Understanding “UNspeak”
Its important to have read 1984 before you try to understand anything the UN says. “UNspeak” is like “Newspeak” in that it changes the meaning of words to mean the exact opposite of what they mean in “Oldspeak” (Standard English). For instance, the UNspeak word “profit” means “taxes” in Oldspeak.
Let’s illustrate UNspeak by looking at the following AP story:
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The global financial crisis will make it harder for countries to agree on an ambitious new treaty to combat global warming and underscores the need to make green technologies profitable, the U.N. climate chief said Thursday.
You Oldspeakers could be forgiven if you thought that, in this context, “profitable” meant that someone had manufactured a product, found willing buyers to purchase that product which created net income after expenses making the business what is known in Oldspeak as “profitable”. Unfortunately, if you believed that you would be wrong.
Let’s read a little further to examine the real meaning of “profit” in UNspeak:
“The financial crisis will throw a shadow over the climate change negotiations,” said de Boer, executive director of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “That is why I put so much emphasis on the climate regime becoming self-financing.”
Citing an example, he said that could involve the auctioning of CO2 emission rights in industrialized countries.
We now know that, in UNspeak, “profit” is synonymous with “self-financing”. We also know that this “self-financing” is to be achieved through the practice of something called “auctioning of CO2 emission rights”.
“Auctioning of CO2 emission rights” is UNspeak for requiring manufacturers to purchase the “right” to emit what they currently emit for free. This is a new expense and will diminish net revenues (“profit” in Oldspeak). Because this additional cost is imposed by governments it is called a “tax” in Oldspeak.
Because this tax makes the climate regime “self-financing” according to the UN’s Mr. de Boer and we know that “self-financing” is synonymous with “profit”, we now know that “profit’ in UNspeak equals “tax’ in Oldspeak.
Neatly done, huh? Use words that have the opposite meaning to what the casual listener will assume they mean when they hear them and hope they don’t get it.
That’s the UN and its UNspeak. And its not just on “climate change” issues. I challenge you to read nearly any “emission” from the UN, from population control to nuclear regulation to disaster aid. Listen to the words they use and ask yourself if you could get away with being that disingenuous in your own communications. I doubt you’d even try because you’d be afraid for your own credibility. Not the UN.
Now. Apply what you’ve just learned to another part of the same article:
De Boer cited a 2006 report by British economist Nicholas Stern, which warned that if the world does not act to halt global warming, it will cause an economic catastrophe on the scale of the two world wars and the Great Depression combined.
Using you Oldspeak dictionary, do you believe it?
Looks like the global warming fad may have jumped the shark.
Lawrence Solomon’s prediction that today’s “Wal-Mart environmentalism” may have reached it zenith and is now waning has gotten a boost from a major new poll of 12,000 people from 11 countries.
PARIS – There is both growing public reluctance to make personal sacrifices and a distinct lack of enthusiasm for the major international efforts now underway to battle climate change, according to findings of a poll of 12,000 citizens in 11 countries, including Canada.
Results of the poll were released this week in advance of the start of a major international conference in Poland where delegates are considering steps toward a new international climate-change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.
Less than half of those surveyed, or 47 per cent, said they were prepared to make personal lifestyle changes to reduce carbon emissions, down from 58 per cent last year.
Thank goodness for the basic intelligence of the world’s people. When you ask them to spend their time or money on a cause (as opposed to asking “someone else” to do it) you’d better have a good answer.
Only 37 per cent said they were willing to spend “extra time” on the effort, an eight-point drop.
And only one in five respondents – or 20 per cent – said they’d spend extra money to reduce climate change. That’s down from 28 per cent a year ago.
… 27 per cent… wanted their governments to participate in Kyoto-style international agreements to reduce emissions.
But wait! The environmentalists’ answer is not that such efforts aren’t necessary, its that they’re too hard.
“There’s consumer reluctance that’s creeping in, and we’ve seen that some are being stunned into inaction by the enormity of the task,” said Earthwatch executive vice-president Nigel Winser.
Yeah, that’s what’s got me saying “no”. I’m “stunned by the enormity of the task”. Right.
Or maybe its because the people need to be more “educated” so that they will “understand”.
[The report said] “More needs to be done to inform consumers about measures such as green taxation or carbon trading to help them understand how tangible these can be.”
The arrogance of these people is what’s stunning. But you can be certain that politicians listen to their people very closely.
The poll helps explain why outgoing [Canadian] Liberal Leader Stephane Dion had so much difficulty during the election campaign trying to sell his Green Shift platform that proposed a carbon tax in order to encourage emission reductions.
The environementalists, on the otherhand, are just delusional.
Earthwatch’s Winser said the silver lining in the poll was that it stresses public dissatisfaction with the performance of all governments.
“We welcome this survey because it shows that individuals want their governments to do more.”
When only 27% of those polled say they want a Kyoto-style agreement, meaning that 73% don’t, this guy thinks that it actually means that individuals want their governments to do more. If you run accross this guy on the street you’ll recognize him by his tinfoil hat.
‘Aliens Cause Global Warming’ Michael Crichton R.I.P.
Thanks to the Wall Street Journal for this salute to a man of common sense.
