PrintJuly 22, 2009
India and Global Warming
Secretary of State Clinton has gone to India and tried to persuade its leaders to adopt the Leftist dilettante position on carbon emissions. In discussing the merits of global warming, doesn't it make sense to first consider those who would be most seriously hurt by global warming and which nations would be more helped by global warming?
Consider, for example, what it would mean to Russian and to Canada if the world average temperature rose by a few degrees. These nations would have a more temperate climate. There would be more arable land, more land on which people could live without using energy to heat their homes and offices, and much milder weather in general. Land values would rise in both nations.
Because these vast lands are overwhelmingly inland, a rising ocean level (one of the apocalyptic "signs" of ultraorthodox global warming clerics) would scarcely affect Russians or Canadians at all. More people might want to move to Canada or to Russia, but much of Russia and some of Canada currently face the problem of rural areas losing population and the people who remain growing older and lonelier. In fact, it is not hard to anticipate a Russian and a Canadian renaissance following global warming.
Regardless of whether or not there really is significant climate change, regardless of whether or not any climate change is man-made rather than natural, and regardless of whether any climate change is warming or cooling the plant, there is one certainty: The impact of climate changes of three degrees or so will help some parts of the world and hurt some parts of the world. The idea that gradual, modest climatic change is automatically catastrophic for everyone is just silly.
One good way to test the validity of man-made global warming as serious science, rather than a druid cult, is to observe the reaction of those who would suffer the most from man-made global warming. India has the hottest climate of any of the great powers. An increase of even three degrees in the average temperature in India would affect that subcontinent much more than the increase of the temperature of Sweden by three degrees or Minnesota by three degrees, but the effect upon India would be to make some parts of India almost uninhabitable.
Because India is a subcontinent, jutting out into the Indian Ocean, and - as the Tsunami of 2004 demonstrated, India would be much harder hit by any man-made global warming which cause the ocean levels to rise or produced erratic weather. No one needs to remind the Indian government of just how many lives and how much property could be washed away when oceanic conditions become very dangerous.
So is the Indian government just stupid? Do its universities and ministries not see what Al Gore sees? Although India is a subcontinent of great contrasts, the different peoples who inhabit India have some of the best scientific minds in the world. It is both absurd and offensive to assume that the government of India and its scientific advisors cannot grasp the " Inconvenient Truth" that the mutton-headed Al Gore or the shrewish lawyer Hillary believe.
Does the government of India care less about the welfare of its own people than Gore and Clinton? India is the largest democracy in the world, not a petty backwards dictatorship. Of course the government of India cares at least as much about the welfare of the peoples of India as the rich, distant, Leftist interlopers.
There is, in fact, only one logical conclusion about the emphatic rejection by the government of India of the carbon emission caps which Secretary of State Clinton asked India to accept: thoughtful, concerned, scientists and administrators who would be most directly harmed by the dangers of man-made global warming do not accept the premises of its advocates. Perhaps the Indians do not believe the planet is warming or perhaps they do not believe that warming is the result of man-made activities or perhaps they believe that any warming holds slight danger for even a land directly in the cross-hairs of any harm that global warming might hold.
Nabobs like Al Gore or Hillary Clinton, rich and powerful, living in America, will be fine whatever happens to our climate. If the worst fears of the global warming priests turns out to be correct, Gore and Clinton will still live comfortable, safe, lives. When those most vulnerable, like the people of India, reject the arguments of global warming, that ought to mean a lot to anyone who cares about the truth.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
Bruce Walker is the author of two books: Sinisterism: Secular Religion of the Lie, and his recently published book, The Swastika against the Cross: The Nazi War on Christianity.
