Durban Environmental Summit Alternative Agenda

Durban Environmental Summit Alternative Agenda

By: Rachel Marsden

Global leaders are set to meet in Durban, South Africa, from Nov. 28 to Dec. 9, in an attempt to figure out how to continue their fight against “climate change” when the first Kyoto Protocol commitment period ends in 2012. Since I’m currently sitting here in the dark with the heat off, perhaps they’d grant me the temporary moral authority to offer a few suggestions for their agenda.

— Don’t waste any time fiddling with the planet’s thermostat. So the big achievement of the previous summit in Cancun was agreeing that the Earth’s temperature must not be permitted to increase by 2 degrees Celsius? Look, I’ve been in European gyms with air conditioning that can’t even be controlled within the space of a few thousand square feet, despite regular intervention by head-scratching specialists. Usually the excuse is that the “ceiling is too high.” Well, guess what? The Earth’s ceiling is really, really high. Give it up already and move on to something you can realistically control.

— Nuclear energy is the future. Nuclear energy: good. Nuclear bomb: bad. It’s that simple. Now can we move on to a less silly debate? Oh, you say you’re worried about a nuclear energy facility going all Chernobyl on you? While you’re at it, why don’t you also avoid getting your hair cut for fear the hairdresser will stab you in the eye with the scissors while trimming your bangs? The odds are about the same for both. Great Britain has already found out what happens when nuclear is replaced by much dirtier coal: the prices go up and no one is any happier. Speaking of which ...

— Imposing green alternatives almost always results in dirtier ones. When I go to the supermarket and am told the plastic bags cost money, it isn’t ever going to force me to carry around loose groceries. I’ll always pay the extra money and tolerate the cashier’s dirty looks in exchange for the Earth-murdering plastic bags, which I will then recycle as garbage bags at home before throwing them in the trash, where they will hopefully be recycled by a seagull who will recoup them from the landfill and use them in a nest or maybe even as a stylish necklace that would make Charles Darwin proud. When enviro-fascists succeed in removing those bags from stores and I’m expected to carry loose groceries, I will then rely on grocery delivery – meaning a gas-guzzling truck will deliver my groceries and someone will carry them to my door in bags or boxes.

Likewise, what do people do when heating their home gets too expensive? They throw wood on the fire. And that’s pollution we can actually see –— not just “faith-based” pollution.

— Oil is the future. At least it’s your future and that of your kids. Beyond that, come on — do you really care anyway? It won’t be running out anytime soon, so how about embracing it so we don’t lose an economic advantage to those who already accept this fact?

— Excessive tree-hugging is suffocating the foliage. Plants need carbon dioxide to live and produce oxygen. Humans need oxygen and need to eat plants. One of the biggest issues facing humanity now and increasingly in the future is food security, particularly in Africa and the Arab world, where we’re already seeing uprisings. Why would anyone want to risk further stoking food shortages and political instability in the interest of stopping an abstraction like “climate change”? Let’s get our priorities straight.

— Innovation can’t be forced; it needs to emerge organically. Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein weren’t successful as inventors because some world governing body held a gun to their heads — or to their wallets. Encourage “green” invention by promoting scientific education and critical thinking rather than indulging the ongoing epidemic of ensconcing kids in liberal arts programs to educate them far beyond their intelligence. A focus on technological education will lead to the emergence of “green alternatives” that don’t need tons of government cash to get an inch off the ground.