Saturday 1 March 2008

Should the United Nations take military action against China over climate change?

David Archibald's latest paper destroys the myth that CO2 is to blame for the warming we've seen since the end of the Little Ice Age in the mid 19th century. He puts the warming effect from anthropogenic CO2 at around 0.1C, which is the conclusion I came to some time back.

However, that's not the point of this post. I provide it as background because it includes the following graph:



The question that needs to be posed is this...

Given that Climate Change presents an existential threat to the earth's climate system, that there's a consensus of scientific opinion that the consequences will be dire and that the cost of not taking urgent action are significant then should the United Nations take military action against China in order to save the world given the huge increase in CO2 output projected for them?


Naturally, it's a deliberately provocative question but why shouldn't it be asked?

If the projection in the above graph is correct and 'the science is settled' then the world is doomed.


In order to preserve world peace - the UN's primary objective - it must be incumbent on it to gather together those nations whose governments are keen to take action against anthropogenic global warming and stop China, militarily if necessary. That would be a pretty amusing spectacle, really; blue helmeted UN soldiers doing what they normally do - running away from a fight - while the UN's European half-brother, the EU, expends more time fighting with itself than tackling China.

If China - and India for that matter - will not reduce carbon emissions then why shouldn't they be subject to strong international action?

The situation really does show the apparently contradictory positions that the United Nations manages to navigate with no sense of cognitive dissonance.


In Australia the recent release of the Garnaut Report suggests that if Australia slashes its economic wrists by working towards a 90% reduction in CO2 by 2050 then it will be seen as a great world leader, a visionary country and an inspiration for recalcitrants such as China to follow.

I didn't notice China follow Australia's lead with the whole democracy thing, or take much notice of any of our world leading occupational health and safety standards, or take our side on ending North Korea's concentration camp status, or even reform their economy by floating their currency.

You do have to give them credit for taking our lead on one important thing, though. They have hired a bunch of Aussies who worked on the Sydney Olympics to help make their upcoming version of the games a propaganda triumph.

The reason that people would think that another country would follow Australia's lead - on moral grounds - has always eluded me.


(Nothing Follows)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

As always, you're unable to distinguish between science and nonsense. As a very reliable guide, anything published in Energy and Environment is nonsense. The Archibald paper is published in Energy and Environment.

As for China - why on earth would you not suggest action against the US first? The per-capita emissions in the US, China and India are 19, 2.6 and 1.0 tonnes respectively. The global average is 3.9 tonnes. Does that make it clear where the problem lies?

Jack Lacton said...

Fudgie,

As always, you have no intellectual capacity for rational analysis.

If per capita is your criterion then surely you'd have to attack Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Luxembourg, Trinidad and Tobago, Brunei, Bahrain, Netherlands Antilles and Aruba before the United States?

Oops. America hating Euro-socialist shown to be a ninny yet again.

Total output is the only measure that counts. Change CO2 to some other problem such as dumping mercury into the ocean and tell me why your per capita logic works.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, because mercury is something that comes from industrial processes, not from everyday human activities. Individuals are responsible for the emission of CO2, through their lifestyle choices. Why would you want to attack Chinese peasants while obese Americans drive big cars to the burger joint a block away?

China hating Australio-fascist shown to be a ninny yet again...

Jack Lacton said...

Fudgie,

You need to have an aspirin and a good lie down.

Come back tomorrow and review the drivel that you've managed to write.

Darren said...

Or better yet, don't!

Anonymous said...

Oh! Lacton and darren, the standard of your argument is almost Socratic.

Ellen K said...

What else would you have Americans do? We can't access nuclear energy due to panic in the 1980's thanks to Hollywood. We can't drill our own abundant but inaccessible oil in Alaska or use Colorado oil shales. We can't invest money in exploring gassification of coal-our most abundant fuel resource. Instead we are stuck with what amounts to gestural green crap. By that I mean, corn based ethanol that actually lowers the fuel efficiency of gasoline, coupled with fewer refineries to add it. Hydrogen fuel cells with the potential to turn every autowreck into a fatality collision are another wonderful option we've been given. I would personally LOVE to take train or bus, but when a trip that take 25 minutes in the car would take over two hours by mass-transit, then what options do we really have? And frankly the international envirowhackos haven't done much to help except to make Al Gore even more of a laughing stock that he was already. Really, he claimed to invent the Internet, and you think he knows ANYTHING about the environment? Maybe he can ask the pilot of his Lear jet.

Anonymous said...

ellen k - 'gestural green crap' can power entire countries. Iceland and Norway get more or less all their energy from hydroelectric - are there not quite a lot of rivers and waterfalls in the US?

Nuclear still gives you 20% of your energy despite the Hollywood liberal nutjobs. Lobby for an expansion of it. France has been going along pretty well for years now with 80% of its power being nuclear. And why fear nuclear when coal mining kills on average about 60 people every year in the US? There have already been 10 fatalities so far this year.

Public transport being poor is a consequence of low-tax low-spend policies leading to chronic underinvestment. We have the same problem in the UK. London's improved a lot over the past few years, though, thanks to the work of Ken Livingstone - there are way more buses than there used to be, and the fares are cheaper now than they were 10 years ago (e.g. £1.50 for a night bus then, £0.90 now).

Oh, and if you really believe that Al Gore claimed to have invented the internet then you ought to do some more research.

Rat2 said...

For all these ideas, and for the 20 million people who will not be invited to the 2020 Summit, the online community created a wiki so people across Australia could post, discuss, and vote on the best ideas for the country. It’s totally a grassroots effort. It’s free, can be anonymous, and isn’t being sponsored by any political party, corporation, union, or special interests. It’s just people who want to encourage an online national brainstorming session.

The site is at http://ozideas.wetpaint.com. There are pages for over 20 different issues and even an online petition to get the best ideas heard at the actual Summit.

So far, we’ve had over 1500 visitors, more than 10,000 page views, and over 100 ideas (each with many sub-threads), and we’ve only been up for 10 days or so.

The more people know about it, the more ideas are submitted, and the better the discussion.

For your amusement and that of the public’s, we also created a funny web “commercial” for the site – it’s of Kevin Rudd, Brendan Nelson, and Peter Garrett break dancing. Check that out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQZa17-Dt_4.

It’s a great way for everyone to participate in the summit.

Jim
Wiki Creator