Justice for Christmas, Nothing for Pairs!

Posted in the Guardian, Dec. 28, 2007

Barron Hilton, the son of the man who founded the hotel chain and made the family fortune, is to give all but a fraction of his $2.3bn to charity, in the latest philanthropic gesture by the dynasty.
His son, Steven Hilton, announced that his father would give 97% of his $2.3bn net worth to the Conrad N Hilton Foundation, the charitable organisation named after the dynasty's founder.
"Speaking for the family as well as the foundation, we are all exceedingly proud and grateful for this extraordinary commitment," said Steven Hilton, the foundation's head as well as one of Barron's six sons and an uncle to Paris Hilton.

Barron Hilton, 80, who is known to be unamused by his granddaughter Paris's tabloid antics, follows in the footsteps of his father, who left his entire estate, including his 27% controlling stake in the hotel group, to the foundation on his death in 1979.
Barron Hilton's wealth has grown in recent months thanks both to the sale of Hilton hotels to the Blackstone Group, and the pending acquisition of the casino and hotel corporation Harrah's Entertainment, in which Hilton owns a stake, for $17bn. He pledged an immediate $1.2bn donation to the foundation, with the balance to follow after his death.

Barron Hilton is said to have been increasingly dismayed by the recent behaviour of his granddaughter Paris, who initially achieved fame thanks to an internet sex tape and has since used that notoriety to advance a career that thrives on public exposure, whether as a pop star, a reality TV star or simply someone who likes to go to nightclubs. Her incarceration earlier this year on a drink-driving charge, and the subsequent media ballyhoo that surrounded her premature release and ensuing re-imprisonment, are thought to have strained already fraught relations within the Hilton dynasty. Jerry Oppenheimer, author of House of Hilton, said that Barron Hilton "was, and is, extremely embarrassed by how the Hilton name has been sullied by Paris. He now doesn't want to leave unearned wealth to his family."

The gift, which will initially be given to a charitable trust before eventually benefiting the foundation, will increase the wealth of the Hilton foundation to $4.3bn and turn it into one of the top philanthropic bodies in the US. The foundation, which describes its mission as "to relieve the suffering, the distressed and the destitute", provides funding for clean water, education, housing and drug projects. It also funds a project for Roman Catholic nuns in Los Angeles.

Barron Hilton is a noted society host, welcoming guests to his lavish Flying M Ranch in Nevada, a million-acre property near Reno renowned for its hunting and fishing. Guests arrive on a private landing strip using one of the hotel magnate's collection of aircraft. Earlier this year the ranch was in the news when the businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett went missing after leaving the property in a small plane. He was never found, despite an extensive search of the surrounding desert.

Conrad Hilton was born in a small adobe house on Christmas Day, 1887, in what would later become the state of New Mexico. He was one of seven children born to a Norwegian immigrant father and a German-American mother. He began working in his father's general store and bought his first hotel, the 40-room Mobley hotel in Cisco, Texas, in 1919, before going on to create the largest and most profitable international hotel chain in the world.

K-HOUSE STRATEGIC TRENDS: YEAR IN REVIEW

The goal of the K-house ministry is to create, develop, and distribute materials to stimulate, encourage, and facilitate serious study of the Bible as the inerrant Word of God. Each week the eNews staff examines current events from a Biblical point-of-view. These efforts are intended to provide a well researched understanding of the times in which we live. Their staff regularly monitors ten specific global, social, political, and economic trends that are significant to Christians and worth the consideration of anyone, regardless of their beliefs. Following is a review of each of these trends, summarizing some of this year's major milestones.

Weapons Proliferation
The acquisition of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons by both terrorists and rogue nations is perhaps one of the greatest threats to our national security. This year much attention has been drawn to the problem of Pakistan. Where in recent months political unrest in the Islamic nation has spiraled out of control. Newsweek Magazine even described Pakistan as "the most dangerous country on earth." Pakistan is the only Islamic nation with a declared nuclear weapons program. It is also home to many Islamist extremists with links to al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups. In fact, many Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters fleeing from Afghanistan have taken refuge in Pakistan. The current state of political uncertainty in Pakistan has raised concerns that Pakistan's nukes could fall into the hands of terrorists.The Islamic Republic of Iran has continued to push forward with its controversial nuclear program. Iran claims it now has 3,000 centrifuges for enriching uranium. Despite the findings of a recent NIE report, many experts still believe that it is only a matter of time before Iran possesses nuclear weapons. Iran is heading steadily toward a confrontation with Israel. There has long been speculation that Israel is preparing for a possible attack on Iran's nuclear facilities – and there has even been evidence to suggest that Israel may be planning a tactical nuclear strike. Iran has warned that it will launch 11,000 rockets at Israel and US military bases in the Middle East if it is attacked.This year compelling evidence was uncovered that North Korea may be helping Syria develop nuclear weapons. The news was made public after Israel conducted a mysterious nighttime raid deep into Syria to destroy what some say was a clandestine nuclear facility. Syria's nuclear ambitions and its cooperation with North Korea will undoubtedly complicate the six-party talks over North Korea's nuclear weapons program. While North Korea has shown some willingness to cooperate, intelligence officials warn that the secretive and often unpredictable regime has not yet ceased all of its proliferation activities.

The Struggle for Jerusalem
This past year the Palestinian territories have spiraled deeper and deeper into chaos. Hamas has driven Fatah from Gaza and the Palestinian territories are now effectively divided - with Hamas in control of Gaza and Fatah in control of the West Bank. The short-lived Palestinian unity government has crumbled and the two groups are now battling for power. While the press has resisted using the term "civil war" to describe the situation, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas called it a "coup". The US has since significantly increased aid to bolster the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority.In November the US hosted the much-anticipated Annapolis Peace Conference at the US Naval Academy in Maryland. It is the first such conference to take place in seven years, since the Bush administration took office. Both sides have pledged to continue peace negotiations in accordance with the Road Map Peace Plan with the goal of reaching an agreement by the end of 2008. However experts are skeptical that a compromise can be reached.

