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.

Comments

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

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

This has nothing to do with ghosts. It's all about science dammit!

[The Libertarian Guy]

Science flies out the window when a Marxist is behind the mic.

Who knows how many people believed every word Chavez spewed?

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Woah there now, haven't you heard? Socialism is science.

Somebody really needs to go tell this Chavez guy.

[Chony]

We like Chavez.

[tkwelge]

Communist nations have terrible environmental records! Well, their human rights record tends to overshadow that fact....

[Groovus Maximus]

Enviro-Greenies tend not to give the human element much concern. But their ideology is pure.

Can't make an omelet....

[jester]

Chavez indeed is a leveller. He allows us to put our ideas in perspective. Viva Chavez.

[tkwelge]

And they wonder why we're skeptical. These people clearly just don't like markets. Global warming has been about crushing capitalism since day one! I mean, I would have booed! Someone should have been there to take pictures of every politician clapping during that speech, so that it can be used against them in later elections.

This whole copenhagen thing drives me nuts, as it's just world leaders playing "federation of planets." What a bunch of tits.

[swillfredo pareto]

Someone should have been there to take pictures of every politician clapping during that speech, so that it can be used against them in later elections.

That's a good one! You think most of these thugs come from countries where the little people have any say whatsoever in their leadership?

[Michael Ejercito]

And they wonder why we're skeptical. These people clearly just don't like markets. Global warming has been about crushing capitalism since day one! I mean, I would have booed! Someone should have been there to take pictures of every politician clapping during that speech, so that it can be used against them in later elections.

It was pretty obvious since the 1980's, when a solution to the problem that Carl Sagan and four other scientists came up with was deliberately ignored.

And now here is another inconvenient truth.

" A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the United Nations U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the... "

[SKR]

OMG I didn't realize we were losing countries to the ocean for the past ten years. OMG

[tkwelge]

And they wonder why we're skeptical. These people clearly just don't like markets. Global warming has been about crushing capitalism since day one! I mean, I would have booed! Someone should have been there to take pictures of every politician clapping during that speech, so that it can be used against them in later elections.

This whole copenhagen thing drives me nuts, as it's just world leaders playing "federation of planets." What a bunch of tits.

[Slut Bunwalla]

Tits, I tell you!

[Miklen]

Didn't it used to be called "Scientific Socialism"?

[Hazel Meade]

Not a surprise to me.

Most of the environmenalist fanatics I've known have actually been socialists with a deep burning hatred for capitalism, desguising their agenda behind green rhetoric.

What makes it so transparent is their unwillingness to advocate nuclear power. If they were actually serious about global warming, they would be ardentily demanding the immediate construction of hundreds of nuclear plants.

But no, they want us to "transform our lifestyles". Which is just a code phrase. They want to use climate change as a scare tactic to get people to go along with their socialist agenda.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Most of the environmenalist fanatics I've known have actually been socialists

I've yet to meet an environmentalist who ultimately proved to be anything but a socialist.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

But OTOH, they've never been just pure socialists. Pure, dedicated socialists don't necessarily give a rat's ass about the "environment".

Environmentalists inevitably have a big dose of that "Western civilization's got to go!" mentality mixed thoroughly their brains. And I usually walk away thinking that socialism, to them, is only a tool, an intermediate step towards a far different ultimate goal.

They aren't going to stop until we're all hunter-gatherers again. Which might give us all a little more time for sex when we're younger, but none of us is going to get very old.

[Groovus Maximus]

You do realize that the elite pontifs of the enviro-greenie movement will conveniently exempt themselves from living in the manner which they most espouse.

Do as I say, not as I do, all animals are equal but some are more equal than others and all that.

[Al Gore]

I *have* to keep my limos and jet planes! I'm still looking for ManBearPig! Totally cereal, you guys!

[Episiarch]

I think you're all overthinking this. AGW has become TEAM RED TEAM BLUE. Is it valid? It could be. Probably not. But it's now KULTUR WAR, bitches, and the partisan shitheels will latch on to it as if their life depended on it.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

No, it's a little more international than just US politics.

Which doesn't change the fact that it's bullshit just the same.

[Rajan R]

Chavez has a point. If every oil state acted like Venezuela with regards to extraction of petroleum, there wouldn't be the problem of carbon emissions (or for that matter, "peak oil").

[prolefeed]

And overpopulation would be the least of our worries, as the economy tanked and the birthrate plunged -- which would be "good" news for the watermelons at this fucking conference.

