however, is impossible at a conference explicitly engaged in blind adherence to an unproven premise- a faith in the veracity of global warming. For though the science is not settled, participants convened to devise strategies for what they believe will be the world’s environmental salvation, the capping of carbon dioxide emissions.

Global Warming devotees’ religious fervor commands action, even if their deliverance comes at the expense of economic devastation. American disciples such as Al Gore and President Barack Obama are more than willing to sacrifice economic stability at the alter of Global Warming.


The faith dictates absolute advocacy for draconian carbon dioxide regulations such as the cap and trade scheme detailed in the House-passed “American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009.” To Warming enthusiasts the $9.4 trillion reduction in aggregate GDP, the loss of another 2.5 million jobs, and increase in inflation-adjusted electricity prices by 90 percent, gasoline prices by 58 percent, and residential natural gas prices by 55 percent, all estimated to occur within the first 24 years under such a cap and trade scheme, are merely an afterthought.

Though economists have highlighted the dire financial implications of energy restriction ad nauseam and questions remain about the actual science, the Global Warming theory adherents are steadfast in their beliefs. Ironically, it seems that most of these Warmers -many of whom are often quick to proclaim religious believers as backward- stick to their faith with the unbending will of St. Paul.

Even in the wake of Climategate and new peer-reviewed studies -which give lie to consensus driven apocalyptic climate forecasts- by such renowned scientists as Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Dr. Stephen E. Schwartz, MIT’s Dr. Richard Lindzen, and University of Auckland’s Dr. Chris de Freitas, Warming adherents remain loyally convinced that man and his evil energy usage is destroying Mother Earth.

Faith is belief without verifiable evidence. This unquestioned adherence to the theory of Global Warming bears all the markings of what traditionally would be recognized as a religion. Complete with sin (the emitting of carbon dioxide), scriptures (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment reports), commandments (drive a Prius, use Compact Florescent Light bulbs, do not eat meat etc.), indulgences (carbon offsets), proselytism, prophets (Al Gore), priests (scientists), prophecy and apocalypse (floods, hurricanes, dead polar bears), infidels (Warming skeptics), and salvation (the halting of carbon emitting industrial progress) the religion of Global Warming fits the mold.

Great Britain has already recognized belief in anthropogenic Global Warming as a religion. In November, in a landmark case brought before the UK Employment Appeal Tribunal, the court found that under the “2003 Religion and Belief Regulations” “belief in man-made climate change, and the alleged resulting moral imperatives” qualified for the same employment discrimination protections as a traditional religion.

Though we have yet to see Al Gore or James Hansen walk on water, COP-15 was far from religiously-neutral. Instead, participants were expected to adhere to their one true faith: Global Warming. There was no room at this conference for religious or even ideological competition.

Consequently, it makes sense that Christmas tress were not welcome at the church of Global Warming. After all, when was the last time you saw a menorah in a Cathedral?


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POWER TO THE PEOPLE

Letters to the Editor and other People Speak

FROM-Source Newspaper.com

Guest Column: Disturbing themes from the U.N. Climate Change Summit

By JULIE SZYDLOWSKI

Though world leaders at the recent United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, failed to meet their objective for a legally binding accord to reduce global carbon emissions, the summit did produce two very disturbing themes: that capitalism is evil and that reducing the global population would be an effective means for saving the planet. These attitudes underscore the growing consensus that the global warming theory is becoming little more than a political tool for advancing dangerous agendas around the world.

In a speech at the Copenhagen summit, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez used the world stage to denounce capitalism as the enemy of the earth, not to mention the cause of AIDS, poverty and war.

"There is a ghost running through the streets of Copenhagen," Chavez told summit participants. "A terrible ghost. Capitalism is that ghost."

That his comments were met with a standing ovation begs the question: were those in attendance there to support reductions in global warming or to reveal their true agenda to undermine the free market systems that have consistently lifted nations out of poverty and sustained the way of life for millions here in America?

As Chavez made his remarks inside the gathering, outside on the streets of Copenhagen over 100,000 demonstrators were chanting, "Save the planet. Smash the system. Stop global warming. Give us socialism".

Taking a moment to examine global warming, proponents say it occurs when carbon dioxide and other air pollution that is collecting in the atmosphere trap the sun's heat, causing the planet to warm. Advocates purport that coal-burning power plants are the largest U.S. source of carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution, followed by automobiles.

The good news is that new technologies, spearheaded by corporations like General Motors and others, make cars run cleaner and burn less gas, modernize power plants, generate electricity from nonpolluting sources, and cut our electricity use through energy efficiency. Whether these efforts directly impact the earth's temperature or not, the truth is that no documentation of a sustained rise in temperature beyond normal climatic cycles exists. In fact, even the most vocal alarmists no longer call it global warming, but instead refer to the issue in the more innocuous vernacular of "climate change."

An objective look at atmospheric fluctuations reveals climate change does exist to the extent that temperatures have risen and declined regularly for the past 100 years, even on a daily basis, despite the fact that CO2 emissions have always been on the rise. Moreover, as recently as the 1970s, there was an equally loud warning about the plummet of the earth's temperature, and several scientists are claiming that to be true even now. Some people call these rises and falls in temperature a potential catastrophe; some just call it weather.

In fact, the recent "ClimateGate" episode, in which scientists at the Climate Research Unit in England admitted in e-mails that they were deliberately suppressing evidence that proved global warming was a myth, is rightly being hailed as the final nail in the coffin for the global warming movement.

Yet environmentalists, such as those present at the Copenhagen summit, continually use unproven global warming threats to justify anti-capitalist agendas. Interestingly though, summit representatives from two of the world's largest emerging economies -- China and India -- were the most vocal in their unwillingness to commit to the legal accord proposed at the summit. Citing the limitations and outlandish costs it would place on business operations, they shunned doing anything that would slow down the economic growth currently so prevalent in their countries.