The Magog Invasion
Many experts believe that a large-scale confrontation between Israel and its neighbors could be on the near horizon. Many experts have predicted that Israel could go to war with either Syria or Iran in the near future. Tensions between Israel and its enemies have increased significantly in recent months, making Syria and Iran's growing alliance with nuclear-capable nations like Russia and North Korea all the more concerning. These developments could be a sign that the famed battle prophesied in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is on our near horizon. It is during this battle, that God will directly intercede to protect Israel from Magog and its allies.Russia has repeatedly expressed a desire to play a larger role in the Middle East, at the same time its diplomatic relationship with the EU and US has soured. In July Russia announced that it is withdrawing from a key treaty regulating conventional armed forces in Europe. It has also threatened to pull out of its 1987 treaty with the United States banning intermediate range nuclear forces. Over the summer Russia resumed bomber drills near North America, prompting the US military to scramble its fighter jets on at least seven different occasions. The political friction building between Russian and the Western World has raised speculation that we could once again be plunged into a Cold War scenario. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin is prohibited by law from running for a third consecutive term. However Putin has no plans for retirement. He has hand-picked his successor and is likely to be given the post of Prime Minister after stepping down as President.

The Rise of Islam
The Muslim faith is becoming an increasingly volatile catalyst in today's international scene. Islam is one of the world's fastest growing religions, and it is second in size only to Christianity. The Population Research Institute conducted a study earlier this year on birth rates around the world. It concluded that the Western world is facing a crisis. Virtually every country in the Western World has birth rates well below the replacement rate of 2.1 children per woman. The study also revealed that, for the most part, only Muslims have high birth rates. A spokesman for the organization said that if this trend continues "Muslims are going to inherit the Earth."There are between 9 and 15 million Muslims living throughout Europe today, and Islam has become the largest religious minority. If current trends continue, the Muslim population of Europe will nearly double by 2015, while the non-Muslim population will shrink by 3.5 percent. Bernard Lewis, a former history professor at Princeton and the respected author of more than a dozen books on the Middle East, is quoted as saying that "Europe will be Islamic by the end of the century." In Great Britain it is projected that in 35 years there will be twice as many Muslims in mosques on Friday as there are Christians in churches on Sunday. This trend can be seen throughout Europe. In France there are now more than 4,000 mosques, and new mosques and Muslim prayer centers have been popping up at an alarming rate. In Germany it has been projected that Muslims will be the majority population by 2046.Russia has also experienced difficulty integrating its growing Muslim population. Ethnic tensions in the former Soviet Union have begun to mirror those of its European neighbors. The Muslim population in Russia is growing by leaps and bounds. Rising immigration and low birthrates among ethnic Russians have contributed to this trend. Russia's Muslim population has increased by 40 percent since 1989, to about 25 million. By 2015, Muslims will make up a majority of Russia's conscript army, and by 2020 they will constitute one-fifth of the population. Fifteen years ago, Russia had about 300 mosques, today there are approximately 8,000. Experts say that if current trends continue, nearly one third of Russia's population will be Muslim by the mid-century.

The Rise of a European Superstate
This year was a year of milestones for the European Union. It began with the admittance of two new member states: Romania and Bulgaria. In March the EU celebrated the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Rome: The historic agreement that established the European Economic Community, the foundation of what would eventually become the European Union. Then on December 13th Europe's leaders signed the historic EU reform treaty, also called the Treaty of Lisbon. If all goes as planned the treaty will be ratified by member states next year and will enter into force on January 1, 2009. The Treaty of Lisbon is essentially the same as the failed EU constitution, except this time around its fate won't not rest in the hands of the people. Also in December the EU expanded the border free zone and announced plans to merge its overseas embassies.The strategic geopolitical horizon of past half-century has been dominated by two superpowers: the United States and the USSR. But it is becoming clear that the two dominant powers of the next half-century apparently will be China in the east and the "new Europe" in the west. Over the last fifty years the European Union has emerged as a growing world power. The EU now encompasses more than 460 million people, stretching from the Arctic to the Mediterranean and east all the way to the Black Sea. Europe's economy has grown steadily in recent years and can boast of a GDP larger than the United States'. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan made headlines in September when he said that the Euro could eventually take the place of the dollar as the world's primary reserve currency. Earlier this year Europe eclipsed the US in stock market value for the first time since the first World War.

The Rise of the Far East
Just as Henry Luce dubbed the 20th century as "the American Century," many are recognizing that the 21st century will be "the Asian Century." In just one generation, China has tripled their per capita income and lifted over 300 million people out of poverty. China has an average annual GDP growth rate above 10 percent and its growth always seems to exceed analysts expectations. China has already surpassed the United States as the world's second-largest exporter and is set to eclipse Germany as the world's largest exporter in the coming months.China's foreign currency reserves have surged to an astounding 1.4 trillion dollars - setting a new record for the world's largest currency reserves and sparking a debate over China's economic policies. China's currency reserves have been growing at a rate of nearly 30 million dollars per hour. Experts estimate that over 70 percent of China's reserves are US dollars, and China has threatened to liquidate those reserves if the US attempts to force a re-evaluation of the Yuan.

Global Government
As we examine the events of this past year we must acknowledge the growing influence of the United Nations. The UN is often seen as the future embodiment of global government, and in recent months the world body has continued on a path toward broad reform. Government reinvention is frequently an effort to avoid the consequences of failed policies in the past, or to justify a government's continued expansion by posing solutions to the problems it has created. Historically, government never downsizes voluntarily; it always increases its power and minimizes accountability to its citizens. Over the last decade, the United Nations has unabashedly pushed for what it calls "global governance." The UN is positioning itself for global power, no doubt it will use the scandal and the ensuing "reforms" to advance closer to that goal.

Global Religion
It may seem difficult to imagine the world united under one ruler and one religion, especially with the bloody ethnic battles taking place in the world today. However, the violence caused by religious and cultural conflicts could in fact be the catalyst that brings about drastic change. The desire for world peace, the increased secularization of the Western world, and the restriction of religious freedom in the name of political correctness and human rights, could all pave the way for the emergence of a global religion.

