Climate Change--The Cesspool That Won't Empty

Yvo de Boer, the Czar of All Anthropogenic Climate Change at the UN, and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which might better be known as The End Justifies the Means Panel are is still nattering, blustering, and attempting to explain some very unpleasant truths. The blustering and nattering is the specialty of Mr de Boer. The IPCC is in charge of smoothing over the hills and valleys of lies with the soft butter of good intentions.

The UN Climate Change Czar has taken the position that the US is somehow "bound" by the rhetorical promises at Copenhagen made by the master of lofty talk, President Obama. The Austrian born Dutch citizen, who is accountable to none outside of the carnival by the Hudson, blew off the reluctance of the Senate to act favorably on the potentially economically crippling "cap and trade" proposal put forward by the ever-so-green Obama administration.

With a serene detachment of the sort which might accompany another proclamation from Mount Sinai, the UN factotum told the press that Americans were slavering and drooling after "green" jobs (as opposed to any job of any color) and would not tolerate a failure to deliver on the Obama promise. Mr de Boer also opined that the Environmental Protection Agency could pick up the ball should the Senate be so ill-advised as to drop it.

In making this Olympian declaration Mr de Boer demonstrated the sublime ignorance of American political realities which only a member of the UN bureaucracy--or a True Believer in the Progressive Agenda--could essay. The "Czar" left aside such bagatelles as the possibility that the Congress might, in the face of an electorate less than thrilled with the current state of play on the Hill and in the Oval, legislatively remove the power to regulate carbon dioxide from the EPA's portfolio. He also ignored both the incompetence of the EPA and the net effect upon informed public opinion of the IPCC's extreme economy with the truth.

Additionally, the detached Mr de Boer overlooked the impact of an increasing awareness on the part of Americans that further sacrifices on its part can be more than offset by the actions of other nations. This is a critical matter which has also eluded the EPA.

To highlight this ground truth and its implications, the Geek invites you to consider the matter of ground level ozone. This noxious form of oxygen is responsible in large measure for the unpleasant phenomenon known as smog. To control the emission of ozone the EPA has not only put in place stringent limits on human activities (such as operating motor vehicles) which result in the production of ozone but is in the process of increasing the limitations.

The EPA also monitors ground level ozone. It is this part of the agency's mission which detains us at the moment. Let's focus on two areas of the United States. One is small and remote. The other is both large and important in all facets of American life.

The small one first. In southern New Mexico there are three counties. They extend from the border between New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico to the northwest. In order they are the El Paso bordering county of Dona Ana, Luna county, and Grant County. With the exception of Dona Ana which centers on the 100,000 person (more or less) city of Las Cruces, the counties are small in population, feature large expanses of either high desert (Luna) or pinion forested mountains (Grant.) None are noted for industry although Grant county still hosts a Phelps Dodge copper smelter currently engaged in reprocessing ancient tailings dumps.

Ground ozone monitoring shows that over the past three years each of these counties have been out of compliance with the current standards. They would be even more non-compliant under the proposed new standards. Dona Ana is the worst "offender," with Luna in second place, and distant Grant country bringing up the rear of the "law breakers." The EPA has already made the usual threatening noises of fines and loss of federal highway money should the counties and their municipalities not bring the areas into compliance beaucoup schnell!

There is only one difficulty with the EPA's findings, conclusions, and dark hints of penalties to come. None of the counties are responsible for the elevated ozone levels. No. As anyone with access to a map showing prevailing winds could discover in a matter of seconds, these three counties lie downwind of Cuidad Juarez. This Mexican city currently best known for a level of violence exceeded in very few war zones is usually noted for its level of air pollution.

There are no, repeat, NO, effective, enforceable limits on the production of ozone, particulate matter, or any other ingredient of air pollution in Juarez. And, if there were, a little bit of money changing hands ends the "violation."

