Bull In Bali

A sideshow of epic distortions is set to begin this week in Bali, Indonesia. 

While Al Gore and a wide array of foreign leaders promote the most extreme and unlikely of global warming outcomes, the facts are ignored, the narrative is fixed and the hysteria raised to a level that aspiring and active terrorists must envy.

Its high past time for the real threat of global warming to be made clear:

- That the most virulent form of anti-Americanism will in the future not come from mistaken policies related to the war on terror or the pursuit of national security but the perceived American obstruction of efforts to halt global warming.

- That most of the proposed responses to address global warming range from the mistaken and harmful to the delusional and suicidal.  Nothing less than an economic surrender to the rest of the world (and subsequent crash of the global economy) seems to be on the minds of Al Gore and other proponents of the most extreme and unlikely possibilities of global warming.

- That the global (and national) media is flaying America on the issue; reporting misconstrued junk science as fact and helping to shape every bad weather event into a part of the apocalyptic global warming narrative. The exploitation of fear for profit in modern media is nowhere more evident than in its patently false coverage of the global warming issue.

- That a mistaken focus on the wrong issue (CO2 emission reduction vs. innovation and responsible environmental stewardship) will further undermine and discredit future American efforts to invest in solutions for not only environmental issues but health, security and education matters by trapping already scant resources for useless endeavors.

How does the US respond to this global effort?  The facts in the debate have been for the next year or so effectively skewed, the forces of conservative skepticism and restraint discredited and drowned out and the hysteria has infected much of the global population, especially in the West.

The consequences for surrendering on the issue to mass hysteria are enormous. 

Economically, a weaker America lacking the kind of capital necessary to invest in the kind of innovation that will be necessary to transition fully into a “Green” economy. 

Politically, an America even more unable to influence events and trends, leaving behind friends and enabling enemies through its misplaced priorities (which is more important? The questionable extremities of global warming theory or the decaying social and political order in Latin America, Africa and Asia?). 

 Given the already unhealthy US debt problems, could one honestly believe that America accepting a Kyoto II plan will adequately pressure China and India (among others) to risk their ongoing leap into peace and prosperity for the sake of international approval?

Yet not “surrendering” will provoke the kind of visceral reaction from abroad (and within) that could dwarf what America has seen resulting from its war on terror mistakes. 

The narrative of “America the global warming enabler/denier” is a powerful one that has already gained effective ground in Europe and Asia, even as these regions fail to move on their own or in concert towards adequate and responsible policies.  Hypocrisy is in the air as always, yet confronting that hypocrisy alone (as the Bush Administration has been unable to even begin to) is not the solution. 

To save itself from a serious self-inflicted wound, the US must offer a counter-narrative that is appealing to the nations who stand to be the most interested in realistic and effective environmental stewardship; China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia (among others, also known as the “New Core”, “Second World”, “G-21″, etc.)
Such a counter-narrative would focus on:

- the promotion of innovation as the foremost response to the dilemma of nearly 4 billion people trying to live like the West in the coming decades.  Nations must invest in their people, especially their business communities, students and young entrepreneurs.  Such a policy would breed uniquely Chinese solutions to Chinese problems, and so on and so forth, given that there is a massive degree of complex environmental problems on the local and regional levels stemming from high growth and outdated technology (i.e. the internal combustion engine and non-green buildings).

- the empowerment of the community to address environmental problems, given the extreme difficulty of, for example, a lone Indian student changing the bad habits of a community or even a nation.  Progress will occur most effectively on a community level from the ground up, with (again) local solutions to local problems adding pressure and momentum to regional solutions to regional problems and then on up the governance and geographic scale. 

- the harsh punishment of lawbreakers, especially wanton polluters and environmental defilers, utilizing methods as diverse as the death penalty to community exile.  Nations should cooperate to identify and if necessary apprehend such individuals and groups on behalf of other nations.  The days of European fishing companies wiping out the fish stocks of coastal African countries should be over, as should the era of American waste being illegally dumped in Mexican territory. 

- the development and strengthening of mechanisms to facilitate regional cooperation among nations.  Example: Japan and South Korea have a problem with Chinese pollutants on their shores and in their air.  Tart sniping at diplomatic meetings and in the media does little to address the problem, so some sort of negotiation and moderation must be created and harnessed to help address the problem.

- deepening and expanding the involvement of the international community for the “worst of the worst” ongoing environmental disasters, from the dreadful state of many Chinese rivers to rampant deforestation in Bangladesh.  Natural disasters are widely exacerbated by such conditions, not the onset of global warming.

More to come this week on the issue, including:

“Global Warming Apocalypse vs. Real-Time Environmental Accountability?”

“Climate Conflicts And The Nature Of Evil?”

“Hysteria As Policy”

“Man Vs. God For The Sake Of Mother Earth (Gaia)”