The Decline of the US
The sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States has opened many American's eyes to the economic challenges facing our nation. The national debt is growing at a rate of a million dollars a minute, the dollar continues its decline, consumer debt has skyrocketed, and we are experiencing a nationwide housing crisis in which about one out of every 100 mortgages are expected to end in foreclosure.If the US government conducts business as usual over the next few decades, a national debt that is already $8.5 trillion could reach $46 trillion or more, adjusted for inflation. A hole that big could paralyze the US economy; according to some projections, just the interest payments on a debt that big would be as much as all the taxes the government collects today. And every year that nothing is done about it, the problem grows by 2 to 3 trillion dollars (yes, that's with a "t"). It doesn't take a genius to recognize that an economic upheaval is in the making.Our current economic predicament is consistent with the Bible's description of the end times. The black horseman of Revelation 6 calls our attention to, not just famine at the onset of the Tribulation, but also to an economic condition where a man's daily wages are so small, he can barely support himself much less his family. What kind of condition would produce that? The answer is one which has emerged today and which, for the first time in the history of mankind, is for all intents and purposes universal: monetary inflation.

Biotech & Global Pestilence
Several new discoveries in the field of biotechnology this year could forever change the debate over stem cells. Using cells from just under the skin's surface, scientists were able to create stem cells that are virtually indistinguishable from embryonic stem cells. The cells are just as versatile as embryonic cells, but easier to obtain, more compatible, and non-controversial. Using this new technique, a person's own skin cells could be converted directly into stem cells and used to treat disease without having to destroy human embryos.Following this discovery, Edinburgh University's Ian Wilmut - the world-renowned cloning expert - announced that he is abandoning his plans to clone human embryos for stem cell research. Instead, the man who brought us Dolly the sheep has decided research treatments using less-controversial adult stem cells.Meanwhile, a new strain of drug-resistant Tuberculosis has emerged that health officials say is "virtually untreatable." An increase in cases of extreme drug-resistant TB have been recorded this year. The disease has been seen worldwide in more than 28 countries, including in the US. Also this year, health officials warn that the staph infection MRSA has become more common outside of the hospital setting. In fact, health experts warn that this drug-resistant "superbug" has the potential to kill more Americans that AIDS. Each year more than 90,000 Americans are infected with MRSA, which is believed to be responsible for the death of a 17-year-old high school student in Virginia which prompted officials to shut down 21 schools.The

Big Picture
With the wealth of information at our fingertips, it is sometimes hard to see the forest for the trees. The events of this past year are both exciting and frightening. When examined as a whole, they indicate that we are being plunged into a period of time about which the Bible says more than it does about any other period in human history - including the time when Jesus walked the shores of the Sea of Galilee or climbed the mountains of Judea. Examine the scriptures for yourself and you will discover that the Bible is as relevant and accurate today as it was two thousand years ago.

Brussels Will Lose Moral Authority on Democracy

By Marian Tupy

21 Dec 2007

The leaders of 27 member states of the European Union met this month in Lisbon, Portugal, to sign a new constitutional treaty that will, they hope, replace the previous draft that was rejected in 2005. With his typical penchant for hyperbole, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso declared, "From this old continent, a new Europe is born." In fact, the planned ratification of the Lisbon Treaty smacks of old Europe - when the ruling elite got its way regardless of the wishes of the people over whom it ruled.

The Lisbon Treaty is a major new step toward the United States of Europe. It would be reasonable to expect, therefore, for the people of Europe to be given a say over its adoption in national referenda. So far, only the government of Ireland, where the EU is very popular, has decided to hold a referendum. Other governments will try to ram the Treaty through national parliaments. This is a blatant attempt to short-circuit the political process in countries where the EU's popularity is on the decline.

Clearly, the EU elite is trying to avoid the fate of the original EU constitution that was resoundingly defeated by the French and Dutch voters. Since unanimous approval among Europe's then 25 members was necessary for the constitution to come into effect, the elated opposition pronounced the document dead and declared victory. Abandoning the constitution was never seriously contemplated by the bureaucrats in Brussels, who declared a period of Europe-wide "reflection" and "consultation" - a meaningless drivel that turned out to be nothing but a prelude to a reintroduction of a "simplified" Lisbon Treaty two years later. Like a zombie, the EU constitution rose from the dead. Killing it for the second time will be much more difficult, however.

Having learned that the European publics cannot be trusted to share and to appreciate their political masters' vision for Europe, the European politicians have decided to subject the Lisbon Treaty to parliamentary approval only. Their gamble is that no parliament will dare to strike the treaty down thus earning the ire of the rest of the EU. They are probably right.
Some national constitutions, including the Danish one, require that referenda be held before further national sovereignty can be ceded to the EU. That is why Jens-Peter Bonde, a Danish member of the European parliament has threatened to challenge the legality of the likely parliamentary vote in the Danish constitutional court. Bonde seems to be on firm ground. The Danish government, after all, held a referendum in 1986 over the Single European Act and again in 1992 over the Maastricht Treaty. In the latter case, the "Yes" campaign lost and the government was forced to re-negotiate the terms of the Maastricht Treaty on terms that more closely reflected the wishes of the Danish electorate.

This time around, the Danish government claims that no referendum is needed, because no new powers will be transferred to Brussels. Yet that assessment is in direct conflict what everyone else seems to believe. If the constitutional treaty is adopted, Britain's Daily Telegraph estimates, United Kingdom will lose sovereign decision-making in 40 areas of policy, including energy, tourism, transport, and migration. Even the generally pro-European Labor government does not deny that it will lose the power of veto in a number of important areas.

Whether the courts will step in and overrule national parliaments remains an open question, of course. The original constitution was challenged in Germany and Slovakia, for example, but in both countries the courts failed to reach a judgment before the Dutch and French referenda took place. Were they contemplating the merits of the cases before them or kicking the problem into the long grass, hoping that it would go away?

From the start, the Europeans leaders were very clear about the need to "camouflage" the far-reaching effects of the constitutional treaty from the European peoples. Valery Giscard d'Estaing, the former French president who presided over the drafting of the original document, for example, said that "Public opinion will be led to accept, without realizing it, provisions that nobody dared to present directly." If that happens, the EU will lose whatever moral right it retains to lecture other countries about the virtues of democracy.

Marian L. Tupy is a policy analyst at the Cato Institute's Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity, and author of a Cato study EU Enlargement: Costs, Benefits, and Strategies for Central and Eastern European Countries.

