The Copenhagen, Chavista Consensus: Free Markets Kill Polar Bears

As Ron Bailey pointed out in his latest dispatch from the Copenhagen climate change conference, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave a predictably insane speech blaming capitalism for the melting if the polar ice caps and all sorts of other environmental degradation. Of course, he likely remembers that the Soviet Union and its slave states were all terrific stewards of the earth, using green technology to eliminate the kulaks and giving Andrei Sakharov fair trade chicory coffee in prison.

I am not a scientist, don't pretend to be a scientist, and defer to Bailey on all things science related, but am I allowed to be more than slightly troubled that those formulating policy on such matters appear to be barking mad?

Here The Australian's national correspondent Lenore Taylor gives us a general idea of how the assembled greens reacted to Chavez's idiotic speech (after hissing at Australia's very orthodox climate change minister):

Then President Chavez brought the house down.

When he said the process in Copenhagen was "not democratic, it is not inclusive, but isn't that the reality of our world, the world is really and imperial dictatorship…down with imperial dictatorships" he got a rousing round of applause.

When he said there was a "silent and terrible ghost in the room" and that ghost was called capitalism, the applause was deafening.

But then he wound up to his grand conclusion – 20 minutes after his 5 minute speaking time was supposed to have ended and after quoting everyone from Karl Marx to Jesus Christ—"our revolution seeks to help all people…socialism, the other ghost that is probably wandering around this room, that's the way to save the planet, capitalism is the road to hell….let's fight against capitalism and make it obey us."  He won a standing ovation.

God help us.

Bailey's first dispatch can be read here, second here, and third here.