Columnist Debra Saunders pretty well pegged it recently with a piece on Al Gore’s $300 million global warming group hug campaign.
“So when you click on ‘We are Succeeding,’ you don’t read about how entire towns have begun to carpool or that Hollywood biggies are giving up private jets to save the planet. No. For the most part, success is tallied by a convert count. As in: ‘Thousands Urge the Press to Ask Questions on Global Warming,’ ‘Stunning Response to Calls for a Global Treaty,’ ‘State Department Feels Public Pressure in Run-Up to Climate Conference.’
“Then again, the global warming movement always has been more about symbols and professing belief than results.”
“Our betters in Europe have spent the last seven years scolding George W. Bush for scorning the Kyoto global warming treaty, which Bill Clinton never asked the U.S. Senate to approve. It was enough that Clinton said he supported Kyoto; true believers ignored the fact that under Clinton/Gore, U.S. greenhouse gas emissions grew.”
“Or as The New York Times columnist Gail Collins recently wrote,”
” ‘The Europeans have a perfect right to look down on the United States since they’ve set much more ambitious targets for reducing global warming. While they do not appear to be likely to meet any of them, it’s the thought that counts.”
I feel bad that the “feelings “of the global warming campain are causing so much needless suffiering around the world. It’s amazing how this group of global warming nuts and their efforts are now starting to cause high prices in everything from oil to corn.
“europeans have a perfect right to look down on Americans?” I see.. why, because there are many of us here in the USA that are not so easily deluded with this global warming hysteria? Great.. let them ‘look down’ to their heart’s content.. believe me, I can’t really name anyone that is losing sleep over what europeans think of us. Thant being said however, I do GREATLY admire the French people and government for having the foresight and courage to embrace nuclear power plants, thus much distancing themselves from foreign oil and Arab dictators. But since we have a hand-wringing, self-serving Congress that cares WAY too much about apeasing these fanatical ‘greenies’, we will continue funding western-hating Arab countries with hundreds of billions of crude oil purchases each year. Via La France..
I find it confusing that here in the U.S. we are limiting and eliminating our most abundant fuel source from the cafeteria-coal. Yet the EU is actively converting some of their previously gas fired plants to, that villain, coal. Here in Texas, we have mayors in Austin and Dallas that have actively campaigned against building much needed coal fired energy plants for fear of the impending sword of Damocles wielded by the EPA. Yet even with that, we frequently deal with massive burn-offs of crops from Mexico and even our topology works against us by creating heat caps that we can’t overcome. So we put in place draconian reductions and punitive fuel surcharges, but nothing comes of it. We could have had very efficient nuclear plants, but the same folks who oppose coal plants, oppose nuclear plants. So what are we left with? The only solution I have left is a really big magnifying glass and some dry grass…..or we could simply give up, which seems to be what they want. There are methods to prevent the pollution of old style coal plants, but nobody wants to deal with something dark and sooty. It’s kind of an energy racism, if you will. But in the end, as China and India ramp up, we are going to be forced to make some choices. And I don’t really think any of us are going to willingly move back to log cabins and conestoga wagons.