The hot air cult

By Cal Thomas
December 26, 2007

You don't have to be religious to qualify as a fundamentalist. You can be Al Gore, the messiah figure for the global warming cult, whose followers truly believe their gospel of imminent extermination in a Noah-like flood, if we don't immediately change our carbon-polluting ways.
One of the traits of a cult is its refusal to consider any evidence that might disprove the faith. So it is doubtful the global warming cultists will be moved by 400 scientists, many of whom, says The Washington Times, "are current or former members of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that shares the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Mr. Gore for publicizing a climate crisis." In a report by Republican staff of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, these scientists cast doubt on a "scientific consensus" that human-caused global warming endangers the planet.
Like most cultists, the true believers struck back, not by debating science, but by charging that a small number of the scientists mentioned in the report have taken money from the oil industry. A spokeswoman for Al Gore said 25 or 30 of the scientists may have received funding from Exxon Mobile Corp. Exxon Mobile spokesman Gantt H. Walton dismissed the claim, saying, "The company is concerned about climate-change issues and does not pay scientists to bash global-warming theories."
The pro-global warming cultists enjoy a huge money advantage. Paleoclimate scientist Bob Carter, who has testified before the Senate Environment and Public Works committee, noted in an EPW report how much money has been spent researching and promoting climate fears and so-called solutions: "In one of the more expensive ironies of history, the expenditure of more than $50 billion on research into global warming since 1990 has failed to demonstrate any human-caused climate trend, let alone a dangerous one," he wrote on June 18, 2007. The $19 million spent on research that debunks the global warming faith pales in comparison.
Also included in the Republican report are comments by Dutch atmospheric scientist Hendrik Tennekes: "I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting — a 6-meter sea level rise, 15 times the IPCC number — entirely without merit. I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home-heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."
Oklahoma Sen. James M. Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, said the report debunks Mr. Gore's claim that the "debate is over." In fact, the debate hasn't even begun because the global warming cultists won't debate. Despite numerous challenges, Al Gore has refused to debate the issue with any credible scientist who is a skeptic. Shouldn't the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize be willing to debate such an important issue? What does he have to fear? If his theory cannot stand up to scientific inquiry and skepticism, it needs to be exposed as a false religion and himself as a false prophet before he and his followers force us to change the way we live and alter the prosperous society that generations of Americans have built.
Mr. Gore and his disciples will still be living in their big houses, driving gas-guzzling cars and flying in private jets that leave carbon footprints as large as Bigfoot's, while most of us will be forced to drive tiny automobiles and live in huts resembling the Third World. But hypocrisy is just one of many traits displayed by secular fundamentalists like Mr. Gore.
Before adopting any faith, the agendas of the people attempting to impose it, along with the beliefs held by them and their disciples, should be considered. Al Gore and company are big government liberals who think government is the answer to all our problems, including those they create. As Ronald Reagan often said, in too many cases government is the problem.
The secular fundamentalists who believe in Al Gore as a prophet and global warming as a religious doctrine are being challenged by scientists and others who disbelieve and who think we ought to spend more time developing new technology and energy sources for the future and not preaching gloom, doom and retreat. Let them debate the issue. If they won't, we can only conclude all they are spewing is hot air.

Senate Report Debunks "Consensus"

U.S. Senate Report: Over 400 Prominent Scientists Disputed Man-Made Global Warming Claims in 2007

INTRODUCTION:
Over 400 prominent scientists from more than two dozen countries recently voiced significant objections to major aspects of the so-called "consensus" on man-made global warming. These scientists, many of whom are current and former participants in the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore.
The new report issued by the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee’s office of the GOP Ranking Member details the views of the scientists, the overwhelming majority of whom spoke out in 2007.

Even some in the establishment media now appear to be taking notice of the growing number of skeptical scientists. In October, the Washington Post Staff Writer Juliet Eilperin conceded the obvious, writing that climate skeptics "appear to be expanding rather than shrinking." Many scientists from around the world have dubbed 2007 as the year man-made global warming fears “bite the dust.” In addition, many scientists who are also progressive environmentalists believe climate fear promotion has "co-opted" the green movement.
This blockbuster Senate report lists the scientists by name, country of residence, and academic/institutional affiliation. It also features their own words, biographies, and weblinks to their peer reviewed studies and original source materials as gathered from public statements, various news outlets, and websites in 2007. This new “consensus busters” report is poised to redefine the debate.
Many of the scientists featured in this report consistently stated that numerous colleagues shared their views, but they will not speak out publicly for fear of retribution. Atmospheric scientist Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, author of almost 70 peer-reviewed studies, explains how many of his fellow scientists have been intimidated.

“Many of my colleagues with whom I spoke share these views and report on their inability to publish their skepticism in the scientific or public media,” Paldor wrote. [Note: See also July 2007 Senate report detailing how skeptical scientists have faced threats and intimidation - ]

Scientists from Around the World Dissent

This new report details how teams of international scientists are dissenting from the UN IPCC’s view of climate science. In such nations as Germany, Brazil, the Netherlands, Russia, New Zealand and France, nations, scientists banded together in 2007 to oppose climate alarmism. In addition, over 100 prominent international scientists sent an open letter in December 2007 to the UN stating attempts to control climate were “futile.”

Paleoclimatologist Dr. Tim Patterson, professor in the department of Earth Sciences at Carleton University in Ottawa, recently converted from a believer in man-made climate change to a skeptic. Patterson noted that the notion of a “consensus” of scientists aligned with the UN IPCC or former Vice President Al Gore is false. “I was at the Geological Society of America meeting in Philadelphia in the fall and I would say that people with my opinion were probably in the majority.”
This new committee report, a first of its kind, comes after the UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri implied that there were only “about half a dozen” skeptical scientists left in the world. Former Vice President Gore has claimed that scientists skeptical of climate change are akin to “flat Earth society members” and similar in number to those who “believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona.”
The distinguished scientists featured in this new report are experts in diverse fields, including: climatology; oceanography; geology; biology; glaciology; biogeography; meteorology; oceanography; economics; chemistry; mathematics; environmental sciences; engineering; physics and paleoclimatology. Some of those profiled have won Nobel Prizes for their outstanding contribution to their field of expertise and many shared a portion of the UN IPCC Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Gore.

Additionally, these scientists hail from prestigious institutions worldwide, including: Harvard University; NASA; National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR); Massachusetts Institute of Technology; the UN IPCC; the Danish National Space Center; U.S. Department of Energy; Princeton University; the Environmental Protection Agency; University of Pennsylvania; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the International Arctic Research Centre; the Pasteur Institute in Paris; the Belgian Weather Institute; Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute; the University of Helsinki; the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S., France, and Russia; the University of Pretoria; University of Notre Dame; Stockholm University; University of Melbourne; University of Columbia; the World Federation of Scientists; and the University of London.
The voices of many of these hundreds of scientists serve as a direct challenge to the often media-hyped “consensus” that the debate is “settled.”