From a lecture delivered by the late Michael Crichton at the California Institute of Technology on Jan. 17, 2003:
Cast your minds back to 1960. John F. Kennedy is president, commercial jet airplanes are just appearing, the biggest university mainframes have 12K of memory. And in Green Bank, West Virginia at the new National Radio Astronomy Observatory, a young astrophysicist named Frank Drake runs a two-week project called Ozma, to search for extraterrestrial signals. A signal is received, to great excitement. It turns out to be false, but the excitement remains. In 1960, Drake organizes the first SETI conference, and came up with the now-famous Drake equation:
N=N*fp ne fl fi fc fL
Where N is the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy; fp is the fraction with planets; ne is the number of planets per star capable of supporting life; fl is the fraction of planets where life evolves; fi is the fraction where intelligent life evolves; and fc is the fraction that communicates; and fL is the fraction of the planet’s life during which the communicating civilizations live.
This serious-looking equation gave SETI a serious footing as a legitimate intellectual inquiry. The problem, of course, is that none of the terms can be known, and most cannot even be estimated. The only way to work the equation is to fill in with guesses. And guesses — just so we’re clear — are merely expressions of prejudice. Nor can there be “informed guesses.” If you need to state how many planets with life choose to communicate, there is simply no way to make an informed guess. It’s simply prejudice.
The Drake equation can have any value from “billions and billions” to zero. An expression that can mean anything means nothing. Speaking precisely, the Drake equation is literally meaningless, and has nothing to do with science. I take the hard view that science involves the creation of testable hypotheses. The Drake equation cannot be tested and therefore SETI is not science. SETI is unquestionably a religion. . . .
The fact that the Drake equation was not greeted with screams of outrage — similar to the screams of outrage that greet each Creationist new claim, for example — meant that now there was a crack in the door, a loosening of the definition of what constituted legitimate scientific procedure. And soon enough, pernicious garbage began to squeeze through the cracks. . . .
I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
Let’s be clear: The work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.
There is no such thing as consensus science. If it’s consensus, it isn’t science. If it’s science, it isn’t consensus. Period. . . .
I would remind you to notice where the claim of consensus is invoked. Consensus is invoked only in situations where the science is not solid enough. Nobody says the consensus of scientists agrees that E=mc2. Nobody says the consensus is that the sun is 93 million miles away. It would never occur to anyone to speak that way. . . .
To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: “These results are derived with the help of a computer model.” But now large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world — increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. And indeed they are, when we are projecting forward. There can be no observational data about the year 2100. There are only model runs.
This fascination with computer models is something I understand very well. Richard Feynman called it a disease. I fear he is right. Because only if you spend a lot of time looking at a computer screen can you arrive at the complex point where the global warming debate now stands.
Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we’re asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?
China GW update: You need to give up your lifestyle!
It’s hasn’t been about “Global Warming” or even “Climate Change” for quite some time. The European Green Party, populated mostly by former members of the Communist Party, knows that the best way to control you is to control your carbon emissions. They’re right. American leftists may or may not agree with the motive but they certainly go along with the program.
Thank goodness we have the real Communists, the Chinese, exposing their motives for all to see. Newly wrapped up in the Global Warming flag, is the same old agenda of a worldwide centralized economy. And a major ally is the U.N.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and a top UN official urged industrialised nations Friday to alter their lifestyles and investment modes as part of efforts to tackle global warming.
“The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life,” Wen was quoted as saying by Xinhua news agency.
So there you have it. The target is you and your awful ways. Oh yes, and step number one is for you to send your money, and the technology you paid for, to China…free of charge, of course.
The gathering in Beijing, which is being attended by representatives from 76 nations, is focusing on the development and transfer of technology that can help tackle climate change ahead of next month’s talks on creating a new global treaty on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
China proposed last week that rich nations devote one percent of their economic output toward helping poor countries fight global warming.
The UN, always willing to spend your money and control what you think and do, is worried that that might not happen. Oh, and don’t forget, its all your fault.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said Friday a lack of firm funding commitments could derail efforts to cut emissions in developing countries, especially during the financial crisis.
In the landmark Kyoto Protocol, rich nations agreed to targets for cutting greenhouse gases as well as helping to transfer clean technology to developing nations to help them reduce their emissions.
But much of the pledged transfers are not happening, said de Boer.
“Industrial countries must meet their technology transfer obligations,” he told journalists.
“Given their historical responsibility for the problem, it is essential that industrialised countries take the lead in reducing emissions and that they show real leadership (in climate change negotiations).”
But don’t worry there’s a plan in place to fix this problem and make sure that you pay your fair share:
Formal negotiations on a new treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012 will begin in Poznan, Poland next month, with the UN hoping that a new agreement will be ready by the end of 2009, de Boer said.
“Governments have used 2008 to gather information and clarify their positions on a number of topics. At Poznan governments need to go into full negotiation mode and make concrete results,” he said.
I’m betting that America’s recent conversion to the Church of Global Warming, means that we will be as active supporters of our new religion as most converts. (Hold on to your wallets when our new US government represents you in Poznan.)
Oh. And, after getting up on its high horse, what will China do to stop this menace of global warming? Apparently, not much.
China has long resisted calls to join rich nations in setting targets for emissions cuts, saying its relatively low per capita emissions and recent emergence as a major source of greenhouse gases should exempt it from action.
Scientists said in September that China had leapfrogged the United States as the world’s biggest producer of carbon dioxide (CO2), one of the principal gases that cause global warming.
Heaven help us.
Global Warming Follies 