Unfortunately, where China showed support for economic growth by rejecting the treaty, its summit representative did manage to exploit the global warming theory by advocating China's coercive one-child policy as a way of reducing CO2 emissions to save the planet.

While some may dismiss this as an irrelevant attitude rooted on the other side of the world, sadly and frightfully, versions of it are supported vocally right here in America. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, for instance, has boldly cited population control as a means of improving the economy, stating that children are a drag on resources.

Other anti-human groups are proliferating at alarming rates. One such group, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, states on its Web site that, "the hopeful alternative to the extinction of millions of species of plants and animals is the voluntary extinction of one species: Homo sapiens ...us." It goes on to say, "when every human chooses to stop breeding, Earth's biosphere will be allowed to return to its former glory."

While falling short of advocating human extinction altogether, more mainstream environmental groups such as the National Wildlife Federation, Audubon Society and the Sierra Club are all on record as saying that humans are a major contributor to problems in the environment. So what would they have humans do to reduce their carbon footprint?

It is not unreasonable to conclude that this type of fear mongering ultimately leads to an increased support for anti-life initiatives, such as abortion and euthanasia, as a way of caving in to the climate-change alarmists.

While we should all take care to respect our resources by curbing wastefulness, pollution, littering, etc., no human should feel guilty for populating the very planet on which God has placed us, and it is particularly diabolical to infuse young children with the fear that their very existence means doom for the planet. Whether one subscribes to the theory of global warming or not, it is important not to allow world leaders and influential organizations to manipulate it as a means for achieving anti-capitalist and anti-life objectives by attempting to make humans feel guilty for being here.

Julie Szydlowski is a resident of Shelby Township.


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"Flying High Lords of Greendom"

A Cool Wind Braces the Hot-Air Crowd

By Debra J. Saunders


FROM-JWR

For years, global warming alarmists have pointed to every drought and heat wave as proof that global warming was a real environmental threat. They had few qualms about blurring the line between weather and climate to make a PR point. Perhaps, then, it was karma that brought a blizzard and freezing temperatures to the U.N. climate change Conference of Parties confab in Copenhagen (or COP-15 for short) last week.

You may have read about the 1,200 limos and 140 private planes commissioned to transport COP-15 dignitaries in style. Critics love to point to the hypocrisy of world leaders — such as Prince Charles and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown — touching down in separate private planes to a conference ostensibly dedicated to curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

But it's the Flying High Lords of Greendom's air of unreality that concerns me. If world leaders truly believed that global warming will lead to famine, rising sea levels and melting of the North Pole ice — along with countless deaths — surely they would want to set an example by flying commercial.

Instead, they travel like pooh-bahs of the stratosphere, then justify their excesses by tossing $100 or so into a carbon-offset fund.

In that godlike spirit, President Obama lauded the COP-15's pact to limit global warming to a rise of only 2 degrees Celsius by 2050 as "an unprecedented breakthrough."

What's the next trick? An eclipse? Now I am fairly skeptical about global warming alarmism — largely because it's hard to heed true believers when they fail to behave in a way that addresses their big issue.

My advice to true believers: If you really believe global warming is caused by man and threatens Earth, stop supporting treaties that don't mandate greenhouse-gas reductions.

For too long, the issue of global warming has hinged on whether politicians said they believed in global warming, not whether they worked to reduce their nation's greenhouse-gas emissions. If the alarmists are correct, then it doesn't matter what people believe if they don't act on those beliefs.

Instead of pretending that critics don't exist, debate them. Stop pretending that consumers can fight global warming simply by using politically correct light bulbs, and recycling. Environmentalists have argued that developed nations will have to cut emissions by 80 percent — and that requires bigger changes than sorting your trash.

Don't support treaties with untenable goals that are to be met decades into the future. Enough with the worst-case scenarios. Al Gore has a penchant for repeating the most dire predictions on global warming — and not always accurately. As the Times of London reported last week, Gore told a Copenhagen audience, that according to a Dr. Wieslaw Maslowski, "there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years."

Except Maslowski told the Times he had no idea where Gore got that idea. "I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this."

Polls show Americans are cooling on global warming. It could be that voters don't buy into the all-bad scenarios predicted by Gore and company


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Shakedown In Copenhagen

FROM-Tulsa Today

by Pat Buchanan

If you would know what Copenhagen is all about, hearken to this nugget in The Washington Post's report from the Danish capital.

"Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenari — who is representing all of Africa here — unveiled his proposal Wednesday for a system in which rich countries would provide money to poor ones to help deal with the effects of climate change. ...

"Zenawi said he would accept $30 billion in the short term, rising to $100 billion by 2020. ... This was seen as a key concession by developing countries, which had previously spurned that figure ... as too low."

There was a time when a U.S. diplomat would have burst out laughing after listening to a Third World con artist like this.

But not the Obamaites. They are already ponying up.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack just pledged $1 billion at Copenhagen to developing countries who preserve their forests. Thus, America, $12 trillion in debt and facing a second straight $1.4 trillion deficit, will borrow another $1 billion from China to send to Brazil to bribe them to stop cutting down their trees.

When you slice through the blather about marooned bears and melting ice caps, oceans rising and cities sinking, global warming is a racket and a crock. It is all about money and power.

Copenhagen has always been about an endless transfer of wealth from America, Europe and Japan and creation of a global bureaucracy to control the pace of world economic and industrial development.

End game: enrichment and empowerment of global elites at the expense of Western peoples whose leaders have been bamboozled by con artists.

When Katrina hit New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and Rita came ashore in Texas in 2005, we were told this was due to global warming, and hurricane seasons would now get worse and worse until the world radically reduced the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

President Bush ignored the hysteria. What happened?

As Michael Fumento reports, the 2009 hurricane season ended quietly, with the fewest hurricanes since 1997, and not one hurricane made landfall in the United States.