A May 2007 Senate report detailed scientists who had recently converted from believers in man-made global warming to skepticism. [See May 15, 2007 report: Climate Momentum Shifting: Prominent Scientists Reverse Belief in Man-made Global Warming - Now Skeptics: Growing Number of Scientists Convert to Skeptics After Reviewing New Research – ]
The report counters the claims made by the promoters of man-made global warming fears that the number of skeptical scientists is dwindling.
Examples of “consensus” claims made by promoters of man-made climate fears:
Former Vice President Al Gore (November 5, 2007): “There are still people who believe that the Earth is flat.” Gore also compared global warming skeptics to people who 'believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona' (June 20, 2006)
CNN’s Miles O’Brien (July 23, 2007): The scientific debate is over.” “We're done." O’Brien also declared on CNN on February 9, 2006 that scientific skeptics of man-made catastrophic global warming “are bought and paid for by the fossil fuel industry, usually.”
On July 27, 2006, Associated Press reporter Seth Borenstein described a scientist as “one of the few remaining scientists skeptical of the global warming harm caused by industries that burn fossil fuels.” Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC view on the number of skeptical scientists as quoted on Feb. 20, 2003: “About 300 years ago, a Flat Earth Society was founded by those who did not believe the world was round. That society still exists; it probably has about a dozen members.” Agence France-Press (AFP Press) article (December 4, 2007): The article noted that a prominent skeptic “finds himself increasingly alone in his claim that climate change poses no imminent threat to the planet.”

Andrew Dessler in the eco-publication Grist Magazine (November 21, 2007): “While some people claim there are lots of skeptical climate scientists out there, if you actually try to find one, you keep turning up the same two dozen or so (e.g., Singer, Lindzen, Michaels, Christy, etc., etc.). These skeptics are endlessly recycled by the denial machine, so someone not paying close attention might think there are lots of them out there -- but that's not the case.
The Washington Post asserted on May 23, 2006 that there were only “a handful of skeptics” of man-made climate fears.

ABC News Global Warming Reporter Bill Blakemore reported on August 30, 2006: “After extensive searches, ABC News has found no such [scientific] debate” on global warming.

# #

Brief highlights of the report featuring over 400 international scientists:
Israel: Dr. Nathan Paldor, Professor of Dynamical Meteorology and Physical Oceanography at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has authored almost 70 peer-reviewed studies and won several awards. “First, temperature changes, as well as rates of temperature changes (both increase and decrease) of magnitudes similar to that reported by IPCC to have occurred since the Industrial revolution (about 0.8C in 150 years or even 0.4C in the last 35 years) have occurred in Earth's climatic history. There's nothing special about the recent rise!”

Russia: Russian scientist Dr. Oleg Sorochtin of the Institute of Oceanology at the Russian Academy of Sciences has authored more than 300 studies, nine books, and a 2006 paper titled “The Evolution and the Prediction of Global Climate Changes on Earth.” “Even if the concentration of ‘greenhouse gases’ double man would not perceive the temperature impact,” Sorochtin wrote.

Spain: Anton Uriarte, a professor of Physical Geography at the University of the Basque Country in Spain and author of a book on the paleoclimate, rejected man-made climate fears in 2007. “There's no need to be worried. It's very interesting to study [climate change], but there's no need to be worried,” Uriate wrote.


Netherlands: Atmospheric scientist Dr. Hendrik Tennekes, a scientific pioneer in the development of numerical weather prediction and former director of research at The Netherlands' Royal National Meteorological Institute, and an internationally recognized expert in atmospheric boundary layer processes, “I find the Doomsday picture Al Gore is painting – a six-meter sea level rise, fifteen times the IPCC number – entirely without merit,” Tennekes wrote. “I protest vigorously the idea that the climate reacts like a home heating system to a changed setting of the thermostat: just turn the dial, and the desired temperature will soon be reached."

Brazil: Chief Meteorologist Eugenio Hackbart of the MetSul Meteorologia Weather Center in Sao Leopoldo – Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil declared himself a skeptic. “The media is promoting an unprecedented hyping related to global warming. The media and many scientists are ignoring very important facts that point to a natural variation in the climate system as the cause of the recent global warming,” Hackbart wrote on May 30, 2007.

France: Climatologist Dr. Marcel Leroux, former professor at Université Jean Moulin and director of the Laboratory of Climatology, Risks, and Environment in Lyon, is a climate skeptic. Leroux wrote a 2005 book titled Global Warming – Myth or Reality? - The Erring Ways of Climatology. “Day after day, the same mantra - that ‘the Earth is warming up’ - is churned out in all its forms. As ‘the ice melts’ and ‘sea level rises,’ the Apocalypse looms ever nearer! Without realizing it, or perhaps without wishing to, the average citizen in bamboozled, lobotomized, lulled into mindless ac­ceptance. ... Non-believers in the greenhouse scenario are in the position of those long ago who doubted the existence of God ... fortunately for them, the Inquisition is no longer with us!”

Norway: Geologist/Geochemist Dr. Tom V. Segalstad, a professor and head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the UN IPCC: “It is a search for a mythical CO2 sink to explain an immeasurable CO2 lifetime to fit a hypothetical CO2 computer model that purports to show that an impossible amount of fossil fuel burning is heating the atmosphere. It is all a fiction.”

Finland: Dr. Boris Winterhalter, retired Senior Marine Researcher of the Geological Survey of Finland and former professor of marine geology at University of Helsinki, criticized the media for what he considered its alarming climate coverage. “The effect of solar winds on cosmic radiation has just recently been established and, furthermore, there seems to be a good correlation between cloudiness and variations in the intensity of cosmic radiation. Here we have a mechanism which is a far better explanation to variations in global climate than the attempts by IPCC to blame it all on anthropogenic input of greenhouse gases. “

Germany: Paleoclimate expert Augusto Mangini of the University of Heidelberg in Germany, criticized the UN IPCC summary. “I consider the part of the IPCC report, which I can really judge as an expert, i.e. the reconstruction of the paleoclimate, wrong,” Mangini noted in an April 5, 2007 article. He added: “The earth will not die.”

