To Drill or not to Drill: That is the Question

So I was reading a couple of articles on the legislation in the United States that was stopped before it began on the possible drilling of off-shore locations for an increase in the domestic oil production of the US.  The bill was designed to allow lands, that were previously off limits, to be accessed for use in drilling to increase the domestic supply of oil in the US and help brunt some of the increase in costs on the amount per barrel.  Many politicians saw this as a way to help the consumer absorb some of the cost that they were paying at the pump, while others saw this as a “big oil” or  “anti-environmental” movement aimed at furthering the destruction of the planet. 

Trade Subsidies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

In the market oriented world, trade subsidies are supposed to be an advantageous means to protect a country’s ability to produce a good and have a chance to be marketable on the global market.  Thus when one country produces a product at a lower cost and begins exporting it globally, another country has the ability to place an export duty or a trade subsidy on it so that their product meets the price of the same or similar product in that nations market.  Thus, if an African country can produce, say wheat, at a lower cost and ship it worldwide, then Europe would subsidize their farmers and pay them the difference in the market value so that the European farmers could sell their wheat at the same price as the African country.  Thus, the African country loses the battle because their product is no longer as competitive as it was when it was shipped from their ports. 

The Gore-Ax: By the Castaway Castro

Yo, I am the Gore-Ax, who speaks for the trees
 I speak for the Earth and she wants to say “Please!”
 ”Address global warming as soon as you can.”
 ”The sun cannot cause it. The culprit is man.”
 Oh Gaea, so fragile, she can’t take the heat
 A few more degrees and the Earth is dead meat
 From choking on carbon emissions, you hear?
 More threat’ning than any munitions you fear
 Your minivans, Hummers, immense S.U.V.s
 Are wreaking great havoc on Earth and her trees
 And muscle car drivers, you ruin the air
 So switch to a Prius to show that you care
 Or better yet, travel by bus or by train
 And then my new limo can have a clear lane

 For I am the Gore-Ax, who speaks for the trees
 I’ll speak for the Earth until everyone sees
 The danger that climate change poses to all
 Especially if suburbs continue to sprawl
 We must limit suburbs if we’re to defer
 The global catastrophe soon to occur
 If glaciers keep melting, the oceans will rise
 And polar bears surely will meet their demise
 My house in the Hamptons, right there by the shore
 Will be underwater if Earth heats up more
 When oceans get warmer, more hurricanes form
 My house in the Hamptons might fall in a storm
 It’s Earth in the balance.  Am I getting through?
 Do all that you can to reduce CO2

 Now, I am the Gore-Ax, who speaks for the trees
 When saving the Earth I refuse to appease
 You stubborn deniers who won’t see the light
 We have a consensus that says that I’m right
 You shill for big oil and guzzle gas, too
 It’s time for a carbon tax levied on you
 The planet’s in peril, so cut back or pay
 Your country should bow to Kyoto today
 I know it’s not easy, but what can you do?
 A truth inconvenient is nonetheless true
 I’ve so much to teach you, but must say goodbye
 My Gulfstream is waiting. It’s time that I fly
 To Hollywood, Davos and maybe to Cannes
 So limit your energy use when I’m gone

Scare Science: Fear in Sheep’s Clothing

Today I received an email providing me with a link to a website from a broadcasting company in Australia known as ABC.  I clicked on the link and to my surprise I was not sent to the website to learn about the news or to read a story that would be pertinent to my life or enrich my experience as a human being but to a website about “my CO2 influence on global warming.”  Now, first off, I want you to understand that I was surprised that something like this existed.  Secondly, I was shocked that they were portraying this as some kind of “scientific” measure of my contribution to global warming.  The debate over what causes global warming is still raging, whether people choose to believe this or not.  So why do these websites exist in the first place?  What is their true purpose, and why do people take them as “intelligent pieces of equipment” capable of giving us a true indicator of what is really going on in the world.

Common Sense: Where Have You Gone?

The world today is driven by empirical data, scientific findings, and quantifiable results that are supposed to lead us to a greater understanding of the world around us and point us in a direction that will greatly benefit us.  However, somewhere along the way, scientific findings trumped pragmatic thinking and common sense ideology that ran the world for centuries.  Why are we predisposed to disregard common sense logic?  Can things truly be scientific in their global implementation, especially on issues that have subjective sectors to the issues?  And lastly, why is it that we have this “your way or the highway” mentality when it comes to certain issues? 

Civil Society Report on Climate Change.

Oliver Tree

I urge those concerned with counter arguments to the current perversive hyperbole on climate issues to read the upcoming Civil Society Report on Climate Change. It presents a formidable challenge to the current debate on this contentious issue. Combining the expertise of over 40 Civil society think tanks, institutions and research activists the report addresses major flaws not only in the purported scale of the threat but the current solutions to obviate a threat should the climate change dramatically.

Wrestling the debate from alarmists, expedient politicians and unscrupulous organisations the report presents a serious and reasoned challenge to the proposed methods and claims of all three. Moving through several chapters the report answers the full extent of questions posed by those who seek to cloud current debate with hyperbole and hysteria. De-constructive analyses undermines the inflated predications of pandemics, deforestation, agricultural collapse and apocalyptic natural disasters whilst checking the extensive powers government and international organisations demand as a result.