When the feds sought to list the polar bear as an endangered species, Gov. Sarah Palin protested this "politicized science" and sued, claiming the polar bear was a healthy species whose numbers had doubled in recent years.

Was she wrong?

Is the Arctic ice cap melting? So we are told. But what harm has befallen mankind other than to have a Northwest Passage opened up to maritime traffic in the summer?

The Antarctic ice sheet is nine times as large as the Arctic, and here is what the British Antarctic Survey wrote last April:

"(D)uring the winter freeze in Antarctica this ice cover expands to an area roughly twice the size of Europe. Ranging in thickness from less than a metre to several metres, the ice insulates the warm ocean from the frigid atmosphere above. Satellite images show that since the 1970s the extent of Antarctic sea ice has increased at a rate of 100,000 square kilometres a decade."

One hundred thousand square kilometers a decade?

This would mean Antarctic sea ice expanded by 300,000 square kilometers since the 1970s, or 116,000 square miles, which is an area larger than all of New England.

How can the Antarctic ice cap grow for three decades as the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has steadily increased, unless carbon dioxide has little or nothing to do with global warming?

Unlike the Arctic, Antarctica is a continent, and while chunks of ice are cracking off in Western Antarctica, in Eastern Antarctica, four times larger, the ice sheet is thickening and expanding. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research reported last April that the South Pole had shown "significant cooling in recent decades."

In April 1992, as the alarm over the Earth's end times began, scientists worldwide issued what was called the Heidelberg Appeal, aimed at just the kind of hysteria we are witnessing now in Copenhagen.

"We are ... worried ... at the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development," said the scientists.

"We contend that a Natural State, sometimes idealized by movements with a tendency to look towards the past, does not exist and has probably never existed since man's first appearance in the biosphere. ... (H)umanity has always progressed by increasingly harnessing Nature to its needs and not the reverse.

"We do, however, forewarn the authorities in charge of our planet's destiny against decisions which are supported by pseudo-scientific arguments or false and non-relevant data."

Since then, 4,000 scientists and 72 Nobel Prize winners have signed on. Again, it needs be said: Global warming is cyclical, and has been stagnant for a decade. There is no conclusive proof it is manmade, no conclusive proof it is harmful to the planet.

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The green dictatorship

Global-warming radicals want to take away our freedom

EDITORIAL FROM- THE WASHINGTON TIMES

Last week's Copenhagen summit surrendered all pretense to significance when it turned into a showcase for dictators' attempts to greenwash their bloody regimes. Granting the spotlight to the tyrannical trio of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez so they could express their profound concern for Mother Earth is like asking former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and his prostitute Ashley Dupre to propound upon the state of marriage.

Mr. Mugabe used the opportunity to blame global warming for the deaths of millions of his subjects. No doubt his country turned from food exporter to famine because of coal electric plants in Idaho. Of course, driving thousands of farmers from their land, rejecting modern farming methods, confiscating his people's wealth and turning his nation into a police state have little to do with Zimbabwean poverty.

"When we spew hazardous emissions for selfish, consumptionist ends, in the process threatening land masses and atmospheric space of smaller and weaker nations, are we not guilty of gross human rights violations?" Mr. Mugabe asked. In case you didn't recognize him, that's the good dictator, the campaigner for human rights and pollution control.

In Mr. Ahmadinejad's case, he unsurprisingly pushed an agenda of spreading nuclear technology to all nations. In a slight oversight, the misunderstood Iranian president failed to mention his desperate hurry to create a nuclear arsenal. No matter, the good Mr. Ahmadinejad is about saving the environment with a profound commitment to disarmament. "Would it not be better that part of the military funds of some countries be dedicated to improving the welfare of people and reducing pollution?" pleaded the green Iranian dictator.

That's rather an ironic color choice, as Mr. Ahmadinejad recently stole elections from an opposition party using green as its signature campaign color.

Not to be left out is Mr. Chavez as representative of a nation feverishly arming for war with its neighbors, nationalizing whole industries and silencing the opposition press. He believes, "The cause of all this disastrous situation is the destructive capitalist system. ... Capitalism is the road to hell." No doubt the tanks Mr. Chavez is buying from Russia will come with efficient hybrid engines and will be used only to demand that neighboring countries tighten fuel-efficiency standards. Those TV stations he shut down must have refused to use clean and responsible solar energy.

Such deep concern for Western capitalism, consumerism and militarism didn't keep the dictators from joining other less developed nations with their hand out for a $100 billion bribe to be financed by that awful capitalism. But these green dictators have more in common than a desire for handouts. Iran and Venezuela, in particular, finance their oppressive governments with the export of oil. Now what was it that causes carbon emissions again? Fossil fuels, was it?

To call the eco-friendly posturing of Third World dictators a farce is to understate the scandal. That the audience greeted such self-serving insanity with applause and that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and President Obama sanctified the gathering with their presence exposes a dark side to the green agenda. Global-warming theology is not just a fraud; it attacks freedom and encourages dictatorship.

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Party crashin Prez?

FROM-UK Telegraph

Barack Obama denies accusations that he 'crashed' secret Chinese climate change talks

Senior US officials insist that President Barack Obama did not "crash" a secret Chinese meeting in the final dramatic hours of the Copenhagen climate change talks.


They portrayed the President as pulling negotiations back from the brink of collapse on a day that veered between chaos and farce.

Aides said that by standing up to the Chinese on the make-and-break issue of transparency, he helped force a deal, however flimsy.

The President was desperate not to return to Washington empty-handed after his risky one-day dash to Denmark.

But his aides were forced to deny that Mr Obama "crashed" a meeting of the Chinese, Indian, South African and Brazilian leaders when he walked in unexpectedly on the gathering.

The US delegation was caught unawares by the session taking place behind its back involving the Chinese and their allies. Officials acknowledged that they had been frantically trying to keep track of other presidents and premiers.