Canada: IPCC 2007 Expert Reviewer Madhav Khandekar, a Ph.D meteorologist, a scientist with the Natural Resources Stewardship Project who has over 45 years experience in climatology, meteorology and oceanography, and who has published nearly 100 papers, reports, book reviews and a book on Ocean Wave Analysis and Modeling: “To my dismay, IPCC authors ignored all my comments and suggestions for major changes in the FOD (First Order Draft) and sent me the SOD (Second Order Draft) with essentially the same text as the FOD. None of the authors of the chapter bothered to directly communicate with me (or with other expert reviewers with whom I communicate on a regular basis) on many issues that were raised in my review. This is not an acceptable scientific review process.”

Czech Republic: Czech-born U.S. climatologist Dr. George Kukla, a research scientist with the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at University of Columbia expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “The only thing to worry about is the damage that can be done by worrying. Why are some scientists worried? Perhaps because they feel that to stop worrying may mean to stop being paid,” Kukla told Gelf Magazine on April 24, 2007.

India: One of India's leading geologists, B.P. Radhakrishna, President of the Geological Society of India, expressed climate skepticism in 2007. “We appear to be overplaying this global warming issue as global warming is nothing new. It has happened in the past, not once but several times, giving rise to glacial-interglacial cycles.”

USA: Climatologist Robert Durrenberger, past president of the American Association of State Climatologists, and one of the climatologists who gathered at Woods Hole to review the National Climate Program Plan in July, 1979: “Al Gore brought me back to the battle and prompted me to do renewed research in the field of climatology. And because of all the misinformation that Gore and his army have been spreading about climate change I have decided that ‘real’ climatologists should try to help the public understand the nature of the problem.”

Italy: Internationally renowned scientist Dr. Antonio Zichichi, president of the World Federation of Scientists and a retired Professor of Advanced Physics at the University of Bologna in Italy, who has published over 800 scientific papers: “Significant new peer-reviewed research has cast even more doubt on the hypothesis of dangerous human-caused global warming."

New Zealand: IPCC reviewer and climate researcher Dr. Vincent Gray, an expert reviewer on every single draft of the IPCC reports going back to 1990 and author of The Greenhouse Delusion: A Critique of "Climate Change 2001: “The [IPCC] ‘Summary for Policymakers’ might get a few readers, but the main purpose of the report is to provide a spurious scientific backup for the absurd claims of the worldwide environmentalist lobby that it has been established scientifically that increases in carbon dioxide are harmful to the climate. It just does not matter that this ain't so.”

South Africa: Dr. Kelvin Kemm, formerly a scientist at South Africa’s Atomic Energy Corporation who holds degrees in nuclear physics and mathematics: “The global-warming mania continues with more and more hype and less and less thinking. With religious zeal, people look for issues or events to blame on global warming.”

Poland: Physicist Dr. Zbigniew Jaworowski, Chairman of the Central Laboratory for the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Radiological Protection in Warsaw: ““We thus find ourselves in the situation that the entire theory of man-made global warming—with its repercussions in science, and its important consequences for politics and the global economy—is based on ice core studies that provided a false picture of the atmospheric CO2 levels.”

Australia: Prize-wining Geologist Dr. Ian Plimer, a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Adelaide in Australia: "There is new work emerging even in the last few weeks that shows we can have a very close correlation between the temperatures of the Earth and supernova and solar radiation.”

Britain: Dr. Richard Courtney, a UN IPCC expert reviewer and a UK-based climate and atmospheric science consultant: “To date, no convincing evidence for AGW (anthropogenic global warming) has been discovered. And recent global climate behavior is not consistent with AGW model predictions.”

China: Chinese Scientists Say C02 Impact on Warming May Be ‘Excessively Exaggerated’ – Scientists Lin Zhen-Shan’s and Sun Xian’s 2007 study published in the peer-reviewed journal Meteorology and Atmospheric Physics: "Although the CO2 greenhouse effect on global climate change is unsuspicious, it could have been excessively exaggerated." Their study asserted that "it is high time to reconsider the trend of global climate change.”

Denmark: Space physicist Dr. Eigil Friis-Christensen is the director of the Danish National Space Centre, a member of the space research advisory committee of the Swedish National Space Board, a member of a NASA working group, and a member of the European Space Agency who has authored or co-authored around 100 peer-reviewed papers and chairs the Institute of Space Physics: “The sun is the source of the energy that causes the motion of the atmosphere and thereby controls weather and climate. Any change in the energy from the sun received at the Earth’s surface will therefore affect climate.”


Belgium: Climate scientist Luc Debontridder of the Belgium Weather Institute’s Royal Meteorological Institute (RMI) co-authored a study in August 2007 which dismissed a decisive role of CO2 in global warming: "CO2 is not the big bogeyman of climate change and global warming. “Not CO2, but water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas. It is responsible for at least 75 % of the greenhouse effect. This is a simple scientific fact, but Al Gore's movie has hyped CO2 so much that nobody seems to take note of it.”

Sweden: Geologist Dr. Wibjorn Karlen, professor emeritus of the Department of Physical Geography and Quaternary Geology at Stockholm University, critiqued the Associated Press for hyping promoting climate fears in 2007. “Another of these hysterical views of our climate. Newspapers should think about the damage they are doing to many persons, particularly young kids, by spreading the exaggerated views of a human impact on climate.”

USA: Dr. David Wojick is a UN IPCC expert reviewer, who earned his PhD in Philosophy of Science and co-founded the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie-Mellon University: “In point of fact, the hypothesis that solar variability and not human activity is warming the oceans goes a long way to explain the puzzling idea that the Earth's surface may be warming while the atmosphere is not. The GHG (greenhouse gas) hypothesis does not do this.” Wojick added: “The public is not well served by this constant drumbeat of false alarms fed by computer models manipulated by advocates.”

