Copenhagen Treaty: Will the U.S. cede sovereignty?

http://www.downsizedc.org/blog/copenhagen-treaty-will-the-u-s-cede-sovereignty

We've received numerous requests to stop President Obama from signing a climate change treaty in Copenhagen this December. Many of these requests were inspired by a presentation given by Christopher Monckton at the Minnesota Free Market Institute on October 14.

Monckton says he has read the treaty, believes Obama is sure to sign it, and that it would cede the sovereignty of the U.S. to a world government. (For a video of his remarks on the treaty, go here. To see his full 95-minute presentation that challenges the global warming theory, go here.)

We have yet to see any kind of crisis successfully mitigated through greater coercion, centralization, and bureaucracy. Whether or not one agrees that there is man-made climate change, Monckton's allegations are pretty scary. Anthony Watts provides more scary stuff by providing extensive passages from the treaty.

But there's no need to panic . . .

• The treaty Monckton refers to is a "Framework Convention On Climate Change" or "revised negotiating text." That is, it's a proposal, not a finalized treaty. You can read it yourself here.
• The Financial Times reports that the United Nation's top climate official doesn't believe a treaty will be signed in Copenhagen. What is hoped for is a "political framework for cutting greenhouse gas emissions" with details to be supplied later.
• As Pat Buchanan notes, scientific studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that global warming isn't happening. This is building doubt among the people and causing the climate-change lobby to change tactics.

The most important reason not to panic is that there's something more urgent than Copenhagen. It's the Cap & Trade bill which has passed the House and is before the Senate. As the Financial Times states,

[T]he White House will find it difficult to commit to specific [emissions] cuts before the Senate has considered the cap-and-trade bill now before it.

Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, is adamant that Mr Obama will not repeat the mistakes made over the Kyoto protocol, when the Clinton administration signed a deal that didn't have Congressional approval.

Buchanan concludes,

If, however, cap-and-trade, which the Congressional Budget Office says will be another blow to economic growth, can be stopped before the Copenhagen summit in December, the republic may have dodged another bullet.

If Cap & Trade is defeated, the Obama Administration will have little stature when it attends Copenhagen. It knows that if it can't get 51 Senate votes for a domestic Cap & Trade bill, it will never summon the 67 votes needed to pass an even harsher treaty.

So if you're scared by the possibilities of Copenhagen, the best thing to do is tell the Senate to stop Cap & Trade. You can do so here.

An Inconvenient Spiritual Abuse

I haven't seen Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, but a friend did. This friend was actually expecting to be convinced of the threat of man-made global warming. That is, she assumed it to be true (because that's what we've been told), and was looking forward to the movie presenting actual evidence to back up her belief.

She didn't get the movie she was expecting.

• No evidence was presented that humans were the cause, only assertions.
• Climate change was presented based on the last thousand years, although the earth has been around for 4 billion years and had its share of warming and freezing periods long before man entered the scene, and even since man has been here in the pre-industrial age.
  

My friend admits to getting bored by it and not seeing it all the way through, so she could be wrong. Assuming she isn't, then how in the world are ordinary people supposed to be "convinced" of man-made global warming, if something as well-publicized as An Inconvenient Truth isn't persuasive?

But this failure to be convinced apparently makes my friend worse than a child molester, if an English Bishop is to be believed. From The Birmingham Post:

In a hard-hitting letter to parishioners, Bishop Mursell maintained those who refused to accept the climate change argument shared a 'common philosophy of life' to [Josef] Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a cellar for 24 years during which he sexually abused her and fathered her seven children.

But the question is, why should anyone accept the argument? Because politicians and researchers living off government grants say so? Because your priest says so?

It is people like Bishop Mursell who, by using the issue to enhance their own authority, make the man-made global warming theory less believable. Why believe that man-made global warming exists? "Because WE say so, and WE are credible because of our power and prestige. If you don't agree with what WE say and do as WE command, then you are worse than [insert Hitler, child molesters, or your favorite villain here]."

Saying the same thing over and over again doesn't make it true, and demonizing the unconvinced doesn't actually make them monsters.

What it does suggest, however, is that Bishop Mursell likes to spiritually abuse his parishioners through false comparisons and guilt-manipulation. Perhaps he sees a little bit of Fritzl in his own behavior, and his projecting his self-loathing outward.

The Case For Unlimited Government

Found here. The cause here is global warming, and because the "worst that can happen" is catastrophic, we MUST TAKE ACTION NOW.

But you can plug any issue into the grid. For instance, what of the possibility of some jihadist getting hold of a weapon of mass destruction? Plug into the grid, and one concludes that we must GIVE UP OUR CIVIL LIBERTIES RIGHT NOW to prevent terrorism. If the leader of a Middle Eastern state might possibly hand over WMD's to terrorists, we must GO TO WAR RIGHT NOW.

Fear, of course, is behind every excuse for expanding government. But government coercion isn't the only way to solve a problem. Most of the time, it's not even the best way. A lot of the time, it's the worst way.

In any case, the best thing government can do to stop global warming, if it exists, is to tax bads instead of goods, and we should be doing that anyway.