Mr Obama thought he was on his way to a one-to-one meeting with Wen Jiabao, the Chinese premier, who had earlier snubbed him by skipping a session of world leaders.

But just before he entered the room, he was told that the other three leaders there too. "Good," he told aides and strode in with the words "Are you ready for me?" The Americans were particularly taken aback by the presence of Manmohan, the Indian premier, as they were told he had already headed to the airport.

"I think there was no doubt there was some surprise that we were going to join the bigger meeting," said a top Obama aide.

It was during the 80-minute meeting with the other four that the final details were hammered out.

Earlier in the day, at a one-to-one with Mr Wen, Obama aides said the president pushed the Chinese premier "hard" on transparency language. Mr Wen apparently took offence because when world leaders gathered later, he was notably absent. Beijing was instead represented by the climate change ambassador in the ministry of foreign affairs.

A senior US official said: "The President said to staff, I don't want to mess around with this anymore, I want to just talk with Premier Wen".

But the Americans were told that Mr Wen had left for his hotel and Mr Singh had already headed to the airport. The day meanwhile seemed destined for deadlock Mr Obama returned to the meeting with Gordon Brown and other European leaders.

Obama aides said that he courted support from the others present for pushing ahead with a deal, even without the backing of China and possibly India, South Africa and Brazil which shared some of Beijing's concerns.

The White House argued that it was this approach that created the leverage that persuaded the four to have "make one more run at this" "The senior official said: "I think that's why people stowed their luggage in their overhead bins and decided to come back [from the airport] to the negotiating table."

Without even having time to sign the agreement, the president had to dash to the airport to fly home before a winter blizzard slammed the East coast.

By the time he woke up in a snowbound Washington, the so-called "Copenhagen Accord" that he had brokered the previous evening was already unraveling.

Negotiators at the talks gave the deal only the most tepid thumbs-up.

They chose to "take note" of the agreement but failed to adopt it as an official decision of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Speaking at the White House on Saturday, Mr Obama called the agreement an "important breakthrough that lays the foundation" for further progress in years to come. "We know it's not enough," he said. "We have a long way to go and I want America to continue to lead on this journey."

The president had already acknowledged the limitations of the "deal" when he was asked how confident he felt about securing a legally-binding agreement at next year's climate change summit in Mexico City.

"I think it is going to be very hard and it's going to take some time," he said after a day of drama that bordered on farce. He made clear that the ultimate goal was to "press ahead with something more binding".

But the agreement secured by Mr Obama lost wording from earlier drafts that calling for a binding accord "as soon as possible", and no later than at November's meeting in Mexico. Instead, the final version stated only that the agreement should be reviewed and put in place by 2015.

Mr Obama's aspiration to lead the world on climate change has been seriously undermined by the failure of the US Congress to reach agreement on the issue.

Senator John Kerry, lead author of the Senate's stalled climate change bill, expressed hope that the agreement would give fresh impetus for legislation early next year.

"This can be a catalysing moment," he said on Friday. "President Obama's hands-on engagement broke through the bickering and sets the stage for a final deal and for Senate passage this spring of major legislation at home."

But the accord set no target for concluding a binding international treaty, leaving the implementation of its provisions uncertain and fuelling criticism that it was more of a sham than a breakthrough.

It is expected to face several months, very possibly years, of follow-up negotiations before any internationally enforceable agreement can be reached.

Also dropped from earlier drafts was a collective agreement among nations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2050.

Nonetheless, some US environmental groups gave a cautious nod of approval.

"The world's nations have come together and concluded a historic - if incomplete - agreement to begin tackling global warming," Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said on Friday. "Tonight's announcement is but a first step and much work remains to be done in the days and months ahead in order to seal a final international climate deal that is fair, binding and ambitious. It is imperative that negotiations resume as soon as possible."

But other US environmentalists were scathing of the president. Mr Obama may become known as "the man who killed Copenhagen," said Greenpeace US head Phil Radford.

And Bill McKibbon of the liberal climate change pressure group 350.org, said: "The president has wrecked the UN and he's wrecked the possibility of a tough plan to control global warming. It may get Obama a reputation as a tough American leader, but it's at the expense of everything progressives have held dear."



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It's settled; climate circus was a fairy tale

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK - DECEMBER 15: Environmental activists hold a demonstration in the centre of Copenhagen on December 15, 2009 in Denmark World leaders started arriving today to attend the Climate Summit where they hope to work towards a global agreement. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

FROM-OC Register

By MARK STEYN

The best summation of the UN climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia's Herald Sun: "Nothing is real in Copenhagen – not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the 'solution'."

Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be under water because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. "The fate of my country rests in your hands," Fry told the meeting. "I make this as a strong and impassioned plea ... I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit," he continued, "his voice choking with emotion," in the Reuters reporter's words. Who could fail to be moved?

My country, 'tis of thee

Sweet land near rising sea

Of thee I choke!"

Alas, nowhere in this emotionally harrowing dispatch was there room to mention that Ian Fry's country is not Tuvalu but Australia, where he lives relatively safe from rising sea levels given that he's a hundred miles inland. A career doom-monger, he's resided in Queanbeyan, New South Wales for over a decade while working his way, in the revealing phrase of his neighbor Michelle Ormay, to being "very high up in climate change." As to whether the emotion-choked lachrymose pleader has ever lived in "his" endangered country of Tuvalu, his wife told Samantha Maiden of The Australian that she would "rather not comment." Like his fellow Copenhagen delegate Brad Pitt, Ian Fry is an actor: He's not a Tuvaluan, but he plays one on the world stage.