[Untermensch]

Actually, the birth rate would rise (poorer people have more kids). It's the death rate skyrocketing that would be good for them.

[Hazel Meade]

This is actually a point many socialist enviros consider quite a positive one.

Many's the time I've heard one of them denounce the idea of "growth", and claim that economic stagnations is actually an advantage.

[Tulpa]

Until we figure out fusion, and/or humans stop preferring full stomachs and warm beds, there will be carbon emissions significantly higher than preindustrial levels. Signing an agreement to make that not so will be as effective as ordering the sun to rise in the west.

[Tulpa]

They may as well be ordering the sun to rise in the west.

[jester]

Free markets of course save polar bears from extinction. Too bad polar bear advocates think the species survival depends on poorly conceived non-market 'solutions'. 'Solutions that more likely will doom an otherwise resilient species to the depository of fossilhood.

[prolefeed]

The polar bear populations are growing, due to a hunting ban.

SUVs aren't killing polar bears, unless used to transport hunters to their habitat.

[Lost_In_Translation]

Fuck polar bears

[alan]

The soccermums that are worried that their little trophies are not going to get to enjoy the site of polar bears at the zoos need to relax.

Solution: bleach the fucking grizzlies.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Is it too much to ask for the U.S. delegation, at the point of that standing oh, to leave the hall, head straight for the airport and onward home? Is that too damned much to ask?

[Library Desk Graffiti]

that requires the type of testicular fortitude and character one must shed upon entering politics.

better yet, is lacking from birth and thus why they're drawn to the arena in the first place

[*]

Is it too much to ask for the U.S. delegation, at the point of that standing oh, to leave the hall,

Hell, many of the US delegation probably agreed with him!

[ed]

At last report, Obama is still scheduled to fly there. He, too, will be greeted as a savior. Or not? Stay tuned.

[Bill Dalasio]

Exactly what evidence have you seen to date that the administration doesn't fundamentally agree wit Mr. Chavez?

[Fist of Etiquette]

As much as I enjoyed the perception that Bush would flip these guys off every chance he got, I doubt a delegation under his command would have found the door while a socialist dictator was getting applauded for shitting all over the American way, either.

The United States sends diplomats, but diplomacy is only useful when you're trying to get something. We're not getting anything in these kinds of things, we're only giving. Show these fucks why you generally don't shit on someone when you're getting something for nothing from them.

[Fat Cat]

Does this mean that Chavez wants out of the oil business?

[David]

Remember, Venezuela is a petro-state.

And everybody knows that the socialist's oil don't produce CO2.

[jester]

'socialist's oil don't produce CO2'

Unfortunately it does (produce CO2)...

however, the huge deforestation rates make up for that.

[*]

And everybody knows that the socialist's oil don't produce CO2.

The socialists don't even produce much oil without the capitalists to show them how.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

So it must be high time to kill off the capitalists.

[Zeb]

And to buy their oil so they can play their stupid little socialism games.

[Untermensch]

Ya, but his hot air there raised global temperatures more than all the CO? made in his country... Chavez produces AGW...

[Bergholt Stuttley Johnson]

Global Laming, dude.

[The Art-P.O.G.]

I think Moynihan is missing the bigger story here. Namely, that Hugo Chavez sees dead people. Walking around like regular people. They don't see each other. They only see what they want to see. They don't know they're dead.

[Neu Mejican]

FTW

[MJ]

Enviromentalists in the past have been accused of being "watermelons". I think we need a new metaphor, something that's red through and through with a touch of green.

[ed]

Reusable tampons?

[Contemplationist]

FUCK thats disgusting ed

[jk]

There needs to be a division between enviromentalists who care about the environment and "enviromentalists" who only care about controlling what you can buy, drive, use to heat your home, eat, etc. Unfortunately, the former are fewer and less visible and the latter are more numerous and louder.

[GoNavy]

enviromentalists who care about the environment

They are called conservationists and are probably hunters as well.

[jk]

Good point. You'd never see an "environmentalist" armed.

[Dave Anthony]

Unarmed?

Well then what the hell are we standing around here talking for?! Grab your pistols, boys!

[Johnny Longtorso]

Nah, this ain't about creating an inescapable one world government for the benefit of those doing the governing - not at all.

Once you define 'capitalism' as "things they don't control", their hatred makes perfect sense.

[MNG]

Chavez is popular with many poorer nations for the same reason that anti-Western and anti-US figures have always been popular with those people: a mix of crude envy and resentment (sometimes legitmate ones, colonialism was a bitch after all).

