True North

Of course I do.  I don’t want to, and I certainly wish that there were some other things to write about.  The fact is that I’ve dedicated a good chunk of my website (Pheistyblog.com) to refuting the idea of human-induced global warming - if only from a purely philosophical perspective - and I need to address Gore's latest accomplisment:  Winning the Nobel Peace Prize.

First, let’s get a couple of things straight. I’m not a climate scientist.  I’m not a meteorologist.  I don’t even know what the weather will be like tomorrow. I have about as much scientific knowledge about the climate systems on planet earth as my Cocker Spaniel does.  But when I speak out against the idea of human-induced climate change, I don’t need a ’scientific consensus’ of anything.  I know a sham when I see one.

Al Gore winning the Nobel Peace Prize wasn’t a surprise.  We’ve been hearing the media and others making the connection between global warming and genocide in Africa all year long, ever since our pal Mr. Gore was nominated for the prize. 

Just look at what the head of the Norwegian Institute of National Affairs thinks about an environmental/peace connection:

“It will certainly be tempting to the (Nobel) committee to have two North Americans — one the activist that personifies the struggle against climate change, raising awareness, and the other who represents some of the victims of climate change.”

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, agreed the award committee could establish the link between peace and the environment.

“Establish a link”?  The Nobel Peace Prize of 2007 was nothing more than a group of people wanting to elevate the cause of human-induced global warming to such a level, that they were willing to go as far as to create a connection between war and human-induced global warming.   

“I think the whole issue of climate change and the environment will come at some point and reflect in the prize,” Egeland told reporters last week.

“There are already climate wars unfolding … And the worst area for that is the Sahel belt in Africa.”

The wars in the Sahel belt are a result of many complex issues.  The only issue that the Greenies can use as an exploitation for their cause is the idea that global warming has caused the  Sahara to expand, and that the northern agricultural climate is no longer prime, so therefore tribes are fighting for food. This still does not provide proof that humans have caused the Sahara to expand by emitting CO2 into the air, however, and it certainly doesn’t account for mass genocide and torture.

Read this snippet from a self-professed human-induced climate change believer, Brandon Keim:

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof spoke about the genocide in Darfur today. Like most people with a pulse and a conscience, I know about what’s going on there — but the stories he told and pictures he showed were soul-wrenching. It’s hard to believe that people are capable of such evil — and in many cases, it appears the actions weren’t even prompted by ancient hatreds or racial hostility, but pure sadism and the promise of a paycheck.

Afterwards, I asked Kristof whether there was a role for scientific and technological knowledge in the context of Darfur. Most such thinking, he said, has involved making a connection between global warming and Darfur, which we’ve covered before on WiSci: one effect of climate change is droughts that triggered conflict between nomadic and settled tribes now competing for the same resources.

What does Kristof think of this?

He knows as much about Darfur as anyone — and in his words, “the cause-and-effect is overstated.” Other countries are experiencing drought, and they’re not responding by annihilating entire populations.

Maybe I’ve been guilty of  wanting climate change to be at the root of social problems, because solving climate change would thus solve those problems, too. But greed, rapaciousness, amorality — and the political, social and economic structures that allow them to fester — exist independently of greenhouse gas emissions, and once we do deal with climate change, we’ll still have to deal with them.

Evil always has been, and always will be, the reason for war.  Evil people will always attempt to invade and kill a peaceful people, for either religious, ethnic, or monetary reasons, and peacekeepers must wage war against an evil people when they are committing evil against others.  I feel silly even typing this, because it’s such a simple, common-sense concept that no one should have to explain. 

When we attempt to link the changing of climate with the horrendous things that human beings do, we have truly lost it. 

The lunacy in this situation is that Al Gore not only believes that he can control the climate, he also believes that he can end wars by doing so. 

Apparently, so do some crazies in Norway.