A caveat, as we flip through the news accounts of the latest UN climate-change report, which now has the likes of Jacques Chirac, Al Gore and other political horse-traders chiding us that unless we all sign on to yet another UN grand plan for the planet, involving upfront yet more powers, more meetings and more taxpayer money first and foremost for the UN and its pals, then the mountains shall sink and the oceans shall rise — or something like that.
For years, UN-backed environmental initiatives have themselves been polluted by the sleaze of political backroom deals — seeking to soak U.S. taxpayers while exempting and enriching industrialists in some of the world’s top producers of environmental crud, such as China and India. One question is whether any UN report emerging from this grossly politicized ethos is as authoritative as the UN assures us it is. This report, as it happens, involved some 17 UN agencies, and was edited by government officials from more than 100 countries. Wow, that sounds important. But is the input of 17 UN agencies and 100 governments – served up on a platter by French President Jacques Chirac — really a recipe for unimpeachable wisdom and integrity?
Similar group efforts at the UN have brought us everything from Oil-for-Fraud to the farce that parades as a Human Rights Council to the latest scandal involving cash funneled via UN agencies to the rogue regime of North Korea.
The earth is a big place; much remains unknown, and of what we do know, the most accurate insights may not sprouting inside the UN hothouse. It is quite possible that centuries from now, historians will look back on the current furor over global warming much as we now smile at such quaint notions as the earth being flat.
But if, indeed, we face any sort of climate crisis, then surely it ought to be handled under auspices less murky, corrupt, politically compromised and full of hot air than the UN.
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15 Comments
1. Brian:First, I’m highly amused by the fact that the UN experts are at one time unequivocal that humans are causing GW, and simultaneously 90% confident. How can you be 90% unequivocal?
And how on earth did they arrive at the fudge-figure 90%?
(Seems to me that our experts want the public to be “unequivocal,” while leaving themselves ample wiggle-room. But that’s just my cynical self.)
Personally, I’m 90% sure that GW is a happening thing, but I’m very, very skeptical that humans are the primary factor driving it, as the UN-approved panel would have us “unequivocally” (or is it 90%?) believe.
For starters, there is a vast difference between “association” and “causation;” “plausible” is not the same as “proven;” “best guess” can only take into account what is known; and irrespective of what “scientific consensus” might be, scientific truth is not subject to the democratic process.
Also, the earth has undergone huge climate changes without human intervention, as in the ice ages, and we have a remarkable un-Earthly control in the planet Mars, which is itself undergoing global warming and link).
Now, the solar system is about 4.5 billion years old — what are the odds that Mars and Earth would pick this exact nano-instant of their respective histories to undergo global warming, for entirely different reasons, the Earth’s warming due to human activity, that of Mars due to “other” — like cosmic radiation, sun effects or “unknown”? — and how do we separate human influence on GW from other non-human influences?
But all that’s trivial.
It’s much more disturbing to me that by decreeing that GW is “unequivocally” the product of human agency, the panel have preempted any questioning of their findings. If it human agency is “unequivocally” responsible for GW, skeptics are either fools or knaves. This is a classic example of poisoning the well, a logical fallacy which seeks to discredit a skeptic’s motives, thus making his arguments dismissible even without considering the quality of his case.
One needs only to watch Mr. Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” to appreciate the lack of room he affords to skeptics who question the role of humans in driving GW, and to understand how deeply political — and downright nasty — the issue of GW has become.
When the UN panel declares it to be “unequivocal” that Global Warming is anthropogenetic, it is making a political statement, one designed to present one side of an argument as if it were incontrovertible when it is not. No scientific conclusion is unequivocal — if you need “unequivocal truth,” find it in religion.
In taking such a position, the UN leaves no room in the public’s collective mind for honest skepticism, no room for honest folks questioning the authority of their experts, their “90% certain” statement, buried deep in the article, not withstanding: in the public’s mind, which will be what determines policy, any disagreement will be perceived as dishonest, and to have come from the loopy fringe, from liars or from their dupes. At least that’s my reading of the article.
Such a position shuts down reasoned debate, and is itself the antithesis of science.
To me, that’s the important issue here — not what might or might not be causing GW.
Brian
Feb 3, 2007 - 7:33 pm 2. joan:Claudia,
I used to believe in global warming but your piercingly analytical and scientific argument against global warming has completely won me over
lol
Feb 4, 2007 - 7:56 am 3. bourne2y:— Listen, we’ve got global warming.
— Yeah.
— So will you sign on to this protocol?
— Nah. Gutting American industry doesn’t seem like a good idea.
— But the world is going to end in ten years.
