I am convinced that all of the preaching about global warming is just hot air. Of course the planet is getting warmer (although only by a sweltering 1°F every 100 years … ouch?). Moreover, I have no doubt that humans (especially Americans) are marginally to blame. But I also have no doubt that this warming is simply due to natural climate variations (i.e., a cyclical phenomenon).
(“My Final Word on Global Warming,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 8, 2006)
China pulled a Shanghai surprise this week at the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit, when it announced a bilateral agreement with the United States to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases.
As my opening quote indicates, however, this agreement is a good thing not because it advances man’s Sisyphean attempts to control Mother Nature (i.e., by stopping polar caps melting and sea levels rising). It’s a good thing because it will enable China’s 1.3 billion people to breathe cleaner air (even as its tired, poor, huddled masses continue their political “yearning to breathe free”).
After all, China has almost as many coal-burning smokestacks fueling its economic growth as the United States has coffee-brewing Starbucks fueling its people’s get up and go.
What’s more, instead of the United States’ idealistic approach to reducing carbon emissions, China has made clear its intent to emulate Canada’s more pragmatic approach, which maintains that:
The work to reduce carbon emissions must be done without damaging [Canada’s] fragile economic recovery [or China’s enviable economic growth].
(Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, November 14, 2014)
This distinction is important to appreciate because global-warming alarmists, like Al Gore, have been drowning out the inconvenient truth that, even though it is the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gasses, China is fast becoming the world’s leading producer of clean, renewable energy (e.g., from solar, wind, and hydro sources). One should also appreciate the distinction between countries implementing policies borne of alarmist fears about destroying the planet (which the United States represents), and those implementing policies borne of due regard for the exhaustible resources the planet provides for the benefit of mankind (which China represents).
Not to mention the hypocrisy inherent in Western countries lecturing China about the greenhouse gasses its factories emit in the process of producing everything from cheap phones to cheap toys for Western consumption….
More to the point, though, here’s just a graphic illustration of why all of the warnings about climate change smacks of such hot air:
NOTE: When global cooling (“Global Cooling? Yes!” The iPINIONS Journal, October 21, 2008) made global warming a patent absurdity, global-warming alarmists began branding their evangelical mission as climate change. Except that fighting climate change is ultimately every bit as futile as fighting old age.
Related commentaries:
March to save planet…
Global cooling…