Copenhagen's Prophets of Doom

Evidence to the contrary and fraudulent data / science / hucksterism be damned !

'Climate of Doom' [Rich Lowry]

Here's my Copenhagen column today. I mention the video that opened the summit, but only glancingly. It's beyond parody, like a short version of "2012" — the earth cracking beneath the girl's feet directly parallels the California earthquake scene — except even more treacly and without the character development. In her excellent column today, Mona compares the panic over climate change to the panic over over-population a couple of decades ago. It also reminds me of the nuclear-freeze movement, in its exploitation of children and their fears, in its doomsday rhetoric, and in its simplistic, absolutist, and blatantly unrealistic proposed policy.


And then, there is the EPA;

Charles Krauthammer:

On the Environmental Protection Agency’s finding that greenhouse gases are a threat to public health and can therefore be regulated under the Clean Air Act:
Look, it's blackmail. It is a way of saying to Congress: Either you do cap-and-trade or we will do cap, no trade. We will regulate every aspect of American life if the EPA now has in its power — and perhaps it will enact it over time — to intrude on every aspect of American life. Essentially what it can do is to regulate emissions from any institution, any enterprise, any apartment block that emits more than 250 tons of CO2 in a year, which is a very low level.

It [EPA] says it will raise that higher but it doesn't actually have the authority to actually raise it. ...
It really is what Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, said: Environmentalism is the new socialism. It is a way for the feds — for the best and brightest in the federal government — to regulate all aspects of life. It used to be in the name of socialism, which was social equality. Now it's in the name of the planet.

It is a smart strategy on the part of the left, but it is a hell of a way to do it. If you want to do it, at least you do it by the consensus of Congress. If you do it by regulation, there will be a revolution on the administration's hands.