The recently concluded United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, known in UN-speak as COP15, provides a timely glimpse into a brave new zoological carboniferous epoch. As we all “know” by now, anthropogenic (man-made) global warming, or AGW, is the mother of all apocalypses, threatening all life in the universe, and causing every woe imaginable, from blizzards and droughts to tsunamis, earthquakes, cancer, dandruff, halitosis, toenail fungus, drug addiction, prostitution, and inflation.
It all has to do with our “carbon footprints,” you see, which are calculated from the overall amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with products and services we consume, which include, for example, emissions from electricity production in power plants, heating with fossil fuels, transport operations, and other industrial and agricultural processes.
Of course, everyone already knows who the main carbon villains are: Americans. We nasty middle-class Americans, with our gas-guzzling SUVs, barbecues, red-meat diets, and suburban single-family homes.
That has been the recurrent theme in enviro circles and at UN confabs for decades, and it was, naturally, a major homiletic message at the Copenhagen conference. However, as usual, it might have been a bit more convincing if it had not been delivered by the most hypocritical and least credible of preachers: the sasquatches of carbon footprints.
Their audacity never ceases or diminishes. The millionaire and billionaire carbon sasquatches descended on Copenhagen from their private jets, limos, and yachts to prescribe carbon austerity for the rest of us, who, in comparison, have carbon footprints of Chipmunks and ants.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Hummer-driving globetrotter infamous for his daily 400-mile private-jet commutes from his Los Angeles home to his Sacramento Governor’s office (when not vacationing at his estates in Sun Valley or Hyannis Port), extolled “greener lifestyles” and warned: “There is no single issue that threatens the health and prosperity of our nations and humanity more than climate change.” A few commutes on his Gulfstream leaves a bigger footprint than most American families leave in an entire year of living.
Charles, Prince of Wales, inveighed against “unsustainable consumption,” declaiming: “We appear intent upon consuming the planet!” This from the royal who was currently embroiled in scandal for soaking British taxpayers with huge increases for travel, entertainment, and living expenses! With their Royal Train, Royal Yacht, and the family palaces and castles (Buckingham, Windsor, Kensington, Balmoral, Sandringham, Holyroodhouse, St. James, etc.), Charles and the British royals leave a sasquatch print larger than some countries.
David Mayer de Rothschild, scion of the fabled banking dynasty, is always busy “saving the Earth” and leading exotic nature adventures with the rich and famous. This member of one of the world’s wealthiest families lamented the fact that the “global governance agenda” in Copenhagen was proving “very hard to actually activate.”
Al Gore, the globe’s most notorious greenie, has made more than a hundred million dollars from “green” investments favored with government subsidies, grants, and regulations. Carbon cap-and-trade legislation pending before Congress could make him a carbon billionaire. The sasquatch footprint of his Tennessee mansion is more than 20 times the average American home, and that’s not including the carbon print of his posh new San Francisco high-rise townhouse, or his charter jet travels. Nevertheless, Preacher Al rallied the church faithful in Copenhagen to continue “humanity’s fateful fight against climate change.”
Billionaire investor George Soros advised politicians to ignore the Climategate e-mail scandal and the growing chorus of scientists challenging AGW alarmism. Soros is pushing for the International Monetary Fund to issue $150 billion in Special Drawing Rights (SDRs) to help poor countries buy “clean technology” — from, you guessed it, companies in which Soros, Gore, and fellow greenies are heavily invested. This IMF scheme may be the most alluring to politicians because it has the appearance of being “free” and “painless.”
The carbon sasquatches are aided by legions of carbon hogs, the global “civil servants” of the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, the European Commission, and environmental NGOs, who, thanks to the taxpayers’ purse, enjoy a perpetual “moveable feast,” flitting from one world-saving summit to the next: Rio, Vienna, Kyoto, Geneva, Bonn, Bali, Davos, etc.
While many of the sasquatches and hogs are still gnashing their teeth at the failure to secure a binding climate agreement at Copenhagen, many of us carbon Chipmunks and ants are still celebrating having “dodged the bullet.” Just don’t celebrate too long; the sasquatches and hogs are already rolling out new plans to run our lives.