The EPA with the supreme confidence of a totally out of touch with reality bureaucracy has chosen to ignore the real source of the ozone, instead flexing its muscles on a triad of totally inoffensive American counties. The worthies of the EPA appear completely indifferent to the underlying reality that no amount of American sacrifice, no degree of penalty, no amount of economic deprivation will solve the problem.

Now for the bigger problem. Ground level ozone monitoring shows that there has been a significant increase in the evil chemical despite the severe restrictions which have been in place in California, Washington, and Oregon. To the surprise (and dismay) of all, the level of ozone has increased even as the costs of restriction have elevated. Obviously more costs, tighter standards, more monitoring will not have any effect on the steadily worsening situation.

That gloomy conclusion results from the simple and easily demonstrated fact that the ozone levels rise and fall in tandem with the direction of the prevailing winds. When the winds come from the general direction of Asia (read China) the levels increase, when the winds blow from some other direction, the ozone slips away to the happy low levels resulting from the efforts of the past forty years.

Perhaps because California and its neighbors have a lot more voters than the three miscreant New Mexico counties, the EPA will have to acknowledge its powerlessness in the face of made-in-China ozone. Then again, perhaps not. Perhaps EPA will demand admission to the US foreign policy community.

Not that the foreign policy community of the US is currently underpopulated. Nearly every cabinet department has a seat. The new, expanded National Security Council has a (very large) seat. Then the Congress is amply if usually parochially represented. With so many oars of varying sizes in the murky, choppy waters of foreign affairs it is no wonder that the ship of state so often is in peril of foundering on the rocks of one overseas "crisis" or another.

The introduction of the EPA, or the current administration's climate "czar(s)" will in no way improve our capacity to address any realities which might reside behind the scrim of distortions, junk science, special pleading, and drives-for-power created by the climate change Warriors of the Good Cause. The mere mouthing of "pledges" by the US government or the government of any other country without both a sound basis to justify the needs underlying the "pledges" and a verifiable mechanism of unquestionably reliability and disinterestedness is an exercise in feel-good meaninglessness.

The best that might be adduced in support of making pledges and similar exercises in political masturbation is that such an exercise does far less damage than does invoking the bureaucratic force of some remote, out of touch agency to impose counterproductive sanctions on an innocent public. It is just this that Mr de Boer and his ilk both inside and without the UN desire to do.

Pace Mr de Boer, but the only effective, authentic way to address whatever (if anything) which might reside within and under the term of "anthropogenic climate change" is the slow, messy means of political give and take. This means not only the political process of diplomacy but also, at least in those few countries where democracy reigns in a relatively untrammeled form, the even more messy process of achieving a domestic consensus on what should be done, what might be done, and how to do it.

In turn this requires that folks like Mr de Boer abandon their automatic love affair with top down fiats and diktats. It demands that Mr de Boer and company surrender their reflexive reliance upon central commands. It means there is finally no substitute for trusting the self-organizing, decentralized capacities of an informed public.

An informed public means a public which is not lied to by "scientists" who believe with the terrible sincerity of an al-Qaeda leader in the justice of their desired ends allows for the employment of any means. The perversion and prostitution of the methods of science--including constant testing, constant criticism, constant doubt--cannot be allowed to stand. There can be no more well-intended lies, no more silencing of critics, no more running roughshod over doubts.

A good start in this direction would be the disestablishment of the IPCC. It has no more credibility. It has surrendered all rights to be heard. It must be replaced by an open body which includes all the doubters, the sceptics, the agnostics. True beliefs, compelling agendas, needs for power and prestige will only assure that no informed public can or will exist.

Mr de Boer and others who share his perspective must also go. They do not and cannot accept that bureaucracies do not have all the answers, that central commands are not likely to result in long term success. And, worst of all, they distrust, perhaps even despise the good sense, intelligence, and capacity for effective self-organization of the hoi polloi.

As the soldiers of Cromwell said to the Long Parliament, "You have sat here too long to do any good. Get hence!"

There Is No "International Community!"