Whether he's an Aussie or a Tuvaluan, Fry's future king is Welsh, since under the British Commonwealth's environmentally responsible king-share program, the Prince of Wales is simultaneously heir to the thrones of Britain, Australian, Tuvalu and a bunch of other countries. His Royal Highness was also in Copenhagen last week, telling delegates that there were now only seven years left to save the planet. Prince Charles is so famously concerned about the environment that he's known as the Green Prince. Just for the record, his annual carbon footprint is 2,601 tons. The carbon footprint of an average Briton (i.e., all those wasteful, consumerist, environmentally unsustainable deadbeats) is 11 tons. To get him to Copenhagen to deliver his speech, His Highness was flown in by one of the Royal Air Force's fleet of VIP jets from the Royal Squadron. Total carbon emissions: 6.4 tons. In other words, the Green Prince used up seven months' of an average Brit's annual carbon footprint on one short flight to give one mediocre speech of alarmist boilerplate.

But relax, it's all cool, because he offsets! According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the Prince will be investing in exciting new green initiatives. "Investing" as in "using your own money", you mean? Not exactly. Apparently, it will be taxpayers' money. So he'll "offset" the cost of using up seven months of an average peasant's carbon footprint on one flight by taking the peasant's money and tossing it down some sinkhole. No wonder he feels so virtuous. Oh, don't worry, though. He does have to pay a personal penalty for the sin of flying by private jet: Seventy pounds. Which is the cost of about six new trees, or rather less than the bill for parking at Heathrow would have been.

So just to recap: The Prince of Wales, a man who has never drawn his own curtains, ramps up a carbon footprint of 2,601 tons while telling us that western capitalist excess is destroying the planet. Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, the railroad engineer who heads the International Panel on Climate Change and has demanded that "hefty aviation taxes should be introduced to deter people from flying," flew 443,226 miles on "IPCC business" in the year and a half before the Copenhagen summit. And Al Gore is a carbon billionaire: He makes more money buying offsets from himself than his dad did from investing in Occidental Petroleum.

All of the above are, as that ersatz Tuvaluan delegate's neighbor would say, "very high up in climate change". But what about all the non-high-ups? Not just the low-level toadies like Associated Press "science" reporter Seth Borenstein, who dutifully pooh-poohed the idea that the leaked Climategate e-mails were of any significance and for his pains was rewarded by having to stand in line with thousands of other no-name warm-mongers for seven hours in the freezing streets of Copenhagen. All because the IPCC accredited 45,000 delegates to a space that accommodates 15,000 – but don't worry, when it comes to recalibrating the planet's climate, I'm sure they'll run the numbers more carefully.

But forget Borenstein and other hangers-on. Even making allowances for the stupidity of youthful idealism, the protesters in the streets of Copenhagen seem especially obtuse. Far from sticking it to the Man, they're cheerleading for the biggest Man of all: they're supporting a new globalized feudalism in which Prince Charles, Prince Al, Prince Rajendra and others "very high up in climate change" jet around the world at public expense telling the rest of us we need to stay put. A British parliamentarian recently proposed that everyone be issued with an annual "carbon allowance" that would be drawn down every time he booked a flight, or filled up his car, or bought a washer and dryer instead of beating his laundry on the rocks down by the river with the village women every week. You think the Prince of Wales or any other member of the new global elite will be subject to that "allowance"?

If you're young and you fall for this, you're a sap. Indeed, you're oozing so much sap the settled scientists should be measuring your tree rings. Remember that story a couple of weeks ago about how Danish prostitutes were offering free sex to Copenhagen delegates for the duration of the conference? I initially assumed it was just an amusing marketing cash-in by savvy Nordic strumpets. But no, the local "sex workers' union" Sexarbejdernes Interesseorganisation was responding to the municipal government's campaign to discourage attendees from partaking of prostitutes. The City of Copenhagen distributed cards to every hotel room showing a lady of the evening at a seedy street corner over the slogan "BE SUSTAINABLE: Don't Buy Sex."

"Be sustainable"? Prostitution happens to be legal in Copenhagen, and the "sex workers" were understandably peeved at being lumped into the same category of planet-wreckers as Big Oil, car manufacturers, travel agents and other notorious pariahs. So Big Sex decided they weren't going to take it lying down. Yet, in an odd way, that municipal postcard gets to the heart of what's going on: Government can – and will – use a "sustainable" environment as a pretext for anything that tickles its fancy. All ambitious projects – Communism, the new Caliphate – have global ambitions, but, when the globe itself is the cover for those ambitions, freeborn citizens should beware. Nico Little, a Canadian leftie at the Rabble Web site, distilled the logic into a single headline:

"Hookers Are Killing Polar Bears And Now You Can't Water Your Lawn."

Write that down. And next time the Prince of Wales, Al Gore, Dr. Pachauri or the delegation from Tuvalu give an "impassioned" speech, keep it handy as a useful précis.


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"NO WE CAN'T !"

FROM-UK Telegraph

Copenhagen climate conference: global warming talks meltdown

The Bella Centre in Copenhagen looks more like the aftermath of a particularly messy house party rather than the place where 120 of the most powerful men and women have just met to discuss saving the planet. The largest gathering of world leaders in recent history began with hope and excitement as President Barack Obama himself swept into town.

He said America was ready to fight climate change by cutting greenhouse gases as long as other countries also cut their emissions - and crucially agree to being monitored by the outside world.


“Yes we can!”

Umm, actually no we can’t.

It soon became clear that China was not signing up to any treaty that allowed other countries to snoop around in their dirty emissions laundry.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reportedly left for his hotel in a huff and suddenly the whole conference was plunged into chaos.

Despite two weeks of hardcore talks it now seemed like the world could not agree after all – or rather the two main superpowers would not agree.

Negotiations were cancelled and thousands of delegates wandered the corridors looking confused and rather sad.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a posh hotel in town or perhaps in the Bella Centre itself, no one is really sure, President Obama and his counterparts met to try and salvage an agreement.



Copies of the Copenhagen Accord, as it has now become known, began to circulate. But as soon as one was agreed another would emerge – each weaker than the next.

Environmental groups began to panic as any reference to binding targets was removed, then a date for emissions peaking. The need to report emissions was watered down so that countries could do it domestically and then simply tell the world what they are doing. Finally – and most importantly perhaps – a date at which to make the whole thing into a legally-binding treaty was dropped.

Just as it seemed all was lost, it was reported President Obama was giving a press conference. Hundreds of journalists sprinted through the corridors and cafes only to be told it was cancelled and see a fleeting glimpse of the President leaving for the airport.

Twitter alerts were going mad as rumour and counter-rumour flew around the conference centre saying the deal had collapsed, or was imminent, or coming in few hours. Eventually, of course, it was announced by the White House.

The President calmly pronounced that a deal had been done. It was not sufficient to fight climate change and it was not legally binding but it would do, he said.

The 'Copenhagen Accord' was immediately attacked by the French, the Germans and the British but they accepted it and so did the world’s press as deadlines loomed.

However there are 192 countries in the UN process and they all need to sign. Many are angry. They call the “accord”, pushed through by the Americans and barely acknowledged by China – even though they have apparently signed up – a joke.

In the early hours of the morning, as delegates limped out into the snow it was still unclear whether a deal has actually been done.

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Climate Hubris

FROM-Yahoo News

By Linda Chavez

Climate change is one of those issues I know enough about to know how little I really know. And I certainly haven't learned much more during the 193-nation climate talks that concluded in Copenhagen this week. I'm one of those agnostics willing to accept evidence that the earth is warming but not yet convinced that scientists fully understand why. And my skepticism has grown greater in light of the recent climategate scandal involving leaked e-mails that suggested prominent climate-change scientists have manipulated data and tried to stifle dissent in the scientific community.

But while the Copenhagen talks didn't shed much light on the climate issue per se, they certainly revealed much about the motivations of those involved in the debate. It was clear, both in the meetings and among protestors outside, that the most vociferous advocates for imposing limits on greenhouse emissions are motivated only tangentially by concern for the planet. The real target of radical environmentalism is capitalism.

Bolivian President Evo Morales claimed that "Mother Earth ... (is) now the slave of capitalist countries." Fellow socialist and Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez made no bones about his antipathy: "The destructive model of capitalism is eradicating life," he told conference attendees. "We need to consume less and distribute more," he said, summarizing the overall feeling of most of the poorer countries represented in Copenhagen.

While communist flags waved on the streets outside the conference, inside Chavez's lament was echoed by Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe. "Where is its commitment to redistributive justice, which we see (Western nations) applying on other issues?" demanded the man whose socialist and anti-white policies starved his own nation, once known as the breadbasket of Africa.

You get the impression listening to some of these critics that if they can't make their own countries wealthy, they'd be satisfied by ensuring that every other country is mired in the same poverty and misery as they are. And climate change gives them the perfect vehicle to strike a blow against wealthy countries, especially the U.S.

As the wealthiest nation, the U.S. is expected to come up with the biggest contribution to others. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was among several luminaries representing the U.S. during the conference, tried not to disappoint, pledging American help to secure $100 billion in annual financing to poorer countries by 2020. How exactly the U.S. will pay for its share of that pot of gold is unclear.

But even if we give away billions to poor countries, there will still be a huge gap between the haves and the have-nots. And if the have-nots can't close the gap by becoming wealthier, maybe the haves will simply agree to become poorer.

The United States could certainly dramatically cut back on greenhouse gases if we gave up cars, televisions, central heating and air conditioning, computers, and household appliances. We could quit eating meat, grow our own veggies, and make our own clothes. But no elected official in his or her right mind is going to suggest those measures, so instead they suggest what they think are more palatable policies by focusing on businesses and imposing new taxes on carbon emissions. But the effect will ultimately be the same: We'll cut our CO2 emissions by reducing our standard of living.

Are we really ready to do that? And should we be, based on what we know at this moment? I'm old enough to remember when radical environmentalists were warning us of a nuclear winter and a coming Ice Age. And they had plenty of prominent scientists with data to prove it. The common thread in all these predictions of catastrophe was the belief that Man was so powerful -- and destructive -- we could change climate for the worse all on our own.

Maybe it's time for a little less hubris -- especially on the part of the scientific community. We don't have all the answers, and we will never find them if we think we already do.

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"It’s a catastrophe!"

“This is a toothless declaration.”

Climate deal falls short of expectations


FROM-Politico

The climate deal reached between U.S, China and other great powers on Friday night is so vague, hastily hatched and non-binding President Obama isn’t even sure he’ll be required to sign it.

“You know, it raises an interesting question as to whether technically there's actually a signature… It's not a legally binding agreement, I don't know what the protocols are,” said a bleary-eyed Obama, before hopping in Air Force One for the trip back to Washington.

Even as he left, it wasn’t clear that the pact Obama described as “meaningful” would even pass muster with the European Union – or attract enough votes with the 193-nation COP 15 conference to become an official declaration.

"It’s a catastrophe," said Dan Joergensen, a member of the European delegation. "We’re so far away from the criteria that was set up in order to call it a success, and those weren’t really that ambitious to start with."

Obama told reporters he was able to extract a first-ever commitment by India and China to subject their internal monitoring of emissions to international scrutiny, a move he had earlier tied to American participation in a $100 billion-per-year fund for poor nations.

“Those commitments will be subject to international consultation and analysis” similar to World Trade Organization rules but “will not be legally binding,” said Obama. “It will allow each country to show to the world what [they] are doing.”

But the agreement – reached in Friday night talks with leaders of China, India, South Africa and Brazil – was more notable for what it doesn’t accomplish than what it does, an inconvenient truth Obama ruefully acknowledged to reporters.

“This is going to be hard,” Obama said. “This is hard within countries; it's going to be even harder between countries. And one of the things that I've felt very strongly about during the course of this year is that hard stuff requires not paralysis, but it requires going ahead and making the best of the situation that you're in.”

