Some global warming proponents are accepting a good financial
income from the global warming scare and have become global warming
propagandists to promote their interests. These include some
researchers who obtain research grants and some environmental
organisations who need donations. They are making a living by
promoting fear of man-made global warming. Their behaviour is
similar to that of the ‘snake oil salesmen’ in the nineteenth
century. Snake oil salesmen sold snake oil that did not require
real snakes to make it. Global warming propagandists are selling
fear of man-made global warming and that does not require real
man-made global warming to make it.
The success of the global warming propaganda has induced some
observers to argue that a conspiracy has created the imagined risk
in the public’s perception But consideration of the origins
of the global warming scare deny the existence of any such
conspiracy. Interests coincided and supported each other.
And a coincidence of interests usually has a more
powerful effect than a group of conspirators. The origins
of the scare are political and have resulted in political policies
that now threaten serious economic damage for the entire world.
Man-made global warming has become a major international
political issue. The imagined risk has become a real risk in the
form of proposed government policies to inhibit
CO2 emissions. The Rio Summit in 1992 proposed
actions to constrain the emissions and the Kyoto Summit in December
1997 is intended to establish binding agreements that will commit
nation states to the constraints. Although there are no real and
potential risks of the global warming, the effects of the
constraints will cause real and severe economic damage.
All industrial and economic growth requires an abundance of
available energy supply. Anything that inhibits energy supplies
reduces economic activity. At Kyoto, governments will be pressured
to reduce CO2 emissions to far below their 1990
levels. This requires cutting fuel supplies and, therefore,
economic activity. The effects would be much more severe than the
‘oil crisis’ in the 1970s because the constraint on fossil fuel
usage would be greater, the increases to energy costs would be
larger, and energy demand has increased since then.
Already, OECD countries (Europe, Japan and the US) have
agreed in principle to adopt the ‘Berlin Mandate’ that requires
them to cut their CO2 emissions to 15% below
their 1990 levels by year 2010. The US Department of Energy (DoE)
estimates that this would increase US domestic energy prices by
between 80 and 90% and
would increase the coal price to US consumers
by 300%. Also, the DoE study determines that
the Berlin Mandate would not reduce world-wide emissions of CO2.
Energy intensive industries would be forced to move from the US to
places where the emission constraints did not exist or were not
enforced. This could even result in an increase to the emissions
because the less-controlled places are likely to have less energy
efficient industries. The DoE study goes further by saying that its
findings are not specific to the US but apply to every
industrialised country.
