Well, as amazing as it might seem, Czech President Vaclav Klaus made some rather astonishing comments in a letter to members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee about how “climate change and especially man-made climate change has become one of the most dangerous arguments aimed at distorting human efforts and public policies in the whole world.”
He went so far as to claim that “we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom,” and that communism has been “replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism.”
Yet, apart from World Net Daily, a Google and LexisNexis search indicated that no major American media outlets covered this development. Regardless, here are some of the more compelling comments by Klaus (emphasis added throughout):
The – so called – climate change and especially man-made climate change has become one of the most dangerous arguments aimed at distorting human efforts and public policies in the whole world…I am convinced, however, that up to now this scientific debate has not been deep and serious enough and has not provided sufficient basis for the policymakers’ reaction. What I am really concerned about is the way the environmental topics have been misused by certain political pressure groups to attack fundamental principles underlying free society. It becomes evident that while discussing climate we are not witnessing a clash of views about the environment but a clash of views about human freedom.
As someone who lived under communism for most of my life I feel obliged to say that the biggest threat to freedom, democracy, the market economy and prosperity at the beginning of the 21st century is not communism or its various softer variants. Communism was replaced by the threat of ambitious environmentalism. This ideology preaches earth and nature and under the slogans of their protection – similarly to the old Marxists – wants to replace the free and spontaneous evolution of mankind by a sort of central (now global) planning of the whole world.
Shocking stuff, yes? Now, imagine his assertion was that those scientists and politicians currently denying the existence of manmade global warming were guilty of what he claimed in this letter. Do you think this would have been headline news this morning, and covered by all the television news outlets yesterday?
If the answer is "Yes," why the difference?
With that in mind, I highly recommend taking a few minutes to read his entire statement, for it is unlikely you are going to see it anywhere else.