British Prime Minister, the Right Honorable Gordon Brown, is either totally gripless or gripped by a delusion of monumental proportions. Mr Brown is quoted as saying that the debacle in Copenhagen occurred because "some countries" held the proposed treaty "for ransom." He went on to call for either the reformation of the UN or the formation of a new body so that the "international community" could properly deal with "challenges" confronting the "international community."

Here is the fundamental flaw with Mr Brown's tocsin: There is no such thing as the "international community." Period.

There are a lot of independent sovereign states. Indeed, sovereign states have proliferated at a rate compared to which neither rabbits nor cockroaches can be described as rapid breeders. Of course, every sovereign independent state has to be a member of all possible international bodies including but not limited to the UN. This is one of the reasons the UN--and other subsidiary bodies--have become the havens for inefficiency, corruption, and a shakedown-the-West-at-the drop-of-a-hat attitude.

Mr Brown, and a host of others infesting the self-appointed elites of both Europe and the US, including in all probability the current occupant of the Oval, is of the fashionable post-modernist view that the age of the sovereign independent nation-state is over. Mr. Brown (and Mr Obama) shares the necessary twin of that thought: And, the world is better off for the death of the nation-state.

This understanding of international relations is both unrooted in reality and dangerously counterproductive in practice. Mr Brown's comment about climate change being held for ransom and his prescription calling for the creation of yet another international body show this--on steroids.

The real deal as Mr Brown (and Mr Obama) must know down deep somewhere in the back recesses of the mind is that nation-states are alive, flourishing, and showing all their usual characteristics of operating from subjectively defined self-interest. When China torpedoed the rush to a treaty, any treaty at Copenhagen, it did so out of rationally defined national interest. The same was true of the hijack-the-rich oriented states of the G77.

Even the US operated from the basis of national interest when its president demanded that any agreement include verification mechanisms so as to be more than a paper sham. The resulting outrage from China spoke volumes about the power and persistence of nationalism.

This is the reality. It will remain the reality. Whether the subject is esoteric and absurd such as anthropogenic climate change or down, dirty, and in the mud of reality such as the thwarting of Iranian nuclear ambitions, the motivator of states will remain the same. It will be what it always has been in the past, a careful calculation of what course of action best serves the national and strategic interests of the state--or, worse but more common, what will serve the political interests of the present government.

If Gordon Brown were to be afflicted with a severe case of honest self-assessment, he would have to admit that his obsession with global warming is a calculated effort to divert attention within the British electorate with the very real problems at home, problems which call into serious question the future election prospects of the Labor Party. The national interest, the strategic interests of the UK, were not in play at Copenhagen despite the plentiful catastrophe predicting oratory of Mr Brown. All that was at stake was the ability of the Brown Ministry to bamboozle the public well enough to limit the election damage yet to come.

Mr Obama's performance at Copenhagen was similarly inclined less to furthering the interests of the US and more to bolstering his political interests at home during a time of sinking polls and doubt over the great healthcare transformation effort in the Senate. The President had to have some semblance of success, no matter how insubstantial in substance without at the same time being seen to have blatantly sold American jobs and the national economy down the river in order that the plaudits of the European elite might ring louder in his ears.

Now, back in the real world, both Mr Obama and Mr Brown must deal with the power of national interest as the clock runs out on the end of the year deadline for Iranian compliance with the demands of the "international community" or at least the P5+1. National interest alone will dictate the positions taken regarding sanctions on the part of Russia and China. National and strategic interests will determine just how well the German, French, or British government actually enforce sanctions both past and future.

And, national interest of the most existential sort will determine how long Israel waits before taking solo action to abate the Iranian threat.

The Tehran regime will also have to weigh national interest, including that of an existential variety in determining their posture, including any changes from their so far successful approach of talk and delay, talk and bluster, talk and exploit the differences in national and strategic interest between the members of the P5+1. The Iranians will cloud their picture with the eschatological views of Shia Islam and the personal interpretations of that held by President Ahmadinejad. It will be further clouded by the potential impact of the funeral and memorial rites attendant upon the death of Ayatollah Montezeri.

