Dissidents Against Dogma (Global Warming Scam) By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

[Demeter]

http://www.counterpunch.org/


We should never be more vigilant than at the moment a new dogma is being installed. The claque endorsing what is now dignified as "the mainstream theory" of global warming stretches all the way from radical greens through Al Gore to George W. Bush, who signed on at the end of May. The left has been swept along, entranced by the allure of weather as revolutionary agent, naïvely conceiving of global warming as a crisis that will force radical social changes on capitalism by the weight of the global emergency. Amid the collapse of genuinely radical politics, they have seen it as the alarm clock prompting a new Great New Spiritual Awakening.

Alas for their illusions. Capitalism is ingesting global warming as happily as a python swallowing a piglet. The press, which thrives on fearmongering, promotes the nonexistent threat as vigorously as it did the imminence of Soviet attack during the cold war, in concert with the arms industry. There's money to be made, and so, as Talleyrand said, "Enrich yourselves!" I just bought two roundtrip British Airways ticket to Spain from Seattle and a BA online passenger advisory promptly instructed me that the CO2 "offset" cost would be $7.90 on each ticket, which I might care to contribute to Climate Care. It won't be long before utility bills will carry similar, albeit mandatory and much larger charges. Here's a forewarning of what is soon going to happen, courtesy of Samuel Brittan in the Financial Times, under the menacing title, "Towards a true price for energy":

"An enhanced could be the basis for a genuine shadow price for energy, which could become the basis for energy policy and replace the mind-boggling variety of specific schemes now in place. But for this to happen the consumer exemptions would have to go, and the levy first increased and then raised each year by more than inflation. An approach along these lines would be a contribution to an international effort to reduce dependence on imported and polluting fuels; but it would also benefit any particular country taking this route. And if Opec made disapproving noises we would know that we were really on to something."

Back in the 1970s, as the oil companies engineered a leap in prices, the left correctly identified and stigmatized the the conspiracy. Some thirty five years, here's the entire progressive sector swallowing, with religious fervor, a far more potent concoction of nonsense to buttress a program which will savagely penalize the poor, the third world and the environment.

[hatrack]

1. Who the fuck is this clown?

Does he support LaRouche? Or is he just parading his paradigm-shattering "originality" as an independent thinker?

:puke:

[glitch]

4. Long-time parader. He'd love to lead the parade with a big furry hat. waving his baton. nt

[Jim__]

2. Cockburn has never been one to be overly influenced by evidence.

Did you post this because you accept his arguments? There are too many claims in the article for anyone to address them all. Is there any claim you find particularly convincing? If so, someone on this board may be able to refute it. I've looked at a number of Cockburn's claims, and, as far as I can tell, they're pure bullshit (not his claims that someone somewhere said what he claims, but that there's anything actually convincing about the claim).

Seriously, think about his claim that geologists aren't generally convinced about global warming. Isn't the question whether or not climatologists are convinced? A scientist outside his area of specialization is just another layman.

[marmar]

3. What a dickhead....

:argh:

[Demeter]

5. I Post to Inform--Not Persuade

[jilln]

6. Whenever I see the word "radical"

I stop reading. It's just an attempt to make an opposing viewpoint look scary.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Is Global Warming a scam? Absolutely not. Could it be USED for scams? Absolutely yes!

It is ridiculous to call Global Warming and its man-made causes a scam. You'd have to believe that the entire scientific community on earth (except Exxon-Mobile "scientists") was in on it. And my "rule of thumb" on Bushites and global corporate predators would have to be violated: whatever they say, the exact opposite is true. (It's almost infallible.)

But could the Dark Lords USE it for scams? They already are. Scam no. 1: The Iraq War (a way to waste more oil at great profit, corner the last oil, price gouge and enhance Dark Lord power before the Big Switch to alternative fuels). A scam in the making: Bush's biofuel "free trade" deal with Brazil: a way to cut down wide swaths of the already disappearing Amazon rainforest, at great profit, to grow monocrops of corn and soy, at great profit to pesticide manufacturers, and to further destroy local food production, to push corporate food on the poor, and to further drive small farmers off the land, for real estate speculation and to create more slave labor--all to fuel North Americans' insatiable desire for SUVs. Will it mitigate Global Warming? No! (--the tradeoff in lost forest and other impacts points to MORE Global Warming.) Will it profit a lot of already rich people? You bet. (Another motive is that Hugo Chavez and the Bolivarian bloc (Venezuela, Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua) oppose corn/soy biofuel production, and oppose "deals" with Bush & cabal--Bush, in making such a deal with Brazil, is trying to "divide and conquer" South American leftists. Lulu in Brazil is a leftist, but apparently a buyable one.)

The cost for EVERYTHING--the war, tax cuts for the rich, oil giant profits, medical care price gouging, you name it--falls on the backs of the poor. It is not a scientific argument against Global Warming to say that the cost of Global Warming will ALSO be inflicted on the poor.

The remedy--as they have found in Venezuela, and, indeed, across the Andes region and the new South America--is TRANSPARENT VOTE COUNTING. Get yourself real representation in government, according to the numbers of votes, and you can start reversing this overarching scam, that the costs of the foolishness, greed and criminality of the rich inevitably fall on the innocent, the hard-working and the least able to pay.

CounterPunch is sometimes fun for being so onery, and sticking pins into Hypocrite Dolls, but they can also be tiresome because they never suggest a remedy. That's why I don't read them any more. The fuzzy compromises, mixed motives, half-measures, confused ethics, good snaking together with evil, and other ambiguities of the human condition, aggravate them. And I don't think they really want democracy or solutions to anything. They want to remain aggravated. It's a bit smug.