----- Original Message ----- From: "James Heartfield" <Jim at heartfield.demon.co.uk> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>; <revo-readers at egroups.com> Sent: Sunday, April 01, 2001 5:00 AM Subject: Global Warming
> The WEEK
> ending 1 April 2001
>
> GLOBAL WARMING TREATY GOES UP IN SMOKE
>
> President George W Bush trashed the consensus on global warming with the
> blunt announcement that the treaty on climate control was not in the
> interests of the US. European leaders like Germany's Gerhard Schroeder
> could hardly contain their anger, while British PM Tony Blair struggled
> to pull the US back into the club.
>
> The consensus on global warming was always a political consensus
> masquerading as a scientific one. Those climatologists that failed to
> support the findings of the International Panel on Climate Control were
> denounced in McCarthyite smear campaigns. The panel itself masqueraded
> as a scientific body, but operated not according to the open system of
> peer review but on a committee basis, more akin to the drafting of a
> government document. Rather than winning the argument on the facts, the
> IPCC sought to bludgeon opponents into submission by weight of numbers.
> Signatories to the IPCC report were not necessarily experts in the
> field, but scientists from many different disciplines, their signatures
> reflecting personal beliefs rather than research. Not since the three
> International Congresses of Eugenics met between 1912 and 1932 has
> science been so thoroughly subordinated to political goals.
>
> The real force driving the International Panel on Climate Control was a
> debate about economics, not climate. The proponents of climate control
> were supporters of a system of managed capitalism; the opponents, free
> marketeers. Scientific evidence of anthropogenic global warming gave the
> rationale for managing industrialization. Seen in terms of pollution,
> industrialization - especially in the third world - could be presented
> as a problem, rather than a gain. If, as was argued, permissible CO2
> emissions were limited, then a political system of rationing industrial
> output could be justified.
>
> The decisive driver behind the IPCC treaty has been the competition
> amongst national interests.
>
>
> World energy consumption, in quadrillions of British thermal units
> Region 1990 1996
> World total 343.8 375.5
> North America 99.7 111.6
> United States 83.9 93.3
> C and S America 13.7 17.7
> Western Europe 60.0 64.0
> EE and fSU 73.6 52.4
> Middle East 13.1 17.3
> Africa 9.2 11.1
> Far East and Oceania 74.4 101.4
>
>
> While US and East Asian energy consumption rose precipitately in the
> period leading up to the climate treaty, European consumption moderated
> in the West and fell in the East. At that time, the treaty was largely
> driven by anxiety over the competition from the East Asian tiger
> economies - a fear that has waned since the Japanese recession stalled
> growth in the region. But European governments realized that the treaty
> was a protectionist bat to beat the US with. Just as the US used the
> threat of middle eastern terrorism to politicize world energy policy to
> its advantage, Europe used the threat of Global Warming to advance its
> interests.
>
> While Bill Clinton and Al Gore were in the White House the differences
> between the 'Third Way' leaders of the Western world could be contained.
> With the election of George W Bush the consensus has collapsed - at
> least for the moment.
> --
> James Heartfield