Copenhagen--Theater Of The Absurd Closes

The Monster Rally Against Anthropogenic Climate Change is over. Good. Better yet, the curtain fell on this exercise in the theater of the absurd without too much real having been accomplished.

The Geek has been deeply suspicious of the climate catastrophe crowd because he is a historian, not an atmospheric physicist or one of the other forms of boffin who depends upon complex statistical analysis and assorted easy-to-fudge computer models. Being a simple minded sort of dude who has spent much of his life wading through conflicting views of what happened when, the Geek is comfortable with the simple fact that the past is not easily altered by computers or statistics.

In fact, it was the sudden erasure of the well known, very well documented Medieval Warm Period and its successor, the "Little Ice Age," which lasted from the late 1500s to the middle of the 1800s from the analysis presented in 1999 by Michael Mann, a "climate scientist" at Penn State University which first raised the Geek's eyebrows (and hackles) over the matter of human caused global warming. With a feat of statistical prestidigitation which boggled the mind, Dr Mann removed the centuries during which Greenland really was green and wine producing grapes grew in England. (His mathematical magic also ripped the cold centuries which followed from the historical record.)

The purpose of Dr Mann's exercise in massaging the data was specific--and intentional. He sought to prove that the observed minor warming of the Twentieth Century was solely due to human action. His goal was to stifle any thought that temperatures might rise or fall for reasons other than the malign, short-sighted, self-involved acts of people searching for a higher quality of life through the use of fossil fuels, industrialization, and other criminal behavior.

Since the earlier efforts of "climate scientists" to prove that the world was on the verge of a new, improved, really BIG ice age due to our use of fossil fuels, industrialization, and other criminal behavior had come a cropper, the time was ripe for a new approach. This Dr Mann did--with great success with his 1999 "J" curve analysis.

The Mann "J" curve resembled the (in)famous Laffler "J" curve which served as the justification for "trickle down" economics as practiced openly by the Reagan administration and with less candor by the administration of George W. Bush. The two "J" curves were joined shoulder and hip by the meretricious use of multivariate techniques to prove a dubious hypothesis.

Proponents of the Mann thesis like those who held the banner of Laffler high sought to stifle, suppress, rule out-of-order any opposing views. Or any who questioned the process and its results. The teleological behavior of Mann and others was made manifest by the leaking of the emails from the Climate Research Unit of East Anglia University.

Politicians who invested in the Laffler "J" curve assured all who might listen that the "trickle down" notion of economics represented a "consensus" of all economists. So also have those politicians both in the US and elsewhere who have bought into the Mann inspired "J" curve for whatsoever reason.

The assorted motivations for scientists, politicians, and members of the chattering class generally to accept the position of the climate extremists have been examined in previous posts. Suffice it to say that nothing equals the threat of global extinction to provide more and more power to central governments, international organs, and non-governmental organizations alike.

The efforts of the purportedly high minded and disinterested climate catastrophe peddlers in Copenhagen finally foundered on the rock of nationalism. The Chinese behaved as good nationalists pursuing their agenda of Really Great Power status. The assorted shakedown inclined states of Africa and elsewhere behaved as good nationalists pursuing their goals of extortion. Even the bizarre statements of Hugo Chavez, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the Sudanese representative were those of good nationalists pursuing goals of their own devising.

Surprisingly even Mr Obama shook off the reins of post-modernism to act like a nationalist. His stance was clearly conditioned on a personal appreciation of the impact of national interest upon, if not his mind, the collective minds of the one hundred Senators. The American president did not sell American national interest short. For this he deserves a cautious vote of thanks.

More unrestrained thanks must be given the T. rex in the room. The name of this particular critter is "nationalism." While deprecated and declared dead by many in the chattering, academic and political classes in both Western Europe and the US, it is evident from the goings on in Copenhagen that the potent force of nationalism as expressed by self-defined national interest was not simply alive and well in the Danish capital, but thriving around most of the world.

Due to the ship of climate change having run aground on the reef of nationalism, it is to hoped that the time purchased by this fortunate (even if predictable) event will be used to effectively question and counter the arguments of Dr Mann and his ilk. Any special interest group, whether composed of credentialed "climate" scientists or any other bunch of True Believers which erases vast swaths of our collective past in pursuit of their agenda deserves nothing less than the utmost of scrutiny backed by great suspicion.