He conceded that no more specific deal – much less a legally binding one – was possible until the issue of “trust” between industrialized and developing nations was resolved.

The agreement contained none of the specific emissions targets European and African negotiators had hoped to nail down, simply a broad-brush promise by the countries in the room to cap the overall global temperature rise to two degrees Celsius and provide a written record of their planned reductions.

It's unclear how many nations, particularly poorer countries who felt shut out of the process, were included in the final deal or how they will vote if the deal is put to one.

It’s also unclear how the president’s half-a-loaf approach will sit with a deadlocked Senate or the Africans, Europeans and Asians who view him as the quintessential 21st Century leader.

"Squarely the blame is on President Obama. When you look very carefully and dig into what happened, you find that there is no difference whatsoever between President Obama and President Bush, except one of them tells it as it is," said Lumumba Di-Aping, the chief negotiator of the G77 bloc of developing countries, in an interview with POLITICO,

He added: "This deal confirms what we have said about the lack not only of transparency but the undemocratic bent of developed nations' leaders… “It is a mockery."

But administration officials painted a different picture, claiming Obama playing an extraordinarily direct – even tactile – diplomatic role, with the president demanding to be admitted to a closed meeting of other countries over the objections of a Chinese protocol officer.More...
Obama predicted the deal would be attacked by environmentalists who complain that such an incremental deal does nothing to stem the alarming rise in global temperatures and sea levels that many scientists say will be irreversible by the middle of the century.

"The US has lied to the world when they called it a deal and they lied to over a hundred countries when they said would listen to their needs,” said Kate Horner with Friends of the Earth, a non-governmental organization that had called for strict emissions targets.

“This is a toothless declaration.”

Conservative lobbying groups, who oppose the United States signing a significant climate treaty, also dismissed the agreement.

"When politicians call something 'meaningful,' that means it isn't," said Club for Growth President Chris Chocola. "Without even reading the accord, pro-growth, limited government conservatives today can celebrate the word, 'meaningful.' Today that adjective probably saved thirty million jobs."

Obama’s allies say he got the best deal possible, and set the stage for a better result next year at the climate change conference in Mexico City.

“The agreement reached tonight in Copenhagen is a breakthrough in the global effort to combat the climate crisis and could not have been reached without President Obama’s active involvement and leadership,” said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in a statement.

“The President has secured a critical agreement that includes an achievable mitigation target, transparency measures and a financing mechanism – the three key fundamentals outlined in the President’s speech today and embodied in the House-passed Waxman-Markey bill.”

"Today’s agreement takes the first important steps toward true transparency and accountability in an international climate agreement,” said Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. “The sooner the U.S. speaks through Senate legislation, the sooner we can set the terms of engagement for talks to come."

Earlier Friday, a visibly angry Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations, declaring that the time has come "not to talk but to act" on climate change.

Obama’s public ultimatum kicked off a furious round of bilateral negotiations between the world’s two largest pollution emitters as the conference entered its final hours, with Obama plunging into a pair of bargaining sessions involving Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who had earlier boycotted a larger, multi-nation meeting with Obama.

But he struck a very different tone with reporters later Friday when he acknowledged that China and other developing countries had a point by resisting international measures that could derail their rapid growth and attempts to eradicate poverty.

“From the perspective of the developing countries like China and India, they're saying to themselves, per capita our carbon footprint remains very small, and we have hundreds of millions of people who don't even have electricity yet, so for us to get bound by a set of legal obligations could potentially curtail our ability to develop, and that's not fair,” Obama said.

“So I think that you have a fundamental deadlock in perspectives that were brought to the discussions during the course of this week. And both sides have legitimate points,” he added.

Inhofe Responds to Obama Speech in Copenhagen

FROM-Environmental and Public Works


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The Long March From California to Copenhagen

FROM-Pajamas Media

Victor Davis Hanson

The Great Debate Oddly Is Not Over

We are still in a great public debate between capitalism and socialism, and individual freedom versus statism — odd since hundreds of millions worldwide have escaped poverty the last 30 years due to the spread of Western-inspired free markets.

Many choose sides in the debate based on their own predicaments. Sometimes the more independent and secure who have thrived under capitalism promote it, the more dependent who have not detest it.

At other times the realist mind is opposed to the idealist. And we can also envision the split as an age-old dichotomy between the tragic view and the therapeutic: either man is born pretty awful and must toughen himself through denial of the appetites, or he is by nature wonderful but corrupted and hurt through the burdens placed on him by society.

Free Will

In whatever way we frame the debate, again more than ever Americans are choosing sides.

On the one, are those who believe personal freedom and liberty trump egalitarianism and fraternity. Oh, they don’t believe in letting the less successful perish, but they seek to help those who do not do as well in the open arena through three mechanisms:

1) a limited government that in extremis would support only the needy, sick, disabled and aged (no more self-esteem counseling, 6-year student loans, or research grants for self-adjustment);

2) reliance on entrepreneurship, freedom of action, and private enterprise to allow real economic growth that enlarges the pie itself rather than perennially haggling over the pieces of a shrinking whole.;

3) A culture of shame that makes the more successful help those less so in his family, in his community, and in his nation through philanthropy and private giving.

Collective Concern

On the other side are those who wish a large government to ensure an equality of result. Their notion is that personal responsibility, talent, behavior, luck, fate, etc. do not so much determine why one is well off and another not so. Instead, there is insidious racial, gender, and class oppression everywhere — sinister forces at work that conspire to keep those down who otherwise in a fair system would thrive.

Therefore a big paternalistic — all-knowing, all-powerful — government must step in, rein in the wild horses, break them, and harness them to pull the collective cart. At the end of the day, those who like to work long hours, start businesses, or take risks can continue for the sheer enjoyment of it; while others who chose not to will end up with about the same house, car, medical care, college, and travel opportunity. Does the son who likes to lay inside on Saturday mornings go unfed, just because he won’t help his brother mow the lawn? Is he any happier for his sloth, the other any better for his zeal?