In any and all these countries the crucial choices will be made by individual governments and not by the mythical "international community." In all these countries the governments, the decision makers, will base their decisions upon the needs, fears, and plans of their own nation's interests and strategic requirements.

So, Mr Brown and the rest of the crowd had best get a grip on the reality of nationalism and abandon the convenient delusion of an "international community." Their future (and ours) depends upon it.

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.

Is One Child An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

There is a fine British ezine called Spiked with which the Geek finds himself in general agreement. In terms of politics the site is, in American terms, rather libertarian-socialist, which seems to be but is not a contradiction in terms. In this case the designation "libertarian-socialist" implies a strong trust in the individual, a strong distrust of central governments, and a healthy disregard for capitalism as the sovereign remedy for economic disparities and social injustices.

However, the Geek profoundly dissents from the well argued view presented by editor Brendan O'Neill in opposition to the growing applause by greens and others of the anti-global warming camp for the long standing Chinese policy limiting most urban families to one child. The recent and increasing embrace of the Chinese approach to the problems presented by overpopulation is predicated upon the belief that no child, no human, is "carbon neutral. Mr O'Neill's opposition is based upon the undeniable reality that the one child policy provides, indeed, requires a very potent governmental intrusion on the most intimate of human decisions.

The Geek yields to no one primacy of place in inherent and well founded suspicion of governmental intrusion into the private sphere. As numerous posts have shown, the Geek is unalterably opposed to any, repeat, any expansion of public space, of governmental supervision or regulation of the private space, the sphere bounded by personal, private decision making and behavior.

Given that orientation it would be natural for the Geek to agree with Mr O'Neill's position. In the present matter the weight of fact falls firmly on the side of those who support a global version of the Chinese one child policy. The successes of public health and agricultural technology over the past century have assured the world's population has exploded to a level where it exceeds the carrying capacity of the land or, in a best case, the economic capabilities of a country.

The ground truth is simple. There exists not a single matter of environmental degradation which cannot be reduced to a unitary cause: Too many people.

Whether the problem is one of pollution, resource exhaustion, or global climate change, the root cause remains the same: Too many people.

The converse is also true. Fewer people, regardless of the technological or consumption level, use fewer resources, emit less waste, generate less carbon dioxide and other alleged greenhouse gases.

In the wild and wacky world of the dismal science, economics, the same ground truths apply. Greater population exerts downward pressure on wages. Lesser population exerts a pressure for higher wages. A very fine example of this dynamic is seen in the aftermath of the Black Death epidemics in Europe. An alternative, reinforcing demonstration is seen in the effects of the Thirty Years War on population and income.

Human population growth remained very low during our long centuries as hunter-gatherers. The few remaining enclaves of hunter-gatherer societies available for ethnologists and anthropologists to study further demonstrated that the low population increase was a matter of policy, of individual choice, rather than the consequence of life being according to the paradigm of Hobbs--nasty, brutish, and short.

The hunter-gatherers practiced a wide assortment of approaches to gain the goal of limiting population. These included prolonged lactation, strong taboos, use of abortifacients, and, quite rarely, infanticide.

The development of agriculture took the lid off self-imposed restraint. Children, lots of them, were necessary not only to offset the shorter life expectancy of farmers but to provide labor.

Because of the inherent uncertainties of agriculturally based life, population growth remained low. Importantly, this low growth was imposed by the nature of agrarian life and its corollary, urbanization. The coming of industrialization in the West did nothing to change the trajectory of high birth and high death rates.

Not until the advent of effective public health measures which lowered the death rates from infectious diseases did the population--even the middle class sort so beloved of demographers--move to limit family size as a matter of individual decision making. The phenomenon noted by so many of declining middle class and elite birth rates came as a consequence of lowered infant and childhood mortality during the middle decades of the Twentieth Century. As public health improvements spread from the West to other areas of the globe with the inevitable result of lowered mortality among the young, the emerging middle class of these countries followed the same limiting dynamic previously observed in the West.