# # #

Background: Only 52 Scientists Participated in UN IPCC Summary
The over 400 skeptical scientists featured in this new report outnumber by nearly eight times the number of scientists who participated in the 2007 UN IPCC Summary for Policymakers. The notion of “hundreds” or “thousands” of UN scientists agreeing to a scientific statement does not hold up to scrutiny. (See report debunking “consensus” Recent research by Australian climate data analyst Dr. John McLean revealed that the IPCC’s peer-review process for the Summary for Policymakers leaves much to be desired.
Proponents of man-made global warming like to note how the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) have issued statements endorsing the so-called "consensus" view that man is driving global warming. But both the NAS and AMS never allowed member scientists to directly vote on these climate statements. Essentially, only two dozen or so members on the governing boards of these institutions produced the "consensus" statements. This report gives a voice to the rank-and-file scientists who were shut out of the process.
The most recent attempt to imply there was an overwhelming scientific “consensus” in favor of man-made global warming fears came in December 2007 during the UN climate conference in Bali. A letter signed by only 215 scientists urged the UN to mandate deep cuts in carbon dioxide emissions by 2050. But absent from the letter were the signatures of these alleged “thousands” of scientists.
UN IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri urged the world at the December 2007 UN climate conference in Bali, Indonesia to "Please listen to the voice of science.”
The science has continued to grow loud and clear in 2007. In addition to the growing number of scientists expressing skepticism, an abundance of recent peer-reviewed studies have cast considerable doubt about man-made global warming fears. A November 3, 2007 peer-reviewed study found that “solar changes significantly alter climate.” A December 2007 peer-reviewed study recalculated and halved the global average surface temperature trend between 1980 – 2002. Another new study found the Medieval Warm Period “0.3C warmer than 20th century”
A peer-reviewed study by a team of scientists found that "warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence." – Another November 2007 peer-reviewed study in the journal Physical Geography found “Long-term climate change is driven by solar insolation changes.” These recent studies were in addition to the abundance of peer-reviewed studies earlier in 2007. - See "New Peer-Reviewed Scientific Studies Chill Global Warming Fears"
With this new report of profiling 400 skeptical scientists, the world can finally hear the voices of the “silent majority” of scientists.

Study: Part of Global-Warming Model May Be Wrong

Fox News
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Part of the scientific consensus on global warming may be flawed, a new study asserts.
The researchers compared predictions of 22 widely used climate "models" — elaborate schematics that try to forecast how the global weather system will behave — with actual readings gathered by surface stations, weather balloons and orbiting satellites over the past three decades.
The study, published online this week in the International Journal of Climatology, found that while most of the models predicted that the middle and upper parts of the troposphere —1 to 6 miles above the Earth's surface — would have warmed drastically over the past 30 years, actual observations showed only a little warming, especially over tropical regions.
"Can the models accurately explain the climate from the recent past? It seems that the answer is no," said lead study author David H. Douglass, a physicist specializing in climate at the University of Rochester.
Douglass and his co-authors S. Fred Singer, a physicist at the University of Virginia, and John R. Christy, a climatologist at the University of Alabama at Huntsville, are noted global-warming skeptics.
However, Christy was a major contributor to the 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and is one of the world's premier authorities on collection and analysis of satellite-derived temperature data, having been commended by both NASA and the American Meteorological Society for his efforts.
"We do not see accelerated warming in the tropical troposphere," said Christy. "Instead, the lower and middle atmosphere are warming the same or less than the surface."
The difference between the climate models and the satellite data has been known for several years.
Studies in 2005 found that improper compensation for temperature differences between day and night was the cause of most of the satellite-data discrepancy, a correction that Christy has accepted.
No explanation has been put forth for the weather-balloon discrepancy.

The (Tax) War Between the States

By ARTHUR LAFFER AND STEPHEN MOORE

December 10, 2007; WSJ, Page A19

A record eight million Americans moved from one state to another last year. Where is everyone going, and why? The answer has little to do with climate: California has arguably the nicest climate of any state in the nation -- yet in this decade more Americans have left the Golden State than entered it.
Migration patterns instead reveal which states have the most dynamic and desirable economies, and which are "has-been" states. The winners in this contest for the most valuable resource on the globe -- human capital -- are generally the states with the lowest tax, spending and regulatory burdens. The biggest losers are almost all congregated in the Northeast and Midwest. Liberals contend that tax rates, regulations, forced union laws and runaway government spending don't matter when it comes to creating jobs, high incomes and a higher quality of life. People tell us otherwise by voting with their feet.
The American Legislative Exchange Council has just released a study we've done that presents a 2007 Economic Competitiveness Rating of the 50 states, based on 16 economic policy variables, including taxes, regulation, right to work, the legal system, educational freedom and government debt. Over the past decade, the 10 states with the highest taxes and spending, and the most intrusive regulations, have half the population and job growth, and one-third slower growth in incomes, than the 10 most economically free states. In 2006 alone 1,500 people each day moved to the states with the highest economic competitiveness from the states with the lowest competitiveness.

Of all the policy variables we examined, two stand out as perhaps the most important in attracting jobs and capital. The first is the income tax rate. States with the highest income tax rates -- California and New York, for example -- are significantly outperformed by the nine states with no income tax, such as Texas and Florida. As a study from the Atlanta Federal Reserve Board put it: "Relative marginal tax rates have a statistically significant negative relationship with relative state growth."
The other factor for attracting jobs and capital is right-to-work laws. States that permit workers to be compelled to join unions have much lower rates of employment growth than states that don't. Many companies say they will not even consider locating a factory in a state that does not have a right-to-work law.
Our study also finds that states with antigrowth tax and spending policies don't just lose people. Noncompetitive states like New York, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Jersey are plagued by falling housing values, a shrinking tax base, business outmigration, capital flight and high unemployment rates, and less money for schools, roads and aging infrastructure. These factors of decline hurt the poor the most.
The Northeast is the classic case of a region suffering from self-inflicted wounds. In the year 2006, it was home to a smaller share of the U.S. population, and produced a smaller percentage of America's total value-added, than at any time in the nation's history. Why?
One big reason is that governments in the Northeast are about one-fifth more expensive than in the rest of America ($6,000 versus $5,000 of state spending per resident). An average-income family of four still saves $4,000 in lower income, property, sales taxes and fees by moving to just an average-tax state, and more like $6,000 a year by moving to, say, Florida. Since the Northeastern states tend to have highly progressive tax systems, the incentive to flee is even greater for higher-income earners.
Northeasterners complain disdainfully of the "war between the states" for jobs and businesses, and for good reason: They can't win. Southern and Western states are cherry-picking companies from the North Atlantic states. One Southern governor (who didn't want to be identified) recently told us his state had closed its economic development offices in Europe. "Why search for factories overseas when we can plunder high tax areas like Connecticut and New York?" he said.
Auto and other manufacturing jobs are still being created in America -- but in Alabama, North Carolina and even Mississippi. It has to be infuriating to Northeasterners to learn that people and businesses are "trading up" by moving out of their region to the likes of Georgia and Alabama. But they are.
The states losing population are in effect suffering from a slow-motion version of the economic sclerosis that paralyzed much of Europe in the 1980s and '90s, particularly France and Germany with their massive welfare systems. At least the European socialist nations are finally starting to change their taxing and spending ways to win back jobs.
No such luck in this country. Five of the states near the bottom of our competitiveness ratings -- Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey and Wisconsin -- have enacted major tax increases in the last two years. Maryland and Michigan just raised business and income taxes on upper-income earners, while arguing that raising the cost of doing business will attract more businesses. More likely it will induce companies to stay away, and people to move out.

