House of Eratosthenes

ManBearPig is the argument that the planet is going to become unable to sustain life on an ongoing basis unless our lifestyles are sacrificed. It’s dressed up in a bunch of phony statements about “global warming” which eventually had to be dropped as a catchphrase a couple years ago when the globe was no longer warming, replaced with “climate change.”

There are two things that make this convincing.

One, the ManBearPig proponents like to frame the debate into something besides the central questions, which are: Has the case been made that our lifestyles are incompatible with the planet’s ability to sustain life in the future, and if so, to what extent? Instead, they frame it as — is the planet getting warmer? Or, has it been getting warmer? Can we come up with some data showing a locality has been getting warmer, so we can imply it’s a global phenomenon without stating that outright? Or not even that — but — can we find some pictures of polar bears that look like they’re having a tough time finding ice?

Two…it’s kind of tough to imagine what someone — anyone — has to gain from destroying a standard of living enjoyed by millions under false pretenses. We tend to rule that possibility out prematurely. Nobody has anything to gain, we figure, and so it’s either an honest mistake, or…Aiiiieeeggh!!! Globular wormening will kill us all!!!

I know, it sounds silly. But that’s the thought process. We think okay, Al Gore might have something to gain, but gosh that’s a lot of “scientists” who agree with him…and surely it’s revenue neutral for them, right?

Well, no it isn’t. But that’s a side-issue.

The big money is identified here, and it is by far the best job I have ever seen of describing what…well…what, frankly, we’ve done a pretty crappy job of getting anyone to discuss, let alone inspect, thus far.

Let’s examine what the Kyoto treaty on man-made or “anthropogenic” global warming (AGW) is and isn’t.

First, it’s an example of globalization, despite the fact many of its advocates claim to oppose globalization.

But it is not, primarily, an environmental treaty.

If it was, it would require the developing world to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as it does for a relative handful of industrialized nations, including Canada.

The lack of targets for the developing world reveals Kyoto as primarily a mechanism for redistributing wealth from the First World to the Third, unsurprising given its origins in the United Nations.

Then there’s Kyoto’s accounting tricks.

Russia is in compliance with Kyoto and has billions of dollars of “hot air” credits to sell to countries like Canada — not because of its environmental policies, but because the base year for Kyoto was deliberately set at 1990, just as the economy of the former Soviet Union was imploding, causing the shutdown of many GHG-producing industries. Similarly, Germany and the European Union benefit from the collapse of the East German economy.

I’d like to remind everybody of one thing here: This article should not have been necessary.

Just take a look at what we have been told. The world’s population is swelling and these people, or more precisely the infrastructures that must blossom to service their multiplying needs, are emitting greenhouse gases that threaten the environment…we’re bound to cross some point-of-no-return unless we mend our ways now…and that mending of ways should be burdened only upon developed nations, not on developing nations.

We wouldn’t do that.

Maybe if we had some reassurances that things would be brought under control, by expenditure of only a fraction of the carbon-curtailing effort that is globally possible. Maybe then, we’d let “developing nations” off the hook. But nobody has made any such reassurances. Folks — it’s so simple. If the bus is headed toward the cliff and nobody knows if the brakes are working, the argument is “well for heaven’s sake, try!!” — we’d give it our all.

But it’s only a tiny fraction of observers who actually follow this stuff, who understand this has never been part of what’s proposed. The ManBearPig movement has always been about making sure there’s less living going on…only in first-world nations.

I’d scribble down a few poison-pen words, shaking a virtual finger at people for the red flag this has somehow failed to raise. But that would be a chastisement dealing with logic. It’s useless to chastise people about logic, when there are problems with the learning upon which the logic is to be based. Most people simply don’t know.

ManBearPig is “a mechanism for redistributing wealth from the First World to the Third.” In a global economy…one in which national currencies are measured relative to each other.

That means when the British Pound is weaker, there are people here who get filthy stinking rich. Conversely, when the USD is weaker, there are people in the European Union who get rich. And now we have brand new commodities. Carbon credits. Pollution credits. Vouchers. Whatever you want to call them. This is bounty-hunting against industries; kill an industry, get a bounty.

But some people are not personally invested in any of this stuff. And they screech about the ManBearPig about as loud as anybody.

Those are the “useful idiots.” They’re scared — or once upon a time, they got scared and unfortunately, said something about it. Their egos will not allow them to change their minds, and so they get quite nasty when they see others showing the skepticism they themselves know they should have shown.

Can’t we all get together and agree that when the economy has become internationalized to the point where some people make money off destroying other people, perhaps things have gotten a little too sophisticated? Seems to me if we want to regulate anything at all, that’d be a great place to start…

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- Webloggin - Blog Archive » ManBearPig: Follow the Money | 01/09/2008 @ 17:52
The carbon credit thing causes me hysterical laughter. So, say somebody wants you to have less money in your pocket, you know for the good of your kids. They then force you to put some of your money in their pocket, voila problem solved!

The mark says:
But, but, but we still have the same amount of money total between us.

The con man says:
Problem still solved, because the intent was to get it to my pocket all along.

I think this is called “economic justice” by some.

I’m still pondering “environmental justice” but it’s kind of murky. It’s kind of like when you first found out a moebius strip only has one surface, kinda slippery.
- Allen L | 01/09/2008 @ 20:44

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ManBearPig: Follow the MoneyWednesday, January 9th, 2008

ManBearPig: Follow the Money
Wednesday, January 9th, 2008