The combination of lowered death rates, which ultimately affected all strata of society, and massively asymmetrical birth rates as between the elite and non-elite segments of any country's population assured the explosive overall population growth seen during the past seventy-five or so years. The reckoning predicted by Malthus was forestalled by advances in technology, most notably the "Green Revolution" of the Fifties and Sixties.

A reckoning delayed does not equal a reckoning denied. The human race has been entirely too fruitful and has multiplied too well. While all monotheistic religions decry and deny that there can ever be too many people and advocates in certain ethnic groups may loudly brand any effort at population limitation to be "genocide" inflicted on the minority by the majority, both of these positions are untenable, indefensible, and ultimately destructive of the best interests of all humans and the planet upon which we live alike.

Whether assorted clerics and "spokesmen," pundits and politicians, boosters and demagogues like it or not, population limitation is coming. Probably it is coming sooner rather than later.

Limits on our collective growth can and will be enforced in one or more of three ways. Our population can be reduced in the traditional way--The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Or it can be reduced over time by the Chinese Way--governmental fiat and control. Or, finally, we can do it ourselves by acknowledging that our hunter-gatherer predecessors knew a very deep truth.

They knew to their very depths what most of us alive today recognize with the rational part of our brains. All land, every country, every piece of property has a natural carrying capacity which can be stretched only so far by the products of mind and muscle. The limits to the ultimate carrying capacity of land, whether natural as in the availability of resources or quasi-artificially as in the economic value of effort, labor, and invention, are real. They are imposed by the nature of life and the Earth themselves.

Obviously, the Geek greatly prefers the third option. But, one way or another, by act(s) of nature or the decisions of governments, the limits will be imposed. Far better we do it ourselves by individual choice rather than submit to either the iron will of pestilence, famine, and war or the dictates of government.

May we live in interesting times. Like it or not we are.

Give Us Your Money--Or Else!

After having been treated to diatribes against the developed, capitalistic countries from such astute political and social scientists as Hugo Chavez, Robert Mugabe, and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the nations assembled in Copenhagen are now attempting to salvage a done deal on the horrid beast called "Anthropogenic Climate Change." At the root of the deal making is--what else?--money and its partner in crime: power.

Actually there are two money issues in play. The more obvious one is how much filthy capitalistic lucre can be extorted from the developed nations of the so-called "Global North" by the Mob of the "Global South." Closely related to the first issue is the second: Who or what will control the receipt and expenditure of the money meant to address the challenges of meeting climate change and assuring that at least some of the great carbon sump contained in tropical rain forests continues to exist.

The US has reportedly broken the seeming logjam over the amount of money to be "donated" by the North to the (let's be polite and sensitive about national egos) "lesser and least developed" states of the "South." Secretary of State Clinton has opined that one hundred billion bucks over ten years sounds about right.

This figure is lower than the European Union estimate of 150 gigabucks. It is a whale of a lot lower than the 350 billion dollar commitment demanded by some of the more ambitious governments on the make.

While the total dollar amount of the ransom to be paid by the posse of evil doers known as the advanced economies is important, the question of what entity will disburse and account for the payments is equally important. And, in Copenhagen, equally divisive.

Not surprisingly, the motley congeries flying the flag of the G77 want the money to be funneled through the 192 member Conference of Parties. This assembly would (presumably) appoint an executive committee which would oversee the orderly transfer of ransom funds from the extorted to those running the extortion racket.

A primary advocate for this approach is Farrukh Khan of Pakistan who is a representative of the G77 countries. As a Pakistani he is well acquainted with the mechanisms by which both bi-lateral and international organization provided aid can be hijacked for the benefit of members of any nation's elite.

Mr Khan justifies the use of the Conference of Parties mechanism in lieu of established international bodies such as the World Bank by saying the aid needed in the next few years is not simply business as usual assistance but rather a means of "basically compensating the poor so vulnerable and exposed to the effects of climate change." Oy veh! The chutzpah of this argument is utterly mind blowing!