He's a fool of course. What little economic flex Chavez has is built on oil for crying out loud, and he lectures everyone on how capitalism is ruining the environment.

Everyone here says "every environmentalist I know hates capitalism" or what not. This says more about the breadth of your reading and associations than it does environmentalists. There is a subset of environmentalist who have a misguided, lamentable, overly-romantic negative reaction to "capitalism" as this thing which promotes consumerism over any other human value. These people fail to see that it is primarily nations in advanced levels of capitalistm that give a rat's ass about the environment. But apart from some vocal actors and activists few environmentalists are fans of Castro and Chavez, or government in general. They just don't want to see the actions of others harm third parties.

[Johnny Longtorso]

But apart from some vocal actors and activists few environmentalists are fans of Castro and Chavez, or government in general.

"...or government in general"?? BS. You can't demand global 'governance' and $145T in govt spending then say you aren't a fan of govt.

The difference between MNG and Chavez is that Chavez currently has the incentive to be more honest about his beliefs.

[MNG]

Look, being willing to support government action to thwart threats to people's persons and property does not indicate a like of government in general. Libertarians (well most) fall into this category in the areas of defence and police; does that mean they like government in general? If AGW is true in the way environmentalists believe it will harm property and persons. That's the trigger that even libertarians say justifies government action.

[SKR]

There is a big difference between possible harm (that has been imminent for the past 50 years but never materialized) and demonstrable harm.

[Canada]

oh I don't know colonialism wasn't so bad

[Australia]

Ya, the English might be wankers but things aren't so bad

[Jamaica]

Ya Maan!

[Haiti]

I wish we had been colonized by the English. Getting a little tired of eating dirt cookies with mud icing.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

There is a subset of environmentalist who have a misguided, lamentable, overly-romantic negative reaction to "capitalism" as this thing which promotes consumerism over any other human value.

Yeah okay. So this "mere subset" makes up what, 95% + of the overall movement? You know, kind of like Republicans are sort of free market but would have forgotten what it really means long ago, if not for those really annoying libertarians who won't stop beating the drum.

[Chris]

MNG,
I'm the only libertarian in my group of friends, which are all liberals to varying degrees. All the ones that claim to be evironmentalists are also self-proclaimed socialists or socialist sympathizers.

[Hazel Meade]

This says more about the breadth of your reading and associations than it does environmentalists.

I beg to differ.

You are merely unwilling to SEE the obvious fact that around 95% of there freaks, really, in fact, do, hate capitalism. Where everyone else finds glaringly obvious.

Please remove the fucking log from your own eye.

[Hazel Meade]

In exchange, I promise to make an effort to typo less.

[Abdul]

Hey, let's give some credit where it's due. No one can deny that communist nations have done wonders for population control.

[MNG]

Can we get Ron Bailey, who was there, to comment on the delegates reaction? Forgive me if I don't automatically take Moynihan's choice of the Murdochian The Australian (of all press accounts he could have chosen) as authoritative...

[Johnny Longtorso]

We only hear the truth from people MNG has attached his ego to.

MNG, please give us the list of approved news sources. Ask the Obama admin. We can get a start on deciding who is 'news' and who is "corporate attempts at influencing the political process" in time for the 2010 elections.

[MNG]

Look, it's a bit odd to choose The Australian as your account of something that every major news outlet in the world was covering. I mean really John-boy, is that the first outlet that comes to mind?

[monolith]

as annoying as murdoch is, his broadsheet papers in the UK & Australia are pretty mainstream.

[MNG]

MSNBC is pretty "mainstream" but would you uncritically accept a report from them which was critical of a movement associated with conservatives?

And you gotta love John-boy Torso who urges us to skepticism but here screams "oh why can't you just accept the account of the source given."

Skeptic indeed!

[monolith]

it depends. the national and international news sections of british papers including the murdoch owned (london) times and sunday times seem to be pretty unbiased despite the papers themselves being very political.
as far i can tell as a non regular reader the sunday times generally seems to accept global warming as a fact.
murdoch wouldn't want to risk losing readers by completely denying it.

[SugarFree]

MNG,

You can watch the speech here.

It goes down just like those dark Murdochian forces suggested. Applause for any whine he had about capitalism.

I guess that "subset" of watermelons somehow smuggled themselves en masse into the conference. That such a vanishingly small number of fringe envirowackos managed to completely usurp the seriously non-socialist majority of environmentalists who have no political stake in global warming is pretty amazing.

