Andy Caldwell
The notion that the average temperature of the earth is rising due to carbon emissions is ridiculous on its face, because there is no such thing as an average global temperature reading. Think about it. If you “average” the extreme cold temperatures at the poles along with the warm temperatures at the equator, at any given moment, every other temperature reading will be somewhere in between, implying a difference without a distinction.
One of my radio guests said it best, that you might as well take a phone book and calculate the average telephone number. The bottom line? Temperatures have been hitting record highs and lows for millennia. And, truth be told, genuine and relevant climate change is measured on a geologic scale that covers, at a minimum, temperature variations of thousands of years at a time, not to mention eons.
Regardless, the United Nations is hosting a climate action summit in New York this week. The secretary general of the UN will be calling on countries to move beyond mitigation, that is reducing emissions by way of offsets. Moreover, the UN wants proof that an entire “transformation” of the world’s economy is taking place that includes changing priorities for finance, energy, industry, agriculture and infrastructure. The UN is, of course, most interested in redistributing wealth by way of limiting the production capacity and energy uses of first-world countries in order to transfer the same to third-world countries.
Regardless, the UN’s call for this radical transformation doesn’t pass the laugh-out-loud test if you consider the fact that China, India and Pakistan, the three countries who alone generate upwards of 60% of the world’s GHG emissions, have no plans whatsoever to take a giant step backwards in terms of raising the quality of life for their citizens, in order to comply. For instance, the UN is calling for the accelerated closure of coal plants while China is building coal plants with abandon.
What is worse? Billions of people are living in food insecurity, not knowing where their next meal is coming from, as they still depend on antiquated subsistence farming methods. To make matters worse, the UN would have countries like the U.S. shift away from our highly productive and efficient agricultural methods that have served to feed much of the rest of the world. This has to do with the fact that modern agriculture is dependent upon the use of fossil fuels and its byproducts, including drip lines made from plastic, which by the way, also serve to conserve water resources.
Relatedly, while much of the world is still living in a lean-to with a dirt floor, the UN wants to eliminate the use of steel and cement. Why? Because you can’t produce either steel or cement without emitting greenhouse gases. Of course, that leaves the greens in a quandary, doesn’t it? After all, they can’t build wind turbines without steel and cement. For instance, the proposed wind turbine project in Lompoc includes the construction of 32 steel turbines that weigh up to 400 tons each, and each one will require a substantial concrete foundation.