The US and other "doner" nations favors the World Bank for the obvious reasons of honesty, transparency, accountability, and, compared to either the UN or some new outfit run by the recipient nations, lacking in corruption. Quite correctly, representatives of these nations in Copenhagen have stated with a slightly categorical edge that the money for climate adjustment purposes must be appropriated by national legislatures and these bodies (to say nothing of the taxpayers who are ultimately being mulcted) will insist upon rigid standards of both practice and transparency.

Like all the games nations (and politicians) play the real deal here is power. The international extortion effort is an exercise in wealth transfer of prodigious proportions. Whatever body runs it will become a very major player on the global scene.

It is not surprising at all that representatives of countries ranging from the large (such as Brazil, South Africa and India) to the truly piss-ant (not named for reasons of political correctness) wish most fervently for the Conference of Parties to have the ultimate say over the flow of cash. It is equally void of drama that the Great Powers (as well as the Nearly Great) want to see control and thus power reside in trustworthy hands--their own.

As the Geek has posted before, the realities of climate change and its cause do not matter. Neither does the view of at least half of all Americans. The political class of both advanced and poor nations as well as the UN and status conscious scientists hold the position that global warming is both real and man made. As a consequence, life and the world as we have known it will change dramatically in the next few years and decades.

The goal of the US government must be that of assuring the changes will have a minimal negative impact upon the citizens of this country. That is called defense of national self-interest and any government which ignores this imperative does so at great peril to its continuation in power.

So far, the Obama administration (or at least the Secretary of State) has taken a firmer line in Copenhagen than many feared (or hoped.) It must continue to do so regardless of the mighty moans and fierce threats coming from the general direction of the G77 dacoits in diplomatic dress. After all, the only real concern for an American government should be, must be, the well-being of the American people.

The Climate, National Identity, And Extortion

At first, the "mixed messages" sent by President Nicholas Sarkozy to the Muslim population of France and the ongoing rhubarb at the Monster Rally Against Global Warming seem to have little in common. A bit of reflection, however, shows a deep and necessary connection.

Mr Sarkozy stated that discrimination against Muslims was unacceptable to French law and French historical traditions. He went on to say in no uncertain terms that Muslims who came to France as well as those born in the country had to accept the realities of French and European history, which included the centrality of such non-Islamic features as equality before the law, transparent democracy, and--most un-Muslim of all--the powerful impact of the Christian religion on all facets of life.

President Sarkozy bored directly to a vital question not only in France or Europe but throughout the world. That question revolves around both the nature of national identity and the cruciality of national identity to matters of international relations.

The Sarkozy position on national identity and its necessary twin, nationalism, runs counter to the myth making of the chattering, academic, and (some of the) political classes in both Western Europe and the US. The French president spoke reality. He spoke truth.

The truth of his position has been underscored rather dramatically in the brouhaha which has emerged since one of the discussion drafts prepared by the host government, Denmark, was leaked to the Guardian in the UK. This so-called "Danish Text" ignited a firestorm of protest by representatives of the G77 states as well as their advocates among the NGO crowd such as Oxfam.

The important features of the draft discussion text include the apparent scuttling of the Kyoto Accord, the removal of the UN from the role of largess distributor, measures which would limit the economic destruction of the world's advanced economies, and the replacement of hard and fast decrements of carbon emissions by hazier goals. None of these features are exceptional given the current status of the questionable science undergirding the anthropogenic climate change hypothesis, the fragile state of the recovery from the Great Recession, the past record of the UN when administering wealth transfer programs, or the technological realities of carbon reduction.

Nor are any of the features exceptional when considered in terms of national identity, or, to be more blunt, national interest.

The reaction of countries at the bottom end of the international economic spectrum show just how powerful and real national interest, nationalism, is right now in Copenhagen. Lumumba Stanislaus Dia Ping, the Sudanese ambassador to the G77, called the draft document another manifestation of imperialism. In words which would have done any Marxist-Leninist revolutionary proud, he said, "The Empire has always relentlessly and ruthlessly grabbed natural resources."

