King Canute demonstrated the futility of defying nature when he ordered the tides to cease crashing upon the shoreline. Nature ignored him.
There was a biblical precedent to this demonstration of man's inability to command nature when the descendants of Noah tried to avert the danger of another flood by building a tower so tall no floodwaters could inundate it.
God responded to puny mankind's attempt to overrule nature by establishing the foundation for future Berlitz-style schools of languages, sowing lingual confusion. The Bible doesn't identify the would-be contractors but you can be certain the architect was a man who had a name something like Al Gore.
As I have written previously, pitting yourself against Mother Nature is a vain pursuit. If she gets it into her head to alter global climate one way or another, then by golly she's going to do it and nothing little old mankind can do will stand in her way.
Aside from the fact that CO2 is a vitally necessary gas essential to proper plant life the idea that government regulations can even begin to reduce its increase in the atmosphere if that's what's in store, is patently absurd. Mankind's contribution to atmospheric levels of CO2 is barely measurable.
Equally absurd is the so-called threat that the climate is warming and will continue to warm until global temperatures begin to threaten our very existence on this planet. The people who peddle this nonsense ignore the fact that the miniscule increases in global temperatures stopped dead in 1998.
Since then cooling has set in and the signs are that it will continue.
That reality is ignored as simply an inconvenient truth by Mr. Gore and his minions promoting the global warming scam. It simply spurs them into a panic mode where their alarms grow shriller ad more immediate.
Global warming does threaten mankind, but the danger lies in the Draconian measures Gore and others demand be taken to prevent a non-existent threat which in themselves imperil our very well-being.
Writes the brilliant humanitarian Paul Dreissen on Wednesday on the Web (http:www.pvbr.com/Issue_1/paulcom.htm): "America is in the throes of a major housing and financial downturn, soaring food and energy costs, rising unemployment and near recession. But legislators, bureaucrats and presidential candidates are falling all over themselves to restrict fossil fuel use, advance climate change legislation — and thereby increase energy prices, oil imports, and costs for families and businesses."
He adds, "Any climate change regime would impose higher prices and new restrictions on coal-generated electricity, oil and gas drilling, air and ground transportation, and heating, air conditioning, agriculture and manufacturing. In fact, any facility or activity that generates more than 250 tons of carbon dioxide per year could be heavily regulated: bakeries, breweries, soft-drink makers, factories, apartment and office buildings, dairy farms and countless others. Permit, regulatory, oversight, anti-fraud monitoring and polar bear endangerment rules would cost billions in still more highly regressive, hidden taxes."
At this very moment, the world is plunging into a food scarcity crisis that is the direct result of the global warming hysteria. The headlong rush to grow food crops to make ethanol instead of growing crops to feed the world is pushing food prices skyward and creating the threat of famine in Third-World countries.
Writing in The New York Sun newspaper, Josh Gerstein reported that the rationing of food could well be next.
"Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply," according to Gerstein. "There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
"At a Costco warehouse in Mountain View, Calif., yesterday, shoppers grew frustrated and occasionally uttered expletives as they searched in vain for the large sacks of rice they usually buy. 'Where’s the rice?' an engineer said. 'You should be able to buy something like rice. This is ridiculous.'
"The bustling store in the heart of Silicon Valley usually sells four or five varieties of rice to a clientele largely of Asian immigrants, but only about half a pallet of Indian-grown Basmati rice was left in stock. A 20-pound bag was selling for $15.99.
"An employee at the Costco store in Queens said there were no restrictions on rice buying, but limits were being imposed on purchases of oil and flour. Internet postings attributed some of the shortage at the retail level to bakery owners who flocked to warehouse stores when the price of flour from commercial suppliers doubled."
"Just who's responsible for this threat?" wrote Michael S. Berliner, co-chairman of the board of directors of the Ayn Rand Institute in Irvine, Calif. "Heed the words of the consistent environmentalists. The ending of the human epoch on Earth," writes philosopher Paul Taylor in Respect for Nature: A Theory of Environmental Ethics.
"In a glowing review of Bill McKibben's 'The End of Nature,'" biologist David M. Graber writes in the Los Angeles Times, Oct. 29, 1989: "Human happiness [is] not as important as a wild and healthy planet . . . . Until such time as Homo sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. Such is the naked essence of environmentalism: It mourns the death of one whale or tree but actually welcomes the death of billions of people. A more malevolent, man-hating philosophy is unimaginable."
I'll give the final word to Paul Dreissen: "So hold on to your wallets, and hope you can hold onto your jobs, homes, and cars. You’re about to be put on a wild political roller coaster. And don’t expect much honesty, transparency or accountability from climate Armageddonites."
Deus exaudi nos
Phil Brennan is a veteran journalist and World War II Marine who writes for Newsmax.com. He is editor and publisher of Wednesday on the Web (http://www.pvbr.com) and was Washington columnist (Cato) for National Review magazine in the 1960s.
He also served as a staff aide for the House Republican Policy Committee and helped handle the Washington public relations operation for the Alaska Statehood Committee which won statehood for Alaska. He is also a trustee of the Lincoln Heritage Institute and a member of the Association For Intelligence Officers.
He can be reached at [email protected].
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.