Gordon Brown – the UK’s Chicken Little
Conservative Blog post for October 20, 2009
Gordon Brown – the UK’s Chicken Little
In what could be an sneak preview of the wild theatrics that precede the downfall of a leftist administration, the UK’s Gordon Brown issued a call to action on global warming on Monday that among other things, warned “of a catastrophe for the planet” if action to tackle climate change is not agreed at forthcoming UN talks. He also said that “global warming could be more costly than two world wars and the Great Depression.” This called the British press to question Brown’s scientific and economic credentials – of which Brown possesses neither.”
Aside from Spanish PM Zapatero, Brown is the last European lefty in a position of any significance among the great European democracies. Left to grasp at straws before his impending smack down at the hands of UK Conservatives, Brown has fallen back on the age-old tactic of creating a crisis. Only this one is just silly.
Economic matters have pushed the global warming debate onto the back burner. Scientific evidence has kept it there as global temperatures have in fact been cooling since 1998. Brown’s theatrics were performed in attempt to call Europe’s leaders to a climate conference in Copenhagen. These meetings were originally intended as a follow up to the ones that produced the Kyoto Protocol. Unfortunately, most of Europe’s leaders are concerned with jobs, the world wide recession and in fending off a new threat from Russia after being sold out by the Obama administration. Merkel (DEU) and Sarkozy (FRA) have full plates and appear unlikely to join the British PM in changing the subject from real problems.
In an attempt to make the problems more ‘real,’ Brown pointed out the European heat wave that supposedly killed some 35,000 Europeans in 2003. Obama’s health care proposals will kill a lot more than this. Of course, it wasn’t directly the European heat that caused this disaster – it was the lack of air conditioning. If Londoners moved to Phoenix and lived in small homes without AC, they’d struggle too. Climate anomalies simply occur from time to time. But like Hurricane Katrina, it is just much easier for the liberal mind to blame George W. Bush or global warming than to look at events within an historical context.
What is also interesting is the lack of backbone to confront the world’s worst polluter. China brings on line one new dirty coal fired plant every two weeks to meet its industrial energy requirements. The results were evident during the Olympic Games last summer when pollution that would never be tolerated in the western world clouded all outdoor venues. Liberal media dutifully chose to overlook Chinese abuse of the environment and has continued to do so.
Without the cooperation of China, any effort at controlling carbon output is just silly and a complete waste of time and money. And even if accomplished, reducing carbon output will have very little if any impact on world temperatures. Reducing pollution by itself is a laudable objective. But to say that the sea is going to swallow up millions of Polynesian islanders is without foundation. Besides, China in particular is quite content to let western nations damage their economies with burdensome environmental regulations while theirs becomes comparatively strong using dirty energy production.
Still, Brown insists that inattention to Global Warming will cost lives. Barack Obama’s health care plan will cost a lot more lives, but Brown isn’t calling attention to that little matter. Look for Brown to continue banging his head on the brick wall of economic reality up until his defeat in the next British election. He has no accomplishments to his credit and has now built himself into Western Europe’s laughing stock. What does he do next? Word has it that Brown has requested several thousand ACORN workers to relocate to the UK in preparation for the next election.