The best I can gather from the spin coming out of the recent climate change talks is a vow by world leaders “to use markets to achieve cost-effective [carbon] mitigation actions.” Translated, this no doubt means the imposition by governments of a heavy burden on productive societies for their carbon-generating activities, whether or not there is anything remotely to be called a scientific consensus, and in spite of the obvious ideological bias of the radical environmentalists revealed by the outrageous e-mail scandal in the climate research community that makes the 17th century suppression of Galileo look tame. And the Obama crowd seems not only happy with this successor to the failed Kyoto Protocol, but is ready to pony up our share of the shakedown. The shortest and best I have read lately on all of this is “Climate Change is Nature’s Way”, by Howard Bloom. One excerpt will suffice: “Weather changes and the occasional meteor have tossed this planet through approximately142 mass extinctions……an average of about one every 26.5 million years……There were no human capitalists , industrialists, or culture of consumerism to blame…….We have to realize that Mother Nature is not nice.” How true. And for all our battles with her over the years, this is one debate I hope she wins.