Presumably the "natural resources" being "grabbed" this time by the "Empire" (whatever that might mean) are the atmosphere and climate of the world. This, of course, overlooks the minor fact that the "Empire" shares both air and weather with even the Sudanese.

A more salient exhibition of the power of national identity and nationalism is resident in the threat by the "poor" countries to walk out of the climate conflab unless their demands for money are adequately met. Again, it was Mr Dia Ping who set the tone by decrying the ten billion dollars to be committed by the "rich" nations (presumably the "Empire") as a "wholly inadequate bribe" which put the "climate crisis" on a lower priority than the Great Recession.

If ten billion dollars per year for the period 2010-2012 is an inappropriately small "bribe," what would Mr Dia Ping consider to be an acceptable figure? Twenty billion? Fifty billion? No limit?

Apparently, the small, poor nations can't agree on the number, but they have achieved a consensus on the notion that "compensation" is necessary. Without the iron clad guarantee of proper wealth transfer from the industrialized nations to the assorted "have nots," there is a threat that the latter group will simply walk out of the Monster Rally.

This dramatic gesture would simply be a means of attention grabbing as well as an instrument of extortion. Most of all, it would be a strong, even strident example of nationalism at work. It might be a very good idea if the G77 states would stage a walk out. Such an action would force the political and perhaps even the chattering class to reevaluate their prize notion that nationalism is a dead or dying force in the politics of international relations.

Both the "Danish Text" and the G77 response show the power of nationalism--cloaked in the garments of national interest--has the compelling power ascribed to it by President Sarkozy's remarks on the relation of French history and culture with that of Islam. The lens of national interest bends whatever light passes through it. It must distort.

But, that distortion is not one of evil intent. It is one of the unique history of a people, of a nation which produces as an inevitable consequence a particular view of the world and what the nation must seek or accept in the dynamics of international relations.

Governments as a result must look out for their own interests, their own survival first and foremost. Democratic, pluralistic countries produce governments which serve their own interests by effectively (appearing to be) serving the best interests of their citizens. Other, less democratic, less pluralistic, less open governments skip the charade of serving the interests of the nation and focus on the personal fortunes and futures of those in government or most tightly connected to it.

The government of Sudan--and many of the G77 states fall in the latter category. These worthies have little if any concern for the well being of those unfortunate to live under their sway. They do, however have a great concern for personal well-being, personal survival, personal finances.

Not surprisingly, the representatives of these governments look to the US and the other industrialized, advanced economies as cash cows to be milked at length. It is for this reason as well, these governments would love to see the UN in charge of wealth redistribution programs as the chances for graft and corruption would be magnified thereby. (For proof of this unflattering contention simply review the Oil-For-Food Program as administered for a decade by the UN.)

Nationalism and its underpinning, national identity, are alive and well every moment of every day. They motivate as well as conceal the efforts by governments great and small to do the work of both running a state and playing the Great Game of Nations in all its many forms. It is this ground truth which links head, shoulder, and hip the cautionary statements of Mr Sarkozy and the gavotte in progress at the Monster Rally in Copenhagen.

More examples of the interesting times in which we live.

The Futility Of "Climategate"

Ever since the hacked emails from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia in the UK were posted on the web there has been an enormous brouhaha over the apparent squashing of dissent, massaging of data, and similar sins of both omission and commission. By and large the contretemps has been confined to the blogosphere, particularly sites such as Pajamas Media which reside on the right side of the political spectrum. Coverage by the MSM has been slight and rather biased against the contention that there is anything amiss at CRU.

Government officials, particularly in the UK, as well as outlets such as the London Times have decried the hacking itself as well as assuring all who might listen that the scientific consensus regarding anthropogenic climate change was both real and robust. Those who dissent from this consensus are dubbed "deniers" and "flat earthers."

