This week Naderev M. Sano of the Phillipines delegation made a tear-filled speech to COP 18 in Doha, Qatar. “I appeal to the leaders from all over the world to open our eyes to the stark reality which we face…. please let Doha be remembered as the place where we found the political will to turn things around and let 2012 be remembered as the year the world found the courage to take responsibility for the future we want.”
In contrast to the delegates wrangling for national advantage, the shameless rent-seeking of the carbon profiteers and the left-wing agendas of the radical NGOs, Mr. Sano projected a refreshing sincerity. Sadly, he is sincerely wrong.
Mr. Sano has been misinformed about the science. Mr. Sano separately told COP 18 that when a typhoon strikes the Philippines, it costs them 2% of their GDP from damage and another 2% in recovery costs. Those typhoons were not caused by Americans, Europeans or the Japanese driving cars and refrigerating food, but by the Philippines geographic position in the tropics. Those typhoons struck before there were people and would continue in our absence. They are a genuine challenge to that island nation that is best met through the economic prosperity that flows from free markets and the rule of law.
If the Philippines wants to move forward, it should look north to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Korea and Japan, west to Singapore and south to Australia and New Zealand for an example of the benefits free markets bring. If it needs an example of what not to do, Cambodia, Vietnam and that other Korea are conveniently nearby.
We should help Filipinos help themselves, but do not need the false pretext of climate change to do so. Most importantly, forcing the free world into a UN supervised economic decline will provide no benefit to Filipinos, but rather harm them with the rest of us.
Quite enjoy your work here discrediting the man-made climate change fraud perpetrated by those shameless, rent-seeking carbon profiteers representing the modern day face of imperialism. However the notion that, “economic prosperity … flows from free markets and the rule of law” presents an oxymoron in that mythical free markets (yes, I would argue there is no such thing) operate by one rule of law: the law of the jungle. Contrarily, protected markets fostering fair trade represent the rightful organization of a capitalist system whose intention is maximizing the elevation of humanity in the broadest sense of the idea. Such a system, too, likewise fosters technological innovations whose effects are wide ranging in their benefits to both humanity, as well as the earth’s ecology.
Some years back Al Gore appeared before a U.S. Senate environment subcommittee and was asked whether nuclear power ought be promoted as an effective solution to reducing man made CO2. Ol’ muck-n-mire answered it should be “only a small part.” At that point anyone with a functioning brain cell should have concluded his “inconvenient truth” was a complete fraud, particularly considering the fact Gore’s reluctance toward nuclear power comes in the face of Patrick Moore’s (a founding member of Greenpeace) ringing endorsement of the technology.
When news broadcast recently showed the people in Haiti had done little to recover from an earthquake almost three years ago, I wondered what the promise of aid from other countries did to help people. Refugee camps were shown with people having lived in squalor for more than two years and apparantly doing nothing to improve their lot. I hope our people will not sink to that level as we bow down to government dependency on getting things done in times of emergency.
Foreign aid is debillitating. It goes to a few to make them rich and makes the majority shiftless and hopeless.
Are you seriously suggesting that the people still living in make-shift camps in Haiti are “shiftless and hopeless”? What exactly would you do in their situation. The infrastructure in Haiti is practically non-existent. These people are struggling to survive day to day. Your self-righteous pontificating is a shame.
No, I tell u somthing, long before that discussion of climate change officially has hit the lines I knew as young man that it is changing, that there is a change going on and it is a matter of fact as those opposing, mainly coming from the states, is already revealed as a widespread campaign ridden by lobbyists to oppose all the scientists around the world who respectably (nearly all) say that there is man made influence on climate influencing all and in already mattering dimension. I am from europe alpine region, no question, u can read it on the substance of the glaciers here where undoubtably big decrease of the frozen white so long lasting ice is matter of fact, where the change is felt long time now in the mixtureing of seasons and in the incredible surmount of extreme weather situations, culminating often in catastrophies. It is man´s influence and it is no matter what to regress to that what has been lost in misunderstood spelling of the word ´freedom` – man´s responsibility
Anyone must understand that tried-and-tested old values and customs are appropriate to the respective countries around the world. Also, as I read the portions of the comments made by Tom Chechatka four months ago, “protected markets fostering fair trade represent the rightful organization of a capitalist system whose intention is maximizing the elevation of humanity in the broadest sense of the idea. Such a system, too, likewise fosters technological innovations whose effects are wide ranging in their benefits to both humanity, as well as the earth’s ecology”.
And yet, I personally do not believe in the ideological and philosophical doctrines of environmentalism, nor I do believe in the really depressive political idea of “democracy” (perhaps people should call this “deMOCKracy”, “demoCRAZY”, “deMOBcracy”, etc.!), nothing more, nothing less.
I wouldn’t have to give up in observing how to tackle political, social and economic issues in a more meaningful way – and with more honesty and more appropriate to traditional values and customs that are genuinely well-suited to today’s world. – J.P.K.
Speaking of shameless, what total selfish bollucks this piece is. Here you go suffering people, drink some money, eat some money…it will solve your environmental problems. …what a joke, written by someone more fortunate than most in the world, no doubt. Politicizing destruction of the environment is idiotic in the extreme. Pathetic drivel. Get lost.
Sorry Dhall, no amount of carbon taxation, etc. etc. would have changed storms in the Philippines at all. Thinking the tiny amount above average the planet has been for just a few years with no warming since the 90s is affecting weather right now is bollocks.