[Johnny Longtorso]

The report was from a witness to a specific event. If the cheering crowd was 'reconstructed' from vibrations measured outside the building, with the adjustments to the data hidden, then more skepticism would be appropriate.

[Johnny Longtorso]

I GOT IT!!!. We go thru each each so-called news organization's website, and if the words "East Anglia" and "emails" show up in the same story, its NOT a news organization and Obama can go after it w/ campaign finance laws. Once that happens, MNG will be spared having to personally make the effort to reject anything out of hand he doesn't find politically useful.

[essexman]

I was surprised that they had email in Norfolk.

[MNG]

John-boy Torso, a guy who enthusiastically links to "watts up.com?" half the time, tries to accuse someone else of cherry-picking their news sources. Some people you can't satirize...

[Johnny Longtorso]

Do you have a substantive comment about Watt's blog, or do you wish to rule him out of the conversation on the grounds, um, he isn't useful?

[Neu Mejican]

My main problem with Watt's blog is that he demonstrates over and over again that he doesn't understand the methods used by the people he criticizes and yet he goes ahead and wades in and proclaims loudly that his confusion is evidence of error.

[Neu Mejican]

If you want a more informed blog to keep up on the issue I would suggest this one...

http://rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/

[Johnny Longtorso]

In other words, the IPCC guys kept their methods hidden enough to prevent Watt from duplicating it, he says he can't figure out what he did, so that's on him and not on the Climategate liars?

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Hey, you're pretty sharp.

Hugo Chavez - South American douche bag.

[Corduroy Rocks]

Where's crayola and Tony this morning? I feel like I'm missing out on the spit and piss factor.

[Johnny Longtorso]

Anyone know what book Chavez is holding in this pic w/ Obama?

http://wwwimage.cbsnews.com/im.....56982x.jpg

[Johnny Longtorso]

I found it

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/.....88582.html

Better than an iPod? On the second day of the Summit of the Americas Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez presented President Obama with a book on Latin American history....

...As ABC's Jake Tapper points out, Chavez's gift was perhaps not as gracious as it may seem, given that the book attacks the US for what it considers its exploitation of Latin America.
Tapper also notes that the book Chavez gave Obama is soaring on Amazon....

Here is the book on Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0853459916/reasonmagazinea-20/

[Colin]

We should thank Chavez for exposing what these people are really about -- climate change is just a means to an end for them.

Our end.

[Neu Mejican]

Environmentalism is a highly politically fractioned movement. A stronger thread than "socialism" that runs through the movement is anti-authoritarianism. The main culprit/demon is not "capitalism" in the sense of people making money...it is "Capitalism" in the sense of big business and government in collusion.

The most pervasive motto of the movement is "think global, act local" which emphasizes decentralized solutions to the problem. Most serious proposals related to emissions seek to remove government subsidies for harmful activities, to remove government regulations that prevent wise environmental practices or have negative environmental consequences, and to get government to act in a more environmentally friendly way by reducing their own emissions.

The movement is not about an economic system...it is not a means-based movement. It is an ends based movement that seeks to protect the environment. As such, it embraces solutions from across the political spectrum based on their potential to produce the desired end.

Of course, any broad generalization like the one above ignore individual differences. But to characterize the larger movement as socialist seems based in something other than familiarity with the movement.

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Or maybe, characterizing the movement as socialist has everything to do with the policy prescriptions that time and again have come out of the Environmentalist camp.

I'm sure there's minorities with possibly different ideas, but get real. What kinds of policy prescriptions end up making the headlines on a routine basis?

The fact that proposed Enviro "solutions" to whatever they perceive to be "problems", almost never give any consideration to the fact that what they're proposing amounts to economy killing policy, might make people think that environmentalists in general just hate The Market. In any form whatsoever.

But I'm sure that's just another manifestation of the idiocy of the deniers, right?

The Environmentalists have by and large earned their reputation.

[Hazel Meade]

Bullshit.

These people are NOT nuanced enough to differentiate low-level free markets from big-business/government collusion. Please provide some actual links where some environmentalist who actually commands any respect within the movement actually says such things.

Until then, you're just talking out of your ass trying to pretend the green aren't what they obviously ARE.

[The Man]

Why defer to Bailey? He's no scientist either. Are there *any* libertarian scientists? I mean the real kind of scientists that isn't innumerate and astatistical. I get real uncomfortable when people start deferring to one another in a public place. It seems not very scientific.

