The UN appears to be becoming the global police agency for climate change. Consider that it has sanctioned NZ for not doing enough to curtail greenhouse gas emissions. With 20% of the population living in uninsulated homes in a coldish climate, and not having any industry, you might wonder what they could do. Oh, of course they could stop expanding their dairy industry based on farting cows, and of course they could educate the Chinese to eat local produce rather than imported fatty foods, but that is not going to happen.
The issue of course raises several issues:
1. Is there really any anthropogenic climate change 'effect'? I'm a geologist and I'm convinced there is not, based on my appreciation of 'scientific expertise', human nature, political systems, and the nature of the debate itself.
2. Ought the UN be telling anyone how to behave? Well I guess they claim to embody science. The problem is that these politically aligned and appointed scientists represent only one side of the debate, and they give no standing to people with alternative views.
3. How ought the pain of climate change policy be implemented? Need Chinese people go without air conditioning? Ought NZ'ers go without housing internal heating? Do Chinese women have the right to drink milk? Its an important source of calcium.
4. Is UN intervention political meddling? It is an election year in NZ, and the UN is sticking its nose into local politics.
The reality is that the UN is not the problem or the solution. What we need more than another layer of government is a layer of objectivity. This is lacking from every government agency, as well as from a great deal of corporate and even personal discourse. Why? Well, I would suggest it has a lot to do with the nature of social institutions, as well as the quality of our education system. Yep. Its a question of values. But I will say more about that later.
I think if I was the NZ government, I would terminate the funding for the UN climate change division. I would be inclined to argue against the ardent 'scientific rationalism' that these government agencies are prone to engage in, and I would suggest that the future of carbon abatement lies in energy efficiency measures and technological improvement, and not the ideology of fascism that would see us renouncing all personal values for the sake of the climate. Parallels can be drawn with Hitler's animal rights campaign. At the time most people were probably inclined to think Hitler cared about animal welfare. The reality is that he cared more about animals than humans. The UN is the same. They are haters of humanity. They want to enslave mankind to serve its puerile policies. They ought to be asking instead why car engines are still using 1880s engine technology? Why people are so materialistic? You will find them on the wrong side of the climate change ledger. History is full of cases of 'do-gooders' who are actually antagonists for the causes the profess to embody. I assert with confidence that emissions will increase more because the UN exists than if it didn't. Not just because more government cars will exist; not just because the funds wasted on it would otherwise be invested in emissions abatement; not because they embody the worst standards of science; but because they are simply another layer of the same policy...a legitimatising agent for government coercion. Coercion that always is destined to destroy the human mind and its capacity to bring about the ideas that would result in improved efficiency. In the interim, we will have to accept the 36% efficiency of the internal combustion engine, space heating, etc. Good luck with that!
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com
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