Radicalism: A group of academics wants to force rationing in developed countries to turn back what they see as the carbon threat. How does this differ from a socialist group demanding the seizure of private property?
Negotiators from 192 nations will be in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun through Dec. 10 trying to hash out a deal they believe will curb global warming. The hot air won't be from the ocean breezes but from the negotiators' own carbon dioxide emissions. There will be plenty of nonsense from politically motivated academics, starting with Kevin Anderson, director of the U.K.'s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
The British Telegraph reports that Anderson believes the only way to cut carbon emissions enough while letting poor nations continue to develop is to stop economic growth in wealthy nations over the next 20 years. Anderson admits it would be hard to persuade the developed world to voluntarily cut its emissions-emitting activities, so he favors consumption limits set by law.
"The Second World War and the concept of rationing is something we need to seriously consider if we are to address the scale of the problem we face," he told the Telegraph.
There is so much wrong with Anderson's proposal that it's hard to decide where the undressing should begin. Maybe we should start with his notion that poor nations can develop while economic growth in rich countries is blocked.
Simply put, the developing world cannot move ahead if the developed world is forced into economic stagnation. Third World nations need markets in wealthy countries for their goods. And investment from the First World is critical. Neither would be available if the developed world's economies were held in check.
Anderson is also wrong about rationing. There's no compelling reason for governments to limit consumption. The notion that the planet is heating dangerously due to human activity has crumbled under the weight of evidence to the contrary. State restrictions on consumers would serve no purpose except to make happy the class warriors and egalitarians who are driven by envy.
And comparing the threat of global warming to the fascist threat of World War II? It's both a sophomoric exaggeration and an injustice to those who bravely fought for freedom in that war.
Credit Anderson, though, for revealing the global warming alarmists' intent: not protection from climate change but the replacement of capitalism with statism. In the name of shielding the planet from the imagined effects of carbon, the environmental left wants to ration everything from meat to air travel to home energy use.
Sounds like life under a socialist regime in which the government distributes wealth, doesn't it? Yes, because that's the plan.