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Saturday, July 18, 2020

Chris Talgo: Climate Alarmism Versus the Scientific Method


In early June, the World Economic Forum unveiled the Great Reset. The Great Reset is a farce having very little to do with saving or conserving the environment and everything to do with crony capitalism and forcibly imposing unreliable and unaffordable green energy schemes on the world. In short, the Great Reset is the Green New Deal on a worldwide scale.

Like the Green New Deal’s advocates did at its rollout, those pushing the Great Reset are using fearmongering and unwarranted doom-and-gloom predictions to make people believe it is the only way to avert a global apocalypse.

According to Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, “We only have one planet and we know that climate change could be the next global disaster with even more dramatic consequences for humankind. We have to decarbonize the economy in the short window still remaining and bring our thinking and behavior once more into harmony with nature.”

“We need a change of mindset, moving from short-term to long-term thinking, moving from shareholder capitalism to stakeholder responsibility. Environmental, social and good governance have to be a measured part of corporate and governmental accountability,” Schwab said.

This sounds eerily like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) forecast the world will end in 12 years unless the Green New Deal becomes the law of the land.

Not to be outdone, the Prince of Wales described the pressing need for the Great Reset in these terms: “In order to secure our future and to prosper, we need to evolve our economic model and put people and planet at the heart of global value creation. If there is one critical lesson to learn from this crisis, it is that we need to put nature at the heart of how we operate. We simply can’t waste more time.”

It is telling that almost all of the world leaders advocating a massive economic and social transformation in response to climate change say we must implement these comprehensive changes immediately or the world will end. How do they know that? They do not.

Adding fuel to the fire, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said, “The Great Reset is a welcome recognition that this human tragedy must be a wake-up call. We must build more equal, inclusive and sustainable economies and societies that are more resilient in the face of pandemics, climate change, and the many other global changes we face.”

Conveniently, neither Guterres nor the others offer specific policies that would achieve their climate goals. They are relying on platitudes and feel-good-isms to garner support for their position.

Perhaps the most telling description of the sheer size and scope of the Great Reset comes from Ma Jun of the China Green Finance Committee. Jun says the changes outlined in the Great Reset must be “greener than any of the previous recoveries.”

Jun says the Great Reset’s “stimulus package is very big—bigger than historic numbers.” How big? According to Jun, about 20 percent of U.S. GDP or 8 percent of China’s GDP. That’s bigger than big.

Jun also outlined the following policies as essential under the Great Reset:

1. “Make sure the percentage of green projects is higher than any other time in history.”

2. “Ensure projects that can’t be labelled as green are made to follow strict environmental standards.”

3. “Consumption stimulus needs to be green. Governments could make a list of green consumer goods and these should be given preference on a list of consumer subsidies and coupons.”

4. “Employment generation programs must be green. Migrant workers have lost jobs. Instead of paying them unemployment benefits we should ask them to plant trees and pay them for that.”

5. “Governments [need] to consider green bonds as much as possible. This enhances market participation, encouraging the private sector to join too.”

6. “Any central banks considering using quantitative easing should use green bonds.”

It is ironic China would be pushing for these uber-green policies. China leads the world in carbon dioxide emissions and is one of the planet’s foremost burners of fossil fuels, including coal. “Do as I say, not as I do” seems to apply in spades here.

The Great Reset is not about saving the environment. Neither is the Green New Deal. In truth, both programs are Trojan Horses for massive wealth redistribution and social-justice schemes on a level heretofore unseen. To date, many prominent Democrats and far-Left organizations (especially pseudo-environmental institutions) have supported the Green New Deal and/or the Great Reset.

Next year, the WEF will host a summit to connect “key global governmental and business leaders in Davos with a global multistakeholder network in 400 cities around the world for a forward-oriented dialogue driven by the younger generation.”

The last thing the world needs is a bunch of out-of-touch elites vacationing in Davos, Switzerland plotting to reset the world economy based on junk science and social-justice clichés to please the Greta Thunberg demographic.

If these elites are truly concerned about worldwide climate change, they should renounce their jet-set lifestyles and live like the rest of us. Unfortunately, that seems as unlikely as Greta giving up her 15 minutes of fame and going back to school full-time.

Chris Talgo is an editor and research fellow at The Heartland Institute.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I have often wondered if the people making these doom and gloom pronouncements actually think.....About the impacts of their "requirements"
"Stop all oil and gas consumption"..... where will FOOD come from? A man on a tractor can plough 150 acres in a day. A man with a GOOD team of horses, and a plough in GOOD condition can plough 1 - 1.5 acres in a 10 hr day.
"We will do it with Electricity", really? from where? solar power? takes oil and gas and much much more to make the panels. "Windmills". rubbish, and what are they made of???
The simple fact is....IF WE progress with the green agenda millions, if not billions, will die.
Food, Medications, the computer I am typing on, cellphones, the tyres on your electric car....heck the battery in it, the body work....the copper for the motor....the list is very long...all depend on Oil, Gas and Coal.
Perhaps, it is the population reduction that is at the heart of this every louder cacophony of rubbish.