The end of climate change hysteria

Russia’s invasion of Georgia last week is another nail in the coffin of climate change hysteria, as concerns for a stable world supply of energy are beginning to overshadow those of the earth’s changing climate. The European Union (EU) had counted on pipelines bringing a steady supply of oil and natural gas through Georgia, an attitude that the Russian invasion of that country quickly negated, leaving the hapless Europeans to look for steady, secure energy elsewhere.

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Another concern for ongoing energy stability is Iran and that country’s promise to close the Straits of Hormuz, should any attempt be made to forcibly stop Iran’s developments of nuclear weapons. Given Iran’s bellicose and irrational behavior over the past 30 years, there is little doubt that the Straits of Hormuz will at some point be blockaded. It’s merely a question of when. As these concerns are very real and that the global demand for energy is on an upward trajectory, western democracies would be well advised to initiate strategies designed to bolster energy independence. The current rant in the US about forbidding oil exploration on US soil and offshore is rapidly losing traction, as a real oil shortage begins to loom large. The idea of freezing to death during a harsh winter like last year’s is taking on much more urgency than the idea of having to cope with a planet that is overall warmer. In many jurisdictions where punishing carbon taxes have been imposed, those who have advocated their imposition have paid the price with voters punishing them at the polls. One example is Britain’s Labour party’s free fall in the polls and the Conservatives’ resurgence because of Labour’s so-called “green legislation”, which amounts to a plethora of crippling taxes on automobiles, gasoline, air travel and related items. Canada’s Stephane Dion will soon find out what the voters think about his proposed “green shift”, a taxation scheme designed to allay climate change fears among Canadian voters. Dion’s scheme will increase so-called carbon taxes, which includes items such as home heating oil and natural gas (yet supposedly excludes gasoline). But, according to polling data, Canadians are seeing the Dion plan as yet another tax grab that will cost the average Canadian household more, despite the promised income tax cuts that Dion claims will offset the higher costs. Even Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the US House of Representatives and perennial opponent of Big Oil has softened her stand on drilling within the US, as she and the Democrats are beginning to see the handwringing on the wall. For the US to continue to depend on foreign oil in competition with India and China from suppliers who basically hate America is sheer madness, particularly in light of the fact proven oil reserves in the US exceed those of Saudi Arabia. With the Russian Bear once again flexing his muscles and hungrily eyeing his neighbors and Iran promising to disrupt world oil supplies sometime in the not too distant future, the specter of a global oil and energy shortage far outranks any of the deleterious effects feared by global climate change. In fact, given the choice of catastrophe most humans would opt for the uncertainty of climate change over the guaranteed human and economic disaster that an acute energy shortage would bring.