Zeroing in on Real Climate Criminals--BABIES!

So who could be against motherhood & apple pie? This guy!

Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert
From: The Advertiser
December 10, 2007

A WEST Australian medical expert wants families to pay a $5000-plus "baby levy" at birth and an annual carbon tax of up to $800 a child.
Writing in today's Medical Journal of Australia, Associate Professor Barry Walters said every couple with more than two children should be taxed to pay for enough trees to offset the carbon emissions generated over each child's lifetime.
Professor Walters, clinical associate professor of obstetric medicine at the University of Western Australia and the King Edward Memorial Hospital in Perth, called for condoms and "greenhouse-friendly" services such as sterilisation procedures to earn carbon credits.

Road to Bali

Peter Foster, Financial Post Published: Thursday, December 06, 2007

The fate of the Earth hangs in the balance in Bali, but the issue is not whether humanity will succumb to a "climate crisis," or how the international community might craft a successor to the tattered Kyoto Accord (Let's call it KyoTwo). The real theme of this United Nations gabfest -- like that of its 12 predecessors, and of the hundreds, if not thousands, of related meetings --is whether globalization and trade liberalization will be allowed to continue, with a corresponding increase in wealth, health and welfare, or whether the authoritarian enemies of freedom (who rarely if ever recognize themselves as such) will succeed in using environmental hysteria to undermine capitalism and increase their Majesterium. Any successor to Kyoto will be rooted in hobbling rich economies, increasing the poor world's resentment, unleashing environmental trade warfare, and blanketing the globe with rules and regulations that benefit only rulers and regulators. Bali is not about climate; it symbolizes the continued assault on freedom by those who seek -- or pander to -- political power under the guise of concern for humanity.
Just at the point where Marxism was being consigned to the dustbin of history, the more or less concealed power lust that had fed it found a new cause in the environment. The fact that the UN's 1992 Rio conference followed hard on the collapse of the Soviet Union represented almost the passing of a poisoned baton. Capitalism had once been the enemy because it was alleged to make people poor. Now it was the enemy because of the alleged side effects of making them rich. The emissions of carbon-based industrial society would lead to a climate in turmoil:We would be beset by Biblical plagues of floods, droughts and monster hurricanes.
This simplistic narrative depended on carbon dioxide being the main driver of climate. Scientists who pointed that there were likely other more important factors, that climate science was in its infancy and that earth's climate had varied dramatically long before the invention of the steam, internal combustion or jet engine, were not scientifically refuted; they were howled down as "deniers" or industry shills.
The environmental left, centred in the UN, has achieved stunning success in building and pushing the climate change/sustain-ability bandwagon. They have done this first by funding, then hijacking, scientific research via the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. They have also promoted and allowed access to an ever-proliferating group of activist NGOs (Bali, significantly, is overrun by the non-elected "representatives" of scores of radical organizations, who have in turn forced similar numbers of industry representatives to follow them). NGOs have also had great success in pushing their alarmist message through a sympathetic media and thus --along with more direct lobbying--in achieving grossly disproportionate influence with democratic politicians. "Progressive" pols, meanwhile, have embraced environmental alarmism because it gives a much-needed boost to their flagging relevance.

Climate-change alarmism couldn't be presented as simply a new justification for power-seeking, so it had to be cloaked--as social-ism has always been cloaked, both consciously and unconsciously -- in concern for "the poor." Addressing climate change has always been linked in the UN script with Third World development, even though it in fact represents the greatest threat to such development. Nevertheless, the prospect of more international redistribution has meant that poor countries' corrupt and/or incompetent governments have become enthusiastic supporters of the Kyoto "process."
The rapid and unexpected explosion of economic growth -- and emissions -- in China and India has created a wrinkle. The United States and Canada claim that the ballooning emissions of these prospective economic superpowers mean that they must be part of any "solution." China and India, by contrast, assert --encouraged by their "poor" colleagues in the Third World bloc -- that since this "problem" was created by the developed countries, the developed countries must deal with it.
Bali will see nothing but posturing and preening, "tough" negotiations, and an agreement to talk further, in yet more exotic locations. But we should remember that the object of the exercise is not to deal practically with the problems of poverty, or to realistically address the challenges of extreme weather, whether caused by humans or otherwise. Bjorn Lomborg has eloquently pointed out why Kyoto-style approaches represent a very poor return on investment, and why we would be much better to deal directly with the specific threats of drought, flooding, malaria or hurricane damage, and with the broader issue of how to promote development. But that criticism misses the real significance of Kyoto and KyoTwo. They are not about effectively addressing specific problems, they are about exploiting ignorance about climate science, and continuing to demonize capitalism, in order to make ecocrats feel good, make others feel bad, pad incomes, and expand travel schedules.
Democratic governments have no choice but to cater to the ignorance/alarm/hypocrisy engendered in their electorates. This catering in turn reflects greater or lesser degrees of cynicism, skepticism, or moralistic bloviation.
The Australian delegation was feted on the first day of Bali because the subcontinent's new government chose at last to sign on to Kyoto, even though the agreement lay in ruins, and would have had virtually zero impact on the climate anyway. Canada's Environment Minister John Baird -- who must cope with the fact that his Liberal predecessors signed Kyoto without any plan or intention of fulfilling their obligations-- must sing from the U.N. hymnbook while keeping a firm hand on the nation's collective wallet. And preparing for the next meeting.