Decarbonization must become the ‘central organizing principle of human civilization’ – Al Gore
The real reason, says The New York Times, that Israel must accept the murder of 1,500 or so of its citizens and hundreds more held hostage even as rockets and missiles are still being fired by Hamas and a host of Iran-backed free-lancers, comes straight from Al Gore’s lips.
The fighting tempts countries to secure their supplies of oil and gas rather than abandon fossil fuels on the UN’s timetable. The historical echoes, laments the Times, “are chilling, coming 50 years after the Arab oil embargo roiled energy markets.”
Unless Israel surrenders (unspoken but implied), November’s climate negotiations (COP 28) in Doha, United Arab Emirates, will become “even more complicated.” An earlier Times article moaned that “defense stocks have rallied,” and oil producers are making profits.
“This is a fundamental test,” said Comfort Ero, president of the International Crisis Group, “of whether nations can firewall climate diplomacy from immediate crises.” But with the talks being held in the UAE petrostate, the deck is heavily stacked against the coveted Net Zero goals.
Dear Gray Lady, you write further that the Hamas-Israel “conflict” follows a global pandemic and comes amid a war in Ukraine that has pummeled economies, driven countries deeper into debt, raised food and fuel prices, and worsened hunger.
Curiously, Your Grayness, you seem to imply that neither the pandemic nor the Russia-Ukraine war threatened climate negotiations – something you apparently join President Biden as deeming far worse than a nuclear holocaust.
But No. You have a simpler solution to the climate apocalypse: If the Israelis would just lay down their weapons, sing Kumbaya with Hamas, and worship Gaia together, the planet will quickly heal.
Reminds me of an old song made popular by Frank Sinatra, “Fairy tales can come true, It can happen to you, If you’re young at heart.” Sadly, for the young in Israel, Gaza, Ukraine, Russia, and many other places around the world, the young at heart are being “pummeled.”
Yet the Times’ focus is on the West’s “failure” to share access to Covid vaccines (despite side effects just now being recognized) and provide “sufficient financial aid” to help poor countries “deal with climate hazards.” NOT to share access to fertilizers, infrastructure, electricity, and educational opportunities to bring them out of poverty!
The Times’ clever move to make Israel the bad guy on climate change is a far cry from the tone set in February by both the United Nations Environment Programme and Politico and followed up on in August by Scientific American.
The UNEP reported on preliminary monitoring of the Ukraine conflict during 2021 that pointed to a “toxic legacy for generations to come.” Thousands of possible incidents of air, water, and land pollution and the degradation of ecosystems – including risks to neighboring countries – had already been identified – with more bad news to come. Just chronicling all the damage will be, said UNEP, “a colossal task.” And that’s not including environmental damage in Russia.
The UNEP and its partners have uncovered incidents at nuclear power plants, energy infrastructure (including oil storage tankers), oil and gas facilities, mines, industrial sites, and agro-processing facilities.
Damage to the water supply has occurred at pumping stations, purification plants, and sewage facilities; hazardous substances have been released from explosions at fertilizer and nitric acid plants. All this on top of cleaning up military debris, destroyed housing, and livestock carcasses.
UNEP Executive Director Inger Andersen made the shocking statement that “The mapping and initial screening of environmental hazards only serves to confirm that war is quite literally toxic.” Urging an end to the conflict, Andersen added that, “The environment is about people; it’s about livelihoods, public health, clean air and water, and basic food systems.”
Are we to conclude that the Times sees climate change as the only important human concern?
Politico reported in February that nearly 1,100 cases of environmental damage (out of over 2,300 identified) had been handed over to law enforcement agencies as part of an effort to hold Moscow accountable for environmental damage in Ukraine. Eight months ago, Ukraine environment minister Ruslan Strilets estimated the damage at US$51.45 billion.
As Scientific American reported in August, for Ukrainians to return to their homes, the rebuilding – assisted by up to $91.5 million from U.S. taxpayers – will need to include restoring drinking water and sanitation systems and the safe processing of solid waste.
The theme of the article (which reads like a green coalition press release) is, “When it’s time to rebuild, we must prioritize more sustainable and resilient infrastructure in Ukraine.” Might this also mean that Ukrainians all drive zero-emission vehicles and ban fossil fuels immediately as a condition of return?
Of course, none of this damage might have occurred had the Ukrainians followed the Times’ advice (to Israel, not Ukraine) to forgo a military response to the initial Russian assault and instead quietly allow Russia to take control of its eastern cities.
From another viewpoint, however, Russia would not have been in a position to try to impose its will on Ukraine and the West if Germany had not surrendered its nuclear power plants to the green agenda and if President Biden had not shuttered the Keystone pipeline and waged regulatory war against the fossil fuel industry that has kept the West free.
Similarly, Hamas would not have had the weaponry to mount its ongoing assaults had the West not welcomed the trade in sanctioned Russian, Venezuelan, and Iranian oil. The U.S. had been poised to profit from a booming oil market, but the Biden policy of phasing out U.S. oil and gas production opened the door for massive profits for rogue nations.
Green goals, it turns out, have fueled the fires of war and left the West awkwardly needing fossil fuel energy more than ever while publicly declaring fossil fuel energy as the greatest threat to humanity, dwarfing even an increasingly likely nuclear holocaust.
But then again, those who claim that fossil fuels inspired an artificial prosperity built on slowly destroying the planet may prefer a post-nuclear world without electricity and without the great majority of Earth’s current population.