A recent article (by a New York Times reporter) published in a local paper cited a new U.N.
report claiming that “the world may already
be nearing a temperature at which the loss of the vast ice sheet covering
Greenland would become inevitable. The actual melting would then take
centuries, but it would be unstoppable
and could result in a sea level rise of 23 feet (I would’ve guessed 22’, 11” but I’m not a scientist), with
additional increases from other sources like melting Antarctic ice, potentially flooding the
world’s major cities.”
Antarctic ice is currently expanding (and rather dramatically so,
at that), not contracting. Chicago, Paris, London, Berlin, Moscow, New Delhi,
Mexico City, Montreal, Madrid, Warsaw… all at risk?
The
report, almost comical in its lack of logic and considered rationale, goes on
to state “the risk of abrupt and irreversible
change increases as the magnitude of the warming increases.” If a change is
‘irreversible’ it, by definition, precludes any future change, abrupt or not. A self-defeating argument. Hypocrisy is a
strong suit of leftist dogma, logic is not.
This
new report was more aggressive in its ‘findings’ than any of the reports that
underpin it. Odd. According to the article,
it highlights the urgency of the risks likely to be intensified by continued
emissions of heat-trapping gases, primarily carbon dioxide released by the
burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas. The report went on to
state that companies and governments had identified reserves of these fuels at
least four times larger than could safely be burned “if global warming is to be
kept to a tolerable level.
“ That
means if society wants to limit the risks to future generations, it must find
the discipline to leave the vast majority of these valuable fuels in the ground”
the report states.
That’s
funny, as experts back in the 1970’s and 1980’s were warning that we were
running out of oil. And every other energy source. Had to conserve every ounce
we could. Drive 55. Look at alternative energy sources. We’re still looking at- and subsidizing-
alternative energy sources. Guess we now know the real reason why. We have too damn much energy. But, it’s of the carbon-based variety, so we can’t use
it or the entire Earth becomes a swamp.
(I thought higher temperatures led to more evaporation).
Where
is the study chronicling the affects of not
using all this abundant energy?! The needless (at least relative)
impoverishment and degradation of virtually all peoples of the Earth. F.A.
Hayek said “our hopes of avoiding the fate which threatens must indeed to a
large extent rest on the prospect that we can resume rapid economic progress
which…will continue to carry us upward.” He continued, “and the main condition
for such progress… is that we learn once more to turn all our resources to wherever they contribute most to make us all richer.”
Those
resources would be oil, natural gas and coal. And they could potentially make
us all much better off, indeed. See,
for example, North Dakota.
Interestingly,
the report states that the effort to counter climate change is gathering force
at the regional and local level in many countries, particularly the United
States, with states like California, New York and Massachusetts taking the
lead. Yes, those three bastions of staggering economic growth, with their
booming state economies are bravely showing us the way forward!
Yet, in
reality, President Obama is seeking- somewhat openly- to impose national limits on emissions of green-house gases,
circumventing the United States Congress and the Constitution to cut a deal
with the U.N. before leaving office in early 2017.
Seems
‘political climate-change’ will
destroy us, even as ‘global-warming’ would not.
No comments:
Post a Comment