If you are going to cede primacy to the scientific method then we must all become scientists to participate in political life and that's not very likely to happen. So if the majority of the citizenry will not become "scientists" then we will also have to dispense with deference in order to retain our freedom.

[Neu Mejican]

The Man,

You should read this one.
http://www.latimes.com/news/op.....9887.story

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Better yet, we should allow to science what is only its due.

Science may tell us what exists. It cannot tell us what we should do about it.

[G Mc]

Looking to an insane buffoon like Chavez as a leader of any sort of climate change movement is like looking to Sarah Palin as a leader of conserv... oh, right... yikes.

[Michael Ejercito]

Another incovenient truth

"Miami Herald - July 5, 1989 - 2E SCIENCE

GREENHOUSE WARMING NATIONS MAY VANISH, U.N. SAYS
A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would create an exodus of "eco-refugees," threatening political chaos, said Noel Brown, director of the New York office of the United Nations U.N. Environment Program, or UNEP. He said governments have a 10-year window of opportunity to solve the... "

[The Man]

I agree with much that they have to say, but this:

The real scandal illustrated by the e-mails is not that scientists tried to undermine peer review, fudge and conceal data, and torpedo competitors, . . .

sticks in my craw. They demean science and scientists when they suggest that this sort of behavior is common. But from their bios at the bottom of the column, I suspect that they are not the sort of scientists I was referring to. "The myth of pure science" is a red herring. What else can they say but that that's the way "Science" is done and therefore "the Science" of AGW remains untouched. I think the whole article (although correct in many particulars) is just camouflage for the scientific status quo.

My larger point is that although most people do not have scientific training, everyone has interests and to subjugate your interests to someone else's training is foolish. And remember, even if AGW is proven to be occurring the question still remains: is it in your interest to prevent or mitigate it? (Al Gore thinks yes, the Chinese apparently think not so much) and nobody needs Michael Mann or a couple of social scientists to answer that question.

[The Man]

Neu Mejican, I clicked the wrong link the response above was mean as a response to your LA Times link.

[MattXIV]

Chavez may be doing it specifically to make it harder to get the US to buy in. Think about it - he's reliant on the oil revenues, but if he just comes out and says he wants to keep the oil flowing, he's the one that looks irresponsible. But if he turns the negotiations into an argument about economic systems, he can hamstring negotiations while still looking like he's concerned.

[anonymous]

Wait, doesn't he basically control the oil industry? Environmentalists applauding the head of an oil company?

Why on earth do we keep thinking they're communists first, environmentalists second?

[Ebeneezer Scrooge]

Uh, could it be that people are stupid?

Hoaxenhagen! Hoaxenhagen!

[Lawrence Baker]

Global Warming-IS- Human / Industrial Pollution
As you know, scientist and science itself has been slandered with misinformation and ridiculed in advance of the talks. (A favored, repeated, and effective, right wing tactic).
Is Global Warming related to human/ industrial pollution? The atmosphere seems to be an arbitrary subject right now because of the propaganda effort to confuse the linkage between burning of fossil fuels and its effect on the atmosphere.
The real question is- are we going to put pandering ahead of science in addressing and acting upon human/industrial pollution now and in the future?
The best indisputable SCIENCE example that should be a test model and the #1 item on the Copenhagen Agenda would be the toxic plastic waste dump, the size of Texas, 900 miles off of the United States and Canadian West Coast.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.....rbatchageP
That is a Big SCIENCE problem with no dedicated U.S SCIENCE and INNOVATION DEPARTMENT to address the issue. The U.S (or Canada) has not even sent out a SCIENCE research vessel to evaluate this ecological disaster; neither country wants to take the responsibility for the industrial/human pollution or even acknowledge its existence.
No Profit-No Action!-No SCIENCE! Will the World Trade Organization and the New Industrial World Order address the issue? Where is their World SCIENCE Department? Advancement in SCIENCE would outmode the use of fossil fuels but the U.S has not funded innovative SCIENCE since 2001.
http://www.eere.energy.gov/inventions
Can the problem be solved with SCIENCE? Probably so, Americans are very ingenious primarily because we were raised with the compliments of Freedom and Democracy and are free thinking individuals. We could probably figure a way to clean up the mess and possibly make a profit doing so.
We can do nothing until we have a funded DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE that is free to address SCIENCE and to develop the advancement of SCIENCE. (Yes, for the sake of humanity; SCIENCE FIRST-PANDERING SECOND.)

[Thomas Dolby]

SCIENCE!