I received a call from a jet-setting economic-journalist type some weeks ago telling me of a cultural indicator he thought signaled rough times ahead for the institutions of the global-warming industry — as they scramble to retain their franchises even as their hijinks catch up to them and “the science” crumbles around them. Like Punxatawny Phil and his shadow, this guy’s tres chic cousin in London rolled her eyes and offered an “oh, that’s so last year” dismissal when he rakishly prodded her seeking a beautiful-people-type rant about global warming.
It got me thinking about other indicators, even before this latest spate of “fill-in-the-blank-Gates.” The IPCC’s grasp for the life preserver of “ocean acidification” — the alarmists’ Plan B, developed as the signs became inescapable about their “warming” case — was one of those institutional signs to watch for.
Another was a Republican Senate candidate in Massachusetts responding to a voter — in Cambridge no less — that climate changes and, well, before we do anything like cap-and-trade we need to get to the bottom of disturbing claims about scientists monkeying with the data. No hailstorm of attempts to marginalize him over it followed. The political risk of rushing to embrace the issue simply outweighed the reward.
And then today, I see the program at Davos. Sure, it’s still rife with the words “climate change” but generally in the context of energy — specifically, how to get continued financing for the “green” energy projects all of these participants leapt into when they saw their pals in government taking your billions and transferring them to these inefficient “investments.” But then I viewed the proceedings. After a few minutes of PC-babble, World Economic Forum executive chairman Klaus Schwab reported on the relative importance given to various issues: water is first, and the “greatest threat facing mankind” . . . doesn’t even make the top six.
When you’ve lost Davos — on a pet project of wealthy elites and rent-seekers — you might want to tell your clients to short the thing.