— So how will not opening a few new factories help? Especially if this protocol encourages our chief competitors to open their own new factories while we’re not?
— Because it will. Sign here, please.
— I don’t think that’s good policy.
— You obviously hate science. Why do you hate science?
— I don’t hate sci—
— You’re a crazy Christian, aren’t you?
Feb 4, 2007 - 2:35 pm 4. spynverzyon:joan:
I used to believe that the UN – which elevates brutal dictators, justifies terrorist tactics, condemns democracies that defend their right to exist, oversees “peacekeeping” operations in which people are raped and slaughtered, enables graft and bribery in its various aid programs, and sanctimoniously assumes the posture that it is beyond reproach – should be given no granted no credence, much less money or practical compliance, regarding a scientifically questionable issue whose anti-capitalist policy implications will be hugely destructive to the world economy, and are nothing less than a manifesto for the second coming of state socialism (spiffily accoutered, this time, with Birkenstocks, organic cotton, and a biodiesel powered hybrid so as to hide the ghoulish economic and humanitarian horrors this beast visited upon the human race in its first incarnation).
But your smug, illogical son-sequitur, attacking a straw man (Claudia said nothing about the validity of global warming theory, but merely questioned the wisdom of supporting a UN initiative on it) has made me see the light: people who are in ideological lock-step with the “consensus” view on this issue – fabricated by the media and enforced through academic persecution of skeptics – are predictably eager to see the UN become the worldwide central planning agency for the production, distribution, and consumption of hydrocarbon fuels.
Feb 4, 2007 - 7:01 pm 5. Brian:joan wrote:
Could there be a better illustration of the point I just made?
Skeptics are not welcome, and those expressing skepticism are demonized and/or mocked.
Brian
Feb 4, 2007 - 8:06 pm 6. Bill Bradley:Actually, we never believed that the earth was round, only to be conned into believing it was flat by a conspiracy of leftists.
We believed it was flat, then learned that it was round, with the old, false information discredited.
Feb 5, 2007 - 12:22 am 7. joan:spynverzyon
“which elevates brutal dictators, justifies terrorist tactics, condemns democracies that defend their right to exist, oversees “peacekeeping” operations in which people are raped and slaughtered, enables graft and bribery in its various aid programs,”
Are you talking about the US controlled CPA in Iraq?
Feb 5, 2007 - 1:48 am 8. joan:Brian
“Skeptics are not welcome,”
Yes they are as far as i am concerned. But skeptics also need to make a coherent and logical arguement.
Personally, I am not fully convinced by the global warming argument either.
I had a little dig at claudia its true, but only when her anti-UN bias clouds her better judgement. I enjoy her posts/ site in any case.
Feb 5, 2007 - 1:51 am 9. Brian:joan quotes me . . .
. . . and replies:
Which part of the skeptic’s argument do you find incoherent and/or illogical?
joan continues:
Are you suggesting that your skepticism is based on the incoherent and illogical arguments of the skeptics? Or are you in possession of information that others haven’t properly weighted?\
joan continues:
I see Claudia being skeptical of the UN’s institutional honesty; of it’s ability to conduct business transparently; and of its commitment and/or ability to serve the interests of the people it claims to be looking out for.
She certainly has provided a wealth of information which a disinterested, objective third party could easily conclude was a rational basis for skepticism. This is hardly bias.
Are you sure you haven’t conflated “bias” and “skepticism?”
Brian
Feb 5, 2007 - 12:37 pm 10. spynverzyon:joan quotes me:
joan then takes evasive action regarding my description of the UN (by changing the subject, much the way she attacks a straw man instead of responding to Ms. Rosett’s warning about the UN climate initiative):
No, I’m not, since I’m not into moral equivalency and Emerson’s hobgoblins. But I’ll take that non-response as an admission that joan agrees with my description of the UN.
Feb 5, 2007 - 4:25 pm 11. Bill Bradley:Oh, yes, incidentally, the report has been acknowledged as accurate by the Bush/Cheney White House.
Which only makes sense, since much if not most of the science comes from US government agencies such as NOAA.
The only variance NOW is that the Bush/Cheney folk have fallen back to a voluntarist/technofix approach to the crisis.
Feb 5, 2007 - 5:46 pm 12. Brian:Bill Bradley wrote:
Ahhhh . . . yeah . . . and your point is . . . ?
Brian
Feb 5, 2007 - 8:41 pm 13. KGS59:82% of the population of Finland believes that GW is a man made problem, which is directly related to another fact: the UN enjoys an unrivaled “sacred cow” status that spans the Finnish political spectrum.
There is far more correlation between the just stated facts, than between GW and mand made green house gases.
