Victory is in the air!  Copenhagen was a disaster for global warming alarmists.  And they know it.  Last Friday, January 22 there was a town hall meeting for NGOs called “Moving forward from Copenhagen” in Washington, D.C.  It was hosted by the United Nations Association of the USA’s Council of Organizations.  The moderator was Angela Anderson, an alarmist and program director for the US Climate Action Network.  This made it clear from the start that they were not interested in a genuine discussion about the issues, but only in finding a new way to push forward their agenda.

The mood was one of disappointment and confusion.  The global warming crowd has been planning for years to get a strong treaty passed to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.  Instead, COP15 produced a vague document that likely will be ignored and quickly forgotten.  Anderson captured the general sentiment when she said despondently, “I dedicated two years of my life to getting an agreement in Copenhagen.  Now what?”

Shut out the third-world

Bruce Rich, Senior Counsel for the Sierra Club, is apparently willing to deny 172 countries, including most of the developing world, the right to participate in the policymaking process.  He declared that the “UNFCCC process is a shambles” and suggested abandoning the UN forum.  Given the urgency, he said, the G20 might be a better place for pushing through a global climate change accord.

The arrogance implicit in this idea is shocking.  If the greens were truly concerned about the impact of global warming on the world’s poorest and most vulnerable nations, they would not attempt to shut them out of the solution.  At best, it is elitist.  Moving the discussion to the G20 would mean only the most prosperous nations of the world could participate in a ‘solution’ to global warming.  At worst, if the G20 nations attempted to institute an agreement that restricted the options available to the developing world, it is a form of eco-imperialism.

Carole Conors from the UNA-USA disagreed with Rich, praising the transparency of the of the UN process.  But even she suggested that the rules of procedure needed to be reformed away from the current consensus procedure.  In other words, everyone is frustrated that China and the rest of the developing world were able to prevent a treaty by walking out on the negotiations.  Nevertheless, they were not able to agree on a new strategy.

More propaganda

About the only thing they all agreed on was the need to push their distorted view of the science on the public even more than they have for the past decade.  Conors blamed the American public for the Senate’s failure to act on the cap and trade bill: “We desperately need public education.  The public doesn’t understand this topic. . . .  Politicians can’t go way beyond what their constituents want them to do.”  Thank goodness this is still a democracy!

Why they think more “public education” will work is a mystery.  If the past two decades of using the news media as a mouthpiece for their propaganda and a major motion picture have been unable to convince the public, it is doubtful there is anything left that can.  Now it is our turn, as realists, to present our case, and if our victory in Copenhagen reflects public opinion at all, the people are listening.

As we put the last of the alarmists’ apocalyptic claims to rest, the world should take the opportunity to promote progress in the developing world.  The market must be allowed to provide developing nations with the latest clean coal, gas, and nuclear technologies—regardless of their carbon footprint.  This will allow the poor to gain better access to food, water, and energy as well as giving them the opportunity to rise out of poverty.  The West did so once, over two hundred years ago in the Industrial Revolution.  It is time the rest of the world had the same chance.