While branded as being nearly paleolithic in mentality, the range and competence of the many climate contrarians have been gaining traction and credibility with the public both in the US and Western Europe to the dismay of the It's-Getting-Hot-And-We-Did-It crew. Given that thirty or so years ago the same sort of "climate scientists" who today predict death by heat prognosticated death by arctic emergency as the globe was cooling and the glaciers must be coming soon, a healthy dose of skepticism is appropriate.

The sorrow and the tragedy surrounding human driven global warming and its political expressions such as that forthcoming in Copenhagen is not that the science may be shaky or questionable--or that the consensus may be driven not by objective science--but rather by the human needs of scientists for status, power, and the other good things of life.

The sorrow, the tragedy, the pity of it all is that neither science nor truth matter in the slightest. As the Geek has posted before, the issue of global warming is simply too attractive to politicians and bureaucrats--particularly of the international sort--to allow to pass unexploited. Ever since Al Gore and other exemplars of The-Sky-Is-Falling school of thought latched onto the initial, fragmentary, contradictory data concerning temperature changes over the past century of so, the potential for further governmental power enhancement has exercised a hypnotic appeal to both governments and the elites affiliated with them.

In a way quite similar to earlier expansions of governmental authority, of public space into the private space of individual decision making, key political, bureaucratic and, oh yes, scientific personalities have adopted global warming and its halting as a way of further narrowing the private space available to individuals. As a high ranking member of the US National Institutes of Health once said to the Geek regarding the absence of sound science in support of the second hand smoke kills hypothesis, "That's true. But it doesn't matter. A political decision has been made."

Global warming, or, more properly, the halting of the menace provides an exceptionally fertile field for the pursuit of manifold agendas.

Left leaning politicians can avail themselves of the global warming fig leaf to cover their actual genitalia--those of controlling, restricting, perhaps removing the residuals of the free market and gaining more and more control over even such trivial personal decisions as what sort of light bulb does one buy.

Internationalists as well as bureaucrats at the UN, the EU, and other regional organizations can use the specter of global cooking to gain power over national entities as well as private citizens and everyone's (particularly if one is on the Left) favorite evil--the soulless, multi-national corporation.

As a sort of secondary reward, the multi-cultural, multi-lateral, nations-are-evil-and-reactionary portion of Western and American elites can use the lever of global warming to foster more and more reliance upon supra-national entities at the expense of national ones.

Then there are the national leaders, the national governments, who see global warming as an opportunity to mulct the "wealthy, developed nations." The unseemly behavior of a number of African delegations at the preliminary climate meeting last month in pursuit of extortion demonstrates this use of global warming with perfection.

The scientists--that is the scientists who hold "correct" views on the subject--can use the global warming threat to gain grants, acquire power, elevate status. Some from the physics community might even construe the global warming warnings as a sort of penance for the "sins" of physics such as nuclear weapons and long range missiles.

Overall there is much to be gained and little or nothing to lose in the pursuit of ameliorating the presumed planetary catastrophe of global warming. That is if one is a member of one of the components of the elite which would gain power by doing so.

If, however, one is not a member of one of the elect groups, the "healing of Gaea" will be costly. Costly in money. More costly in the loss of personal freedom, in the further diminishment of private space.

History demonstrates that encroachments by public space on private, by the authority of the state on the liberties of the individual, are rarely reversed. And, any reversals are normally purchased in blood.

The expansion of public space, of national and international remote authority, is reason enough in and of itself to make the science utterly irrelevant to the process. The process of gaining power needs no real objective, scientific basis. It only requires the existence of a plausible fear. That plus the will and means to exploit and stoke fear will result in the goal of power acquisition being achieved.

Climategate does not matter in the slightest. Even the harboring of doubts about the scientific base of the global warming hypothesis by a majority of We the People doesn't matter.

Science--and public desires--be damned! Full speed ahead at Copenhagen and its successors. Full speed ahead to a brave new world order of less personal freedom as Authority protects against the thermometer.