Feb 6, 2007 - 9:20 am 14. Alex Reed:O divine art of sublety and secrecy! Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.
Sun Tzu, The Art of War, ch. 6, axiom 9 (c. 490 B.C.), ed. James Clavell (1981).
May I offer a slightly different take on the UN’s Global Warming Luau? I will leave to one side the question of whether, or to what extent, there is a human component to the climate phenomena we are experiencing. I would ask us to take a step back, because our discord/debate obscures some issues in this matter that we might find useful to examine.
The time machine and Ms. Rosett’s carefully researched and substantiated reporting have shown us that where the UN is involved things are often not what they seem or are said to be. It’s like a funhouse constructed by Barthes in one of his more perverse moods. So, what’s it really all about, this baroque extravaganza? It’s quite a son et lumière show, but what do all the signs show us, what does it mean? Here’s one possible movie script embroidered from the UN Global Melt Shindig signs…. Is this really real, or fiction? Well, what is real, especially at the UN, besides this is movie magic!
We have layer upon layer of supporting players all artfully arranged for greatest effect by an expert hand: See and hear them, ladies and gentlemen, hundreds of the greatest scientists of our time, all carefully rehearsed and singing from The Book of Desolation, their research handsomely funded by a supporting cast of hundreds of NGO’s, themselves carefully nurtured by the UN High Command. And the oratorio they all croon with one voice is all about death and destruction — and it’s all our fault. Yup, Whoopee, we’re all gonna die! Why? Because we’re sinners: we are evil capitalists who have exploited, and polluted and defiled, leaving waste, and ruin in our wake. And we must be punished for our sins! We must repent, yes, we must equalize — and we must divest ourselves of all that filthy lucre that we don’t deserve anyway, we must give it, most of it anyway, to the saintly (cue Kofi) souls (of the Secretariat) who alone can absolve our sins and save us from ourselves. Just give them the money, and they’ll take care of everything…… The UN, the one true world government, will take care of us and show us the way…..
Hold on…….Wait a minute…..Stop the music. What happened to our democratically elected governments? Where’d they go? And what about the sovereignty of nations?….And who are these guys? No one elected them. I don’t know about you, but I didn’t ever vote for the likes of Mark Malloch Brown, let alone the Kofster himself (their virtual but saintly presence is everywhere in the NGOasphere) or any of their cronies who continue to infest the current UN hierarchy. And though it may be a really hot arrangement, haven’t we heard this tune over and over from the UN? — just give us your money, a global tax would be good, because, after all the UN is the one and only true sovereign world government. Well, I give them points for persistence; but they just don’t know when to give it a rest!
Enough! OK, Applause…., applause…., quite a production they put on in Paris anyway. Auteur! Auteur! Who is the creator of this very subtle and clever légerdemain? Well, Kofi and Brown, even when they were in a more manifest state and present day to day in Turtle Bay, were only ever assistant directors…… As with everything at and about the UN —–it’s all about layers: layer, behind layer, behind layer, behind layer – rather like one of those intricately carved ivory spheres from India, sphere within sphere within sphere within sphere. There is a man of consummate ability and intelligence, someone who for years as Kofi’s closest confidant in the Secretariat, pushed just this agenda: Maurice Strong. A Canadian who, with his own brains and skill, made a fortune in energy, and all manner of other industries, who always shunned the limelight, preferring to work behind the scenes, and whose mega-Rolodex bulged with the names of everyone, everywhere, who could make things happen. Mr. Strong retired from his duties at the UN sometime in 2005, turning up eventually for some time in Beijing. Throughout his many years in and around the UN, Mr. Strong brilliantly interwove the themes we found in our recent steamy UN GW oratorio: Climate Change crisis perpetrated by human agency and requiring emergency human intervention to the tune of bazillions of dollars, and to be led and orchestrated by the UN, the only global entity capable of doing the job, the sovereign world government. The genius of his plot is that with the art of a really great magician he directs the audience’s attention which is completely taken by the fear of the looming global calamity. While the audience is thus absorbed, the magician accomplishes his true objective and installs the UN as the de facto world government. Et voilà. Are we really scared yet?
So, that’s my script of significations from the signs of the UN Molten Globe Luau. But then Barthes always used to say you can make many different movies from the same set of signs. Give it a try!
Feb 6, 2007 - 10:50 pm 15. Brian:Here’s a disturbing example of how a politician is attempting to use politicized science in general, and the UNs IPCC’s recently issued summary of the causes of GW in particular, to quiet a skeptical voice (link from John Lott):
Brian
Feb 7, 2007 - 11:02 am