Moving the debate away from ineffective prevention and binding, inflexible international targets real alternatives are proposed to help those who would be most effected by climate change. Innovative reasoning leads the report to champion the development of free commercial institutions whilst at the same time ending costly and counterproductive aid. The report covers the breadth of current debate providing alternative systemic evidence and, where prudent action is required, provides market based solutions that benefit all concerned.

The report concludes that global carbon reduction targets in treaties such as Kyoto will have a miniscule delaying effect at best. Subsequently serious questions are raised as to the validity of such treaties, the science behind them and the economic cost of their implementation. Totalling somewhere between $100 billion and $1 trillion a year Kyoto alone represents a crippling world wide economic impact. The evidence presented in the report paints this potential loss in terms of the constructive use this money could have on developing new technologies, focusing resources and combating the effects of any potential climactic shifts, especially in those areas that would need it most.

The report indicates that advocating the establishment of the rule of law, private property and free markets in developing nations should be the real focus of international attention. With these in place the infrastructure, technology and wealth needed to negate the possible effects of rapid climate change will exist and these nations need not suffer as environmentalists, the UN and its affiliate IPCC and UNFCC organisations suggest.

The influential American journalist H.L Mencken once wrote that “The urge to save humanity is always a false front for the urge to rule it”. By ignoring shrill apocalyptic cries the Civil Society Report on Climate Change acknowledges this sentiment, presents facts instead of perpetuating myths and provides workable solutions to climactic effects both real and imagined.

 

Barroso, Climate Change and Civil Society

Oliver Tree

 

 Wrestling with global financial meltdown for top news spot, climate change is never far from the headlines. So it is no surprise that EU President Jose Manuel Barroso has grabbed the limelight with yet another drastic plan to deliver us from our collective environmental sins. 

 

When it comes to climate change there is a scene in the film Men In Black that for me neatly summarises the debate. A wizened Tommy Lee Jones turns to a newly recruited Will Smith declaring that “1500 years ago everybody knew that the earth was the centre of the universe, 500 years ago everybody knew that the earth was flat and 15 minutes ago you knew that people were alone on this planet…think what you will know tomorrow”

 

No mater what the natives of Kreuzberg or the Rainbow Warrior would have you believe, science does not work in ‘facts’. During the later half of the 19th Century and well into the twentieth the ’science’ of phrenology predicted with factual certitude that racial groups and their physical characteristics determined people’s cognitive potential. Currently there are several competing theories about the exact reason for how airline wings work, no scientist can explain why hot water freezes faster than cold or indeed how the supposedly un-aerodynamic bumblebee flies. Science is constantly evolving in a non-linear fashion, progressing faster and further in some areas and clearly lagging behind in others. It is not for me, or indeed you, to sit and declare categorically one side of the climate debate or the other.

 

  Now I know what you are thinking, ‘oh no here we go again’ another free-marketeer  denying that the climate is changing or at the very least that humanity has anything to do with a natural process. You would be wrong however. Refuting climate change and/or anthropomorphic explanations outright is equally as facile as proclaiming its scientific certitude.

 

My point is this; the bandwagoning Bonos of this world may well be right. Those who deny everything to do with climate change may well turn out to be right. However, to extend the agenda setting remit of governments and international organisations on the basis of this scientific ‘knowledge gap’  is definitely wrong.

 

 For arguments sake, if climate change is man made and if  it is reversible then surely the last institution one wants taking the lead are international bodies that fail to resolve more meagre international issues and governments that consistently struggle to educate your children, supply adequate police forces and provide effective healthcare solutions. Governments and international bodies, no matter their motives, are in their very nature consistently the worst providers of efficient services and innovative solutions. Daily they struggle with the complexity of modern society;  who on earth would want to trust them with saving the planet?

 

There are alternatives. I direct the open minded reader to the following alternative solutions on the issue. The soon to be published Civil Society Report on Climate Change and The Commons blog offer introductions and explanations as to why a free market solution provides a logical and tested route to solving climate change and other pressing global issues.

 

 

 

 

 

 

inverse conclusion

jessica wright

Steffen Hentrich wrote about “the dictatorship of the experts” in today’s post of the German language IUF blog, referring to this article by David Shearman. Shearman claims the following with regard to China’s ban on the use of plastic shopping bags, in the interest of reducing Greenhouse gas emissions:

All this suggests that the savvy Chinese rulers may be first out of the blocks to assuage greenhouse emissions and they will succeed by delivering orders. They will recognise that the alternative is famine and social disorder.

Shearman believes liberal democracy incapable of dealing with the supposed problem of Greenhouse gas emissions, and argues that governments must now take authoritative action for the good of all. He goes on to say,

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy.

Shearman would like to create a counsel of scientists who would direct governments in making authoritarian policies, based on what many consider flawed scientific analysis. He concludes with an ominous warning, and seemingly inverted conclusion:

“if we do not act urgently we may find we have
chosen total liberty rather than life”

 

(all quotes taken from original article by Shearman)