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Global Warming Hysterics’ War on the Destitute

Smith cover.jpegThe Green misanthropes that are corrupting environmentalism want to keep the world’s destitute in squalor to "save the Earth." It’s so cruel. Rather than electrifying Africa, for example, we are told that has to wait until it can be done by solar or other renewable sources — decades away, if ever. Meanwhile, people live in misery.

Then, as some kind of penance, the developed world is supposed to transfer hundreds of billions to the destitute, which would make us much poorer, while much of that wealth would go into private pockets, creating a culture of dependency that would be hard to escape. Like I said, it’s all very cruel.

Support for my disgusted view comes now from a scientist with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). From the BBC story:

Climate scientists meeting in Berlin have been accused of "marginalising" the views of developing countries.

They are preparing to release a key report on how the world must cut carbon emissions to stem dangerous warming.

They are likely to say that if significant action isn’t taken by 2030, temperatures will quickly break through the 2 degree C threshold.

But a lead author told BBC News that this focus on cutting CO2 was ignoring the development needs of the poor.

"The narrative, the language, the views of the IPCC still marginalises the developing country perspectives," Dr Chukwumerije Okereke, from Reading University, told BBC News.

Dr Okereke was a lead author on chapter four of the new report, dealing with sustainable development and equity.

He believes that there has been a fundamental shift in the discussions because the issue of historical responsibility for carbon emissions has been watered down by richer nations who are more concerned with the future than the past."

"In effect, this is shifting the burden onto the developing countries and is holding them down from developing; quite frankly this is reinforcing historical patterns of injustice and domination."

But Okereke is wrong too. His approach would require us to stifle our already shaky economies, which would be as foolish as throttling growth and preventing the exploitation of resources in the developing world. Both proposals are a radical call to self-flagellation in the name of a neo-Earth religion or imposition of "nature rights."

Even if one believes global warming is a crisis — count me as dubious, given virtually no warming in 18 years — Bjorn Lomborg’s approach is best. Prosperity is required to develop the technology to make the transition the warming believers claim we need.  

"De-growth," Draconian Malthusianism, humans depicted as "maggots" or "cancer" on the Earth, throttling growth, etc., will just generate more misery and promote increased conflict. That’s known as a war on humans coming and going.

Cross-posted at Human Exceptionalism.

Wesley J. Smith

Chair and Senior Fellow, Center on Human Exceptionalism
Wesley J. Smith is Chair and Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism. Wesley is a contributor to National Review and is the author of 14 books, in recent years focusing on human dignity, liberty, and equality. Wesley has been recognized as one of America’s premier public intellectuals on bioethics by National Journal and has been honored by the Human Life Foundation as a “Great Defender of Life” for his work against suicide and euthanasia. Wesley’s most recent book is Culture of Death: The Age of “Do Harm” Medicine, a warning about the dangers to patients of the modern bioethics movement.

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