At a time like this when climate
change and environmental problems have assumed the forefront of international
issues, one man questions the intention of world politicians, environmentalists
and scientists in making the issue so much of a big deal while the
change is but a natural phenomenon. That man is Vaclav Klaus, the
Czech President who has been in office since 2003. He is well known
around the world for his ‘unique’ views on the climate
change consensus. He sees climate change as propaganda used by Western
politicians to distract voters from pressing current issues. “These
‘escapists’ who do not have ideas rich in content with
which to fill the present, hatch plans and visions for fifty to a
hundred years to come … and don’t have to worry about
immediate problems”, he said, “First, politicians have
put climate protection on the agenda for self-interest and journalists
then jumped aboard as freeloaders kicking up a storm with a headline-making
issue”.
This week’s Finite Planet invites readers to get acquainted
with Vaclav’s ideas and features his own article. We will be
glad to entertain your comments on his views. Write to us at syscom@ethionet.et
Freedom,not climate is at risk
We are living in strange times. One exceptionally warm winter
is enough – irrespective of the fact that in the course of
the 20th century the global temperature increased only by 0.6 per
cent – for the environmentalists and their followers to suggest
radical measures to do something about the weather, and to do it
right now.
In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary”
film was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more
or less Tony Blair’s – Stern report was published, the
fourth report of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change was put together and the Group of Eight summit
announced ambitions to do something about the weather. Rational
and freedom-loving people have to respond. The dictates of political
correctness are strict and only one permitted truth, not for the
first time in human history, is imposed on us. Everything else is
denounced.
The author Michael Crichton stated it clearly: “the greatest
challenge facing mankind is the challenge of distinguishing reality
from fantasy, truth from propaganda”. I feel the same way,
because global warming hysteria has become a prime example of the
truth versus propaganda problem. It requires courage to oppose the
“established” truth, although a lot of people –
including top-class scientists – see the issue of climate
change entirely differently. They protest against the arrogance
of those who advocate the global warming hypothesis and relate it
to human activities.
As someone who lived under communism for most of his life, I feel
obliged to say that I see the biggest threat to freedom, democracy,
the market economy and prosperity now in ambitious environmentalism,
not in communism. This ideology wants to replace the free and spontaneous
evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning.
The environmentalists ask for immediate political action because
they do not believe in the long-term positive impact of economic
growth and ignore both the technological progress that future generations
will undoubtedly enjoy, and the proven fact that the higher the
wealth of society, the higher is the quality of the environment.
They are Malthusian pessimists.
The scientists should help us and take into consideration the political
effects of their scientific opinions. They have an obligation to
declare their political and value assumptions and how much they
have affected their selection and interpretation of scientific evidence.
Does it make any sense to speak about warming of the Earth when
we see it in the context of the evolution of our planet over hundreds
of millions of years? Every child is taught at school about temperature
variations, about the ice ages, about the much warmer climate in
the Middle Ages. All of us have noticed that even during our life-time
temperature changes occur (in both directions).
Due to advances in technology, increases in disposable wealth, the
rationality of institutions and the ability of countries to organise
themselves, the adaptability of human society has been radically
increased. It will continue to increase and will solve any potential
consequences of mild climate changes.
I agree with Professor Richard Lindzen from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology, who said: “future generations will wonder in
bemused amazement that the early 21st century’s developed
world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature
increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross
exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined
into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a
roll-back of the industrial age”.
The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences
and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree
Celsius changes in average global temperature.
As a witness to today’s worldwide debate on climate change,
I suggest the following:
- Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive
measures
- Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
- Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone
to live as he wants
- Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term
"scientific consensus", which is always achieved only
by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
- Instead of speaking about "the environment", let us
be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
- Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of
human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow
it down or divert it in any direction
- Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use
them to defend and promote irrational
-interventions in human lives.
|