Key to the statist mind is the acceptance that compensation is inherently unfair: why should a brain surgeon who takes out 3 meningiomas successfully a day make any more than the poor floor cleaner who washes the linoleum between operations? The former gains more status anyway, so why deepen the wound of inequality through unequal pay for the latter?

Ultimately that is what the present struggle is over. The Obamians wish to err on the side of egalitarianism rather than freedom of the individual. Traditionally there has been a balance in the US, but we are witnessing a genuine attempt to swing the pendulum hard to the left.


Nowhere is there a better example of the collective effort than in California. Politics don’t matter here; both Republicans and Democrats embrace statism, high taxes, and growing entitlements.

So — we have the highest gasoline taxes, highest income taxes, highest sales taxes and collect enormous amounts of revenue to pay the highest-compensated and most numerous state employees in the nation to allot these revenues for others. We have the largest number of illegal aliens, and offer the most generous state subsidies for health, welfare, and education and legal aid. We pay more per prison convict than anywhere else, and have more of them per capita as well.

State Worker Paradise

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If one is a teacher, a public nurse, or a state bureaucrat, and stays close to home, life is not too bad. Two tenured teachers at midlife can easily make together $160,000 with summers off — far more than the owner of a brake shop or a farmer of 40 acres of trees — and without worry over burdensome regulations or the daily need to drive down the 99 for a living, or to fly out of LAX for business, or to depend on the local CSU to provide literate, skilled employees. Life is therefore pretty good, at least so far.

But if you are a private company, dealing with high taxes, all sorts of regulations, a crumbling infrastructure (take a 300-mile drive from Gilroy south on 101; spend a day at LAX, or try finding a convenient east-west route out of California in the winter), and poorly educated employees, the experiment in egalitarianism has failed.

Answer? The best job in California is a state one; the worst a private-sector one. Result? 3,500 flee per week with capital, education, and know-how; 2,500 arrive with far less capital and training.

The state is billions in the hole; the public employee unions are furious that there is no “they” left to fork up more money.

And the big companies are gearing up to leave as well. Agriculture is under assault by affluent green state-employed professors, biologists, lawyers, and park officials. Prison union employees, prison administrators, lawyers etc. are all haranguing each other over shrinking funds. Los Angeles is a mess — broke, subpar schools, a place where grandees arrive for the work day and leave asap at 5. San Francisco survives by its natural beauty that snags tens of millions of tourist dollars; without it, it would devolve into Lima or Cairo.

On the National Scene

This California model is important because Obama is adopting it as a blueprint on a national scale. If he wins (and don’t count him out), life really would be more patterned on an equality of result. New payroll, income, state, local, and health care surcharge taxes would hit those over $200K with about a 70% take of one’s income. The public sector employees double in number, unionize, and demand ever more from “them.” Cap-and-trade charges raise monthly utility bills 20%. Things like SUVs, Winnebagos, and private jet travel are taxed out of reach — except for a guardian class that uses public moneys for a rarefied lifestyle of governance and enforcement (sort of like the jets parked on the tarmac at Copenhagen or Barack’s night out on the Big Apple).

We would all want a job at the DMV but would never want to go there for any service — a model for health care to come. In short, the poor get a little better off, the better-off a lot worse, and America becomes a sort of collective lower middle class at about a 1950s lifestyle, praised and congratulated for ending “poverty.”

And On to the World

Hugo Chavez was greeted as a rock star at Copenhagen, despite his anti-democratic, anti-Semitic, violent and corrupt rule. The climate change conference doesn’t seem to be just about climate change, but rather is degenerating into a call for universal socialism, with money going from West to the South.

America’s model, we see now at Copenhagen, can be expanded globally as well. The “poor” nations (many fabulously wealthy, like Zimbabwe, in natural resources) demand money from the wealthy West to even the playing-field under the guise of carbon-offset penance.

The West taxes its populace to hand over trillions to those without as many polluting cars and industries — on the socialist belief that impoverishment in Latin America and Africa is due to oppression, neo-colonialism, and economic imperialism rather than endemic corruption, tribalism, ethnic and religious strife, gender apartheid, the lack of legal protection for property and the individual, and statist bureaucracies. “They,” not “we,” did it to “us.”

(Never mentioned is the corollary of the Copenhagen shake-down: wealthy countries produce the steel, plastics, and information-based knowledge that poor countries use: paying a Zimbabwe billions for using less carbon would be as asinine as charging them billions for R&D full costs for the cars, industries, pharmaceuticals, eyeglasses, and technology their people use, but have not invented, fabricated, and in most cases maintained and repaired.)

The Great Chain of Socialism

In other words, we are seeing a strange era in which the once last bastion of capitalism, the free-market US, is trying to emulate the California model—and in turn the world wishes to follow what the Obama administration is trying to do in America.

Note well: California depends on “them” producing real wealth in food, fiber, manufacturing, oil, gas, timber, construction, and high-technology. In turn, the US depends on 50 states doing the same to provide for the expansive regulatory and administrative federal class, and the world relies on the US economy to provide the growth and capital to redistribute. (e.g., We can’t all be the Obamas, Valerie Jarretts, David Axelrods, Rahm Emanuels, Van Jones, Timothy Geithners, etc. who have made good livings as advocates, regulators, bureaucrats, legislators, etc. without having to worry about meeting a payroll).

The Unsung?

In truth, in some ways, the world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.

The whole system from California to Copenhagen will keep on working as long as the productive classes feel there are still incentives to jump out of bed at 5AM. When they don’t, the power is cut off to thousands of gears and cogs — and the world looks more like Ecuador or Somalia than the U.S.