UNFCCC hypocracy

[cannuck]

I will re-post this, as it seems my original language was a bit too insulting for the mods.

I am rolling on the floor laughing over the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. I am willing to lay long odds that EVERY attendee from outside of Europe flew there on a jet spewing tonnes of CO2 directly into the troposphere. Not a single one, I wager, used a wind-powered sailing craft - i.e. one of the very resources they believe we should rely on for our electrical utilities.

The post was in reply to another reply in my thread, where the respondent was blaming government for much of the hypocracy, and further that the conference was really about the Americans wanting to control this or that. I would remind people that the US is not exactly in love with the UN - whose mandate seems to be to come up with all kinds of new mega bureaucracy and then pass the bill on to the Americans.

Sadly, it is not governments themselves but Canadians who are to blame. Albertans and Canadians as a whole both elected socialist governments, so they will both suffer government from their frame of reference for the next four years. At least neither Notley nor Trudeau claimed to be anything other than what they are.

This all fits under the old saw: "careful what you wish for".

[waldo]

your carbon footprint focus pales in comparison to actual world-wide emissions. Of course, certain types will always go for this 'low hanging fruit'.

[Michael Hardner]

It sounds like this would be an investment in carbon savings, assuming you believe the conventional wisdom about AGW. It's weird to me that someone who is calling out Socialists wouldn't think of that angle.

[BubberMiley]

I don't really get how it's "hypocracy" to be aware of the need to change our society's reliance on fossil fuels while continuing to live in this society. It's way more "hypocracy" to want to have a habitable environment while insisting that no one should do anything about it, lest they be "hypocrats."

[Guest]

I think the hypocrisy lies in contributing to the problem more than you have to. Everyone has to go to work, eat, heat their homes, etc. If that's all one does, then no hypocrisy. I think I read somewhere that Canada had sent more delegates to Paris than the US, the UK, and ...someone else, I can't remember who. For a country with as little hope of effecting real changes to greenhouse gas concentrations as we have, it seems wasteful. And that might be considered hypocritical, these days.

[cannuck]

Unlike no doubt almost everyone posting on line, and similarly those bureaucrats and politicians who make their money from climate change hysteria, I have actually designed, built, operated equipment and businesses that were sustainable, resource conservation oriented. I will call the higher ground on this issue.

The difference between someone who earns my respect vs. ones who earn nothing but my scorn can be defined by them telling me what THEY have actually done in the name of sustainability vs. what they think I should be doing (while cashing their fat paycheque for doing so). .

Reality is, if you want to go from Canada to Europe, you are going to do it on an airplane, and that airplane is going to be fossil fueled - for now, and for a very long time to come. Rather than coming up with what I can guarantee you are unworkable (but very profitable for someone) nonsense, a little time spent reflecting on reality has a lot more promise.

First of all, if you think China and India are ever going to go along with pretty much anything that could knock them off the path to catching up with the rest of the world, you are naive. EVERY developed nation got to this stage by raping the environment and resources of the world. It is how you get here, and India and China representing fully one half of the entire world will follow our shining example. What we really need to do is continue to lead the way with things that make sense. Fossil fuels will be used until they deplete or become by natural market forces too expensive. If we aren't using them intelligently, they will simply be used more expeditiously by emerging economies.

By going down some fanciful path of adopting immature technologies and financial tools that have to be forced by taxpayer money and mandated participation, we will abandon the billions of dollars in investment in things such as internal combustion engine efficiencies and emission that make modern motor vehicles the marvels they are. It also puts us at a severe competitive disadvantage to those who will not bother with rising to and maintaining those same standards.

Where we really need to focus is why we use so bloody much personal transportation (and thus carbon emissions) to do what we do. For instance: the idea of living a half hour or hour away from our place of work and commuting alone in an SUV.is ludicrous - but our (North American) cities are all designed around that ridiculous concept. When we get home to that house in Canada, it is most likely to be a monstrous, wood frame energy efficiency disaster that we will tear down every 50 years and build all over again. Not only do we continue with this extremely long list of truly irresponsible use of resources, but we then set a standard to which all developing nations will aspire.

BUT: ALL of this pales in comparison with the real reason we are contributing to climate change from our activities: There are far too many people on this planet. Take a look at a population curve, and you can see that IF we are significant in our contribution to atmospheric conditions, the probable amount of our contribution is directly related to the amount of energy and other resources we use to sustain our lives - all seven billion of them.

What is reality in this situation is that there is no money in it for the bureaucrats and politicians in dealing with real problems in a practical way. The buzzwords are now climate change and they can scare the public into letting the fund their careers to construct goofy schemes to destroy the economies of the Western world.

[cannuck]

I don't really get how it's "hypocracy" to be aware of the need to change our society's reliance on fossil fuels while continuing to live in this society. It's way more "hypocracy" to want to have a habitable environment while insisting that no one should do anything about it, lest they be "hypocrats."

As I hope you deduce from my last post, I believe in DOING something, not making really foolish and grandiose schemes aimed at funding the fear-mongers and destroying the economy that must actually produce real results.

