Wednesday, April 23, 2008

Ends and Means

Numerous discussions with true believers in global warming have often ended with a rather petulant 'even if man-made global warming isn't true, it will have positive spin-offs in the end...' So, having failed to prove a case with any hard science the warmists end up reverting to an 'end justifying the means' argument. And of course they've got a long list of supposed benefits to justify Kyoto-like proposals to cut CO2 emissions. These include:

• Moving away from 'big oil'
• People buying local produce
• More emphasis on 'sustainability'
• Forcing people to think more about Nature

Well, what do we see already resulting from CO2 reduction policies (such as the EU renewal fuels policies):

• Food riots
• Increasing food prices
• Increased fuel poverty
• Environmental problems in the rush to plant bio-fuel crops
• A rush towards more nuclear power generation
• Increasingly authoritarian plans from governments and bodies such as the EU

It's especially ironic of course that the arch-demon of warming mythology (George Bush), is in part to blame for all of this by pandering to environmentalism. The subsidies to farmers for producing bio-fuel crops are seriously distorting things. On this one at least, Fidel Castro is right.

All of this is evidence, if evidence is required, that the logic of global warmism will ultimately hurt those supposedly most at risk from higher temperatures - the poor, both in the UK and the rest of the world.

But hey, at least Al Gore will continue to rake it in.