My first reaction to the taxpayer-enabled cry for help paper published last week–asserting that “even if we stop all production of CO2 . . . the Earth will be ‘dying’ at least until the
year 3000 because the ‘murder’ we are committing against Gaia is ‘irreversible,’” in Luboš Motl’s characteristically direct assessment–was how promiscuously we throw money
at any project the proposal for which utters the magic phrase “climate change,” no matter how policy-irrelevant. Pretending to project out a thousand years? What sort of intellectual . . . folly . . . is this?
Upon reflection, however, the obvious and inescapable conclusion is actually quite helpful: we can now drop the inane insistence that mankind attempt to “mitigate” climate change. Canute, put away thy broom!
Even accepting the alarmists’ dogma, it is now put forth in certain of their quarters that we are best served doing what the most successful societies have always done in the face of an ever-changing climate, which is to adapt. This means create wealth, and not throw resources at burning witches–or, now, SUVs and coal-fired power plants–on the claim that they caused the weather to change.
Better still, this conclusion comes from the U.S.-nominated co-chair of the Fourth Assessment Report’s “science” portion, or “IPCC, 2007: Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
It’s nice to see the beginnings of an intra-IPCC battle royale over the laundry-list of lifestyle/policy demands it serially issues in parroting the green pressure groups, if slightly outside of its original mission. After all, the co-lead author of the IPCC’s “science” now says they’re useless and a waste of time and money. Huzzah!
I should guess that the UNFCCC would prefer noting that the warming peaked the year the U.S. signed Kyoto (1998), declaring victory and washing our hands of the mess. I mean, there’s no longer any need for this totem in the anti-Bush struggle; and they can credit Bill Clinton and liberate Barack Obama at the same time. But if their Doppelganger the IPCC insists on instead declaring that the weather has won, in order for us to actually win, I’ll be reasonable and accept that as well.