[BubberMiley]

As I hope you deduce from my last post, I believe in DOING something, not making really foolish and grandiose schemes aimed at funding the fear-mongers and destroying the economy that must actually produce real results.

What do you propose?

[Rue]

I strongly support Can's comments. Well stated. I personally believe the change has to happen by a consumer movement outside government.

[cannuck]

What do you propose?

that is a fair question. I will try (guerrilla posting as we are on a project with deadlines we hope to meet so we can return to Canada for Christmas) to give a fair answer (a full answer would take literally months).

Leaving this important question in the hands of those who benefit from exploiting public fear and mis-information is very dangerous. The UN (not just in my opinion, but also according to good friends who have interfaced at the cabinet and top institutional levels) has evolved into a system focused on setting up bureaucracies that are largely ineffective in their stated goals, but tremendously effective at building and funding bureaucracies. This has become the way of the world: we are all so busy trying to earn more money, we have abdicated or collective responsibility to govern and be governed to self-interest groups. If you want another example: we as business and citizens have allowed Casino Capitalists (cronie capitalsist, Wall Street, etc.) take over the entire economy of the world - being convinced that we can survive and prosper on nothing but speculation and speculative gains, "They" liteally own the government and central bank of the largest economy in the world - and we let it happen not "without a wimper" but as active participation (trading equities, commodities, derivatives and real estate for instance).

These things happen due to general ignorance. At some point in time, my sincere desire is that educators become much more involved in seeking the truth and teaching it. Our societal failure is that we give great honour to some pseufo-tribal warrior for their prowess on sports fields, but consider anyone dedicated to science as "geeks" to be shunned and berated. Due to our general dis-interest in science, few are able to tell the difference between good science and good scientists and the technically deficient process of how an issue - such as climate change - can play out. In other words: we have to stop making Universities into politically correct degree factories and return to the (I will now be accused of being elitist) academic delivery of universal educations based upon genuine merit. One of my own daughters left academia recently over disgust with teaching undergrads who had no desire to learn the material - just pass the exams - and seeing grad studies invaded by one trick ponies (professional students) with almost zero inter-disciplinary competence or interest.

We can not continue to completely ignore the real problem causing such pressure on resources as to make our lifestyle unsustainable. It is simply a matter of overpopulation. We have seven billion and counting (faster by the day) on a nice, 1bn or so planet.. While there is no question there IS an anthropomorphic contribution to climate change - it is probably 10x what it would be with current technologies simply due to population. THIS is where the UN types should be working diligently, but just try to fund a bureaucracy with stated goals to do that.

Governments (IMHO) should be in place to regulate and enforce. In those terms, I mean to provide a level playing field for business to address the needs of the economy and consumers. My "free market" friends will be horrified, but I do NOT disagree with carbon taxation - just who gets that tax and how it is spent. You see, there ARE NO SUCH THINGS AS FREE MARKETS, ALL markets exist within some construct of rules and consequences for breaking them. l It is just a matter of who gets to set those rules, and in whose interest do they tilt the playing field. If you want to see a nearly free market, you needed to spend some time in Russia in the '90s. Note how rules came to exist, first by those with the biggest gun and later when they managed to legitimize themselves as business and government.

These are really tall orders, and I appreciate that. But since the status quo is such a total failure, we need to get down to the real issues and deal with them - URGENTLY

Lots to add, but I am timed out for now.

[Rue]

Consumers need to educate themselves as to alternative methods and products and consider purchasing them and initiating on their own. I believe government canhelp with tax incentives to small businesses involved in green solutions but I believe government regulation is a joke. One only has to look at is failure with gasoline prices or pollution enforcement or fisheries enforcement to understand why.

Governments are puppets for mega-nationals which use them to pass laws to keep markets monopolized by those mega-nationals.

Mega-multi-nationals control all governments and that is why we have no free markets.

As well the biggest monopoly of them all the Communist Party of China has extinguished free markets with its world wide predatory pricing.

So I believe people are on their own, and at the grass roots level there is much we can do as individuals, but to ask me to depend on Trudeau or any government to change the market place and clean up the planet? Yah right. Lord Justin of Trudeau right.

Edited December 5, 2015 by Rue

[Argus]

I think Conrad Black summed it up pretty well, describing it as nothing but a farce which will accomplish nothing.

What seems to have happened is that the international far left, having been decisively routed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and of international communism, has attached itself to the environmental movement, usurped the leading positions in it from the bird-watching, butterfly-collecting, and conservation organizations, and is carrying on its anti-capitalist and anarchist crusade behind the cover of eco-Armageddonism. While this has been rather skilfully executed, many office-holders and aspirants, including Obama, have used dire environmental scenarios to distract their electorates from their own policy failures, much as Arab powers have long diluted anger at despotic misgovernment by harping on the red herring of Israel.

http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/conrad-black-the-great-climate-conference-charade-playing-out-in-paris

[cannuck]

This is disturbing: I find myself in total agreement with Conrad Black!!!!

I have to wash my eyes with strong soap and go do some productive work

Edited December 8, 2015 by Charles Anthony
removed mal-formed quotation