First, the United Nations publishes a children’s book to ignite fears in the world’s youth over global warming being the new bogeyman. Next, the Secretary General tells an environmental conference that the world’s developed nations should address climate change as seriously as they do weapons of mass destruction. Sounds like a Trey Parker and Matt Stone theme, doesn't it?
Well, hold on to your wallets sports fans, because Kofi Annan is on tour again spreading fear and gloom to the world largely on the backs of American taxpayers. As reported in an Agence France Presse article Wednesday (emphasis mine throughout): “UN chief Kofi Annan demanded that world leaders give climate change the same priority as they did to wars and to curbing the spread of weapons of mass destruction.”
Predictably, Annan didn’t miss an opportunity to suggest that this is all the West’s fault:
In his valedictory speech to the annual meeting, the UN secretary-general painted a sombre tableau about the effects of climate change, especially on impoverished countries that were least to blame for it.
And he lacerated the fast-shrinking minority of politicians or scientists who still denied there was any threat as "out of step, out of arguments and out of time."
Then came the real warning to the world: "'The message is clear. Global climate change must take its place alongside those threats -- conflict, poverty, the proliferation of deadly weapons -- that have traditionally monopolised first-order political attention.’"
AFP then took the opportunity to sell global warming to its readers:
The United States by itself accounts for a quarter of the world's greenhouse gas output, although its position as No. 1 polluter could soon be overtaken by China, a major burner of coal.
Greenhouse gases trap the Sun's heat instead of letting it radiate out into space.
As a result, Earth's atmospheric temperature is rising, and many scientists are convinced this is already starting to affect the climate system.
The evidence for this comes through thinner snow cover in the European alps, shrinkage of the Greenland icesheet and Arctic ice cover, and a retreat in Siberian permafrost.
The article ended with this final caution: “Financial experts on Tuesday warned climate change could so amplify the effect of weather disasters that droughts, storm surges and other natural catastrophes could cost as much as a thousand billion dollars in a single year by 2040.”
What a crock!
