A Bit Inconvenient

George Will rounds up a number of really, really inconvenient truths about the latest global warming frenzy. Or more precisely, inconvenient truths about the political posturing going on over the frenzy.

We do not know how much we must change our economic activity to produce a particular reduction of warming. And we do not know whether warming is necessarily dangerous. Over the millennia, the planet has warmed and cooled for reasons that are unclear but clearly were unrelated to SUVs. Was life better when ice a mile thick covered Chicago? Was it worse when Greenland was so warm that Vikings farmed there? Are we sure the climate at this particular moment is exactly right, and that it must be preserved, no matter the cost?

…….

In 1997, when the Kyoto Protocol's essential provisions were known, a "sense of the Senate" resolution declared opposition to any agreement that would do what the protocol aims to do. The Senate warned against any agreement that would require significant reductions of greenhouse-gas emissions in the United States and other developed nations without mandating "specific scheduled commitments" on the part of the 129 "developing" countries, which include China, India, Brazil and South Korea—the second, fourth, 10th and 11th largest economies. Nothing Americans can do to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions will make a significant impact on the global climate while every 10 days China fires up a coal-fueled generating plant big enough to power San Diego. China will construct 2,200 new coal plants by 2030.

Go read the whole thing; it should generate some discomfort for certain double-talking politicians and their apologists. (Oh, I know it really won't. They're completely shameless.) It should also make you think about why this whole thing is being pushed so hard. And who is really going to be the benefit from all the proposed changes. And who will be hurt. Ethanol plants are being built all over the landscape and as much as half of the corn crop will be fed into those factories. How many people in the world are going to go hungry – or starve – because of this? Do the elitists pushing this even care? China and India are polluting more and more every day; is anybody even looking at that? All the rhetoric appears to be aimed at the United States.