The Climate Is Changing, now Give me a Dollar

The UN has put forth a document claiming the Earth's climate is changing. It probably is. It's always changing. So what? Greenland used to be green. Now it's covered in ice. Climates change. Get over it.

The UN and the Greens always have the same solution to the problem. More taxes, more regulation, transfer funds. Convert your SUV into a planter because gas will be $8 a gallon with all of the consumption-suppressing taxes. Don't build new buildings because it will cover precious Mother Gaia. Send money to the developing world so that they can...they can...look, just send it, OK? And no more back talk.

There is a colossal environmental crisis upon us, but it's not global warming. All of those worker's paradise places like Venezuela, China, Russia, Eastern Europe and so on have totally wrecked their environments. Drinking the water, breathing the air and tilling the soil should all qualify for combat pay in some of those places. Meanwhile, what are we worried about? The average global temperature went up by tenths of a degree.

Don't kid yourself. There is an environmental crisis.

In 50 years, Martha's Vinyard might have smaller beaches. Long before that, tens of millions of people living in socialist countries will have been poisoned by unrestrained development. For that reason alone, the Greens ought to support the war in Iraq. It's hard to find a democracy with an environmental record as bad as the totalitarian part of the world.

Mark Steyn's column today has plenty of good stuff on the UN pronouncement and the rush from the left to parrot it. The climate is changing. No question about it. It always does.

The silliest argument is the anecdotal one: "You only have to look outside your window to see that climate change is happening." Outside my window in northern New England last week, it was minus 20 Fahrenheit. Very cold. Must be the old climate change kicking in, right? After all, December was very mild. Which was itself a sign of climate change. A few years ago, the little old lady who served as my town's historian for many decades combed over the farmers' diaries from two centuries ago that various neighbors had donated to her: From the daily records of 15 Januarys, she concluded that three were what we'd now regard as classic New Hampshire winters, ideal for lumbering or winter sports; eight had January thaws, and four had no snow at all. This was in the pre-industrial 18th century.

So what?

You could take every dime spent by every government and NGO and eco-group to investigate "climate change" and spend it on Internet porn instead, and it wouldn't make the slightest difference to what the climate will be in 2050.

The solutions proposed by the left are exactly the ones that led to the ravaging of the environment in the socialist world. More power to the government. The rationale is always the same. Guilt. The US does consume more resources than anyone else. We also produce more than anyone else and have a better environmental record than any of the other developed nations. What do we have to feel guilty about? Decades ago, we killed Lake Erie. We managed to amend our ways without electing Hugo Chavez. Or Al Gore, for that matter. Now it's only Al's intellectual allies that are killing the environment.

Instead of importing their politics, we ought to be exporting democracy. Oh yeah. We're doing that already in Iraq. Hmmm.

Update: The Feline Theocracy's Missionary to the Frozen Wastelands has posted a response to this. He makes the point that you should listen to the scientists, not the press or the politicians. I agree. His point of view is different than mine, but I highly respect his intellect and his judgment. I think he'll give you a lot to think about. Read the whole thing.