Commentary
We don’t need to wait for media coverage and live tweets from the U.N. climate change conference to know that the results of COP26 will be more of the same old hysterical alarmism—tinged with deeply troubling anti-humanism.
The 20,000 wealthy diplomats, Wall Street financiers, and activists converging in Glasgow, Scotland—ironically fresh from their comfortably fossil-fueled journeys—say the world’s future is their priority. But their actions reveal a disdain for humanity that should undermine any ideas they propose.
COP26 activists cite
claims from researchers that global carbon emissions must fall by 45 percent or more this decade alone in order to stave off a climate Ragnarok. But the statistical gymnastics they use to support this claim suffer from
severe scientific errors—and, ironically, don’t prove their case anyway.
The same data models that will be cited repeatedly in Glasgow show that even the most stringent emissions policies wouldn’t meaningfully change global temperatures. Eliminating all fossil fuel consumption in the United States would result in
less than two-tenths of a degree difference in global temperatures by 2100—a minuscule figure within spitting distance of the margin of error. The same goes for the Paris Agreement at just 0.17 degrees—and that’s in the
highly implausible scenario that every participating country meets its pledges through the end of the century.
What they don’t tell you? Not only will ham-fistedly punishing carbon dioxide emissions not work, but it will also destroy lives—here in the United States and around the world.
The world is already entering an
energy crisis that has shut down factories, is exacerbating existing supply-chain issues, and is poised to cause blackouts across the world. For many, this winter will be deadly, as home heating costs continue to rise and power plants run low on fuel.
Imagine a United States where our businesses, hospitals, banks, grocery stores, 911 dispatch centers, and more—let alone our homes—can’t keep the lights on because foolish renewable energy mandates have made electricity unreliable and prohibitively expensive. Imagine a United States where thousands die needlessly because they can’t afford to keep their homes at a safe temperature—
as happens every year in the UK.
And imagine how the developing world will suffer without access to the cheap, reliable fossil fuels that have done incredible work lifting the burden of extreme poverty from communities all around the globe. Though elite gatherings such as COP26 adopt a highbrow tone and claim concern for the world’s poor, the ideas that they advocate will
crush the Third World under the weight of deadly energy poverty for good.
That’s because COP26 isn’t really about climate change, and it’s certainly not about helping people. The average American, understandably concerned by frightening headlines about climate change, has no sinister motives, but the underpinnings of the climate alarmist movement are about forcing a progressive ideology on the masses—coercing everyone to adopt politically correct lifestyles and cede power to the federal government—using skewed climate science as a cover.
If influential climate activists were truly concerned about the human condition, they would abandon their fruitless quest to crush the energy sources we need to survive. They would acknowledge that technology and the free market have made us more resilient than ever, with
climate-related deaths dropping by 98 percent over the past century, even while the global population has quadrupled and average temperatures have warmed slightly. They would focus on tangibly improving lives—which certainly wouldn’t involve eliminating access to affordable, reliable energy.
Climate czar John Kerry has called COP26 the
“last best hope for the world.” This bleak worldview isn’t shared by those who recognize that the radical left’s anti-prosperity, anti-freedom ideology is the real threat, not climate change.
Humanity’s future is looking brighter than ever—if we resist the alarmism pressing us toward socialism.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
