Eigentijdse onheilsprofeten en kantelpunten

In de aanloop naar de RIO + 20 – conferentie, waarbij oude Malthusiaanse wijn uit nieuwe zakken wordt geschonken, is er weer de gebruikelijke propagandacampagne op gang gekomen om de burger in te prenten dat de wereld gezwind naar de verdoemenis gaat.  

Mijn trouwe lezers zullen zich wellicht nog de brief van Premier Balkenende en zijn Britse collega, Tony Blair, herinneren dat de wereld als gevolg van de klimaatverandering spoedig een 'catastrophic tipping point' (kantelpunt) zou bereiken. Het dient wellicht aan een moment van onoplettendheid van de gewoonlijk zo nuchtere Balkenende te worden toegeschreven dat hij zich door Tony Blair liet verleiden om in 2006 te schrijven: ‘We have a window of only 10 – 15 years to take the steps we need to avoid crossing a catastrophic tipping point.' Maar dat had alleen op die verschrikkelijke opwarming van de aarde (die maar niet wil komen) betrekking. Beiden zijn inmiddels van het politieke toneel verdwenen. Zij hoeven dus geen politieke verantwoording meer af te leggen voor dit soort onzin. Hoe het ook zij, het toont aan dat zelfs verdienstelijke en gerespecteerde politici met een meer dan gemiddeld intelligentieniveau niet immuun zijn voor de klimaathysterie.

Maar professionele onheilsprofeten moeten hebben gedacht dat één kantelpunt waarschijnlijk toch wel wat mager was om het publiek te mobiliseren. Wat te doen? Zij kwamen na enig nadenken op het lumineuze idee om ons méér kantelpunten aan te kondigen. En de BBC, die traditioneel een platform biedt aan dit soort alarmistische verhalen, was maar al te graag bereid om aandacht te schenken aan hun nieuwste apocalyptische fantasieën.

Onder de titel, 'Alice in Wonderland: UNEP Warns of New “Tipping Points” Being Reached', rapporteert 'Haunting the Library':

The BBC reports that the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) is warning of a whole new set of ‘tipping points’ being reached unless “population growth” and “unsustainable consumption” are tackled at an international level. Translation: there are simply too  many of you, and you’ve all got too much stuff.
 
UNEP is calling for tough new international agreements to tackle the crisis, arguing – in perfect Alice in Wonderland fashion – that this has already failed hundreds of times, so we should be trying it again, just more so. .
 
You’ll be reassured to hear that the conclusion that we are rapidly approaching a new set of dangerous tipping points is based on “information on major transformations in the Earth’s past (such as mass extinctions) with models incorporating the present and the immediate future”. You will be further convinced of the solidity of these predictions when you hear that the dates being bandied around for this tipping point are (as always) about twenty to thirty-five years into the future. Near enough to be a “clear and present danger” but far enough away that it can be forgotten about as the date approaches and Armageddon hasn’t yet arrived on schedule.

Lees verder hier.

Zoals gebruikelijk doet ook 'Nature' weer een duit in het zakje. Op de website van de Huffington Post rapporteert Stephanie Pappas:

Earth Tipping Point Study In Nature Journal Predicts Disturbing And Unpredictable Changes

Earth is rapidly headed toward a catastrophic breakdown if humans don't get their act together, according to an international group of scientists.

Writing Wednesday (June 6) in the journal Nature, the researchers warn that the world is headed toward a tipping point marked by extinctions and unpredictable changes on a scale not seen since the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago.

"There is a very high possibility that by the end of the century, the Earth is going to be a very different place," study researcher Anthony Barnosky told LiveScience. Barnosky, a professor of integrative biology from the University of California, Berkeley, joined a group of 17 other scientists to warn that this new planet might not be a pleasant place to live.

"You can envision these state changes as a fast period of adjustment where we get pushed through the eye of the needle," Barnosky said. "As we're going through the eye of the needle, that's when we see political strife, economic strife, war and famine." .

Lees verder hier en hier.

Maar in de Canadese 'Financial Post' steekt Peter Foster de draak met dit soort apocalyptische verhalen. Hij vindt dat het hoog tijd is dat er nu eens punt wordt gezet achter jumboconferenties als RIO+20. Onder de titel, 'No bravo for Rio+20', schreef hij (lezers met een tere groene ziel wordt aangeraden om dit van-dik-hout-zaagt-men-planken-verhaal maar even over te slaan.):

Canada is going to Rio+20 summit, despite its hostility to fossil fuels.

Norway’s Gro Harlem Brundtland popularized “sustainable development” 25 years ago, but the concept has only produced a mountain of reports.
 
The Rio+20 Earth Summit on Sustainable Development, which starts in two weeks, will be a farce, even if everybody keeps a straight face. The grand UN-based system conceived to co-ordinate the activities of all mankind has proved utterly unsustainable, a dysfunctional mess that generates nothing but endless meetings, agendas and reports.
 
That sustainable development would inevitably collapse under its own contradictions was inevitable. What is fascinating is why every country on Earth — including Canada — would earnestly have committed to a concept hatched by a cabal of ardent socialists. Equally fascinating is the almost universal reluctance to acknowledge the organizational disaster that has ensued ...
 
The phrase “sustainable development” first achieved wide currency as the result of the 1987 report of the United Nations’ Brundtland commission, a body of self-styled “eminent persons” who appointed themselves to prepare “a global agenda for change” in the face of the alleged “interlocking crises” of failing economic development and deteriorating environment.
 
Behind Brundtland’s seemingly reasonable definition of sustainable development as “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” lay the implication that free markets were unsustainable.
 
Sustainable development was rooted in projections of environmental apocalypse due to catastrophic man-made global warming, species extinction, resource depletion, and any number of other apocalyptic scenarios that would be brought about by unfettered capitalism.
 
What was needed to fix this (projected) mess was greater political oversight and control, which would delicately balance the triple bottom line of the economy, the environment and social issues. As Brundtland commissioner Maurice Strong, who orchestrated the 1992 Rio conference, declared: “[W]e must devise a new approach to co-operative management of the entire system of issues.” As for the impossibility of either gauging or fulfilling “needs,” that wasn’t a problem for the Brundtland gang. They would simply tell us what our needs should be. ...
 
One key theme was that national governments had to sacrifice sovereignty and give more power to radical NGOs (who had been eagerly promoted — and allowed into the UN process — as the voice of “civil society” by the Brundtland gang and their fellow travellers at nodes such as the World Economic Forum). Another was that the UN needed an independent source of income, perhaps via a Tobin tax on financial transactions.
 
Yet another was that the International Financial Institutions, primarily the World Bank, should be pressured both to withhold funds from fossil fuel development, even though fossil fuel development was essential to poverty alleviation, which was meant to be one of sustainability’s twin objectives.
 
Another constant was calls for more money and bigger bureaucracy. The latest is a World Environmental Organization. Fortunately, some countries are resisting, among them Canada. Nevertheless, Canada is firmly embedded in the sustainability charade. ...

It’s time for that little boy in the crowd to state the obvious. The sustainable Emperor has no clothes.

Lees verder hier.

Peter Foster gaat m.i. wel érg ver in zijn kritiek op de duurzaamheidshype. Maar wanneer duurzaamheid wordt getoetst aan een goede kosten/baten-analyse lijkt het mij toch zeker een nastrevenswaardige doelstelling. 

 

Voor mijn eerdere DDS-bijdragen, zie: