Tim Kirby
Apparently, according to UN researchers our world is going to become " an uninhabitable hell for millions of people" due to big names in business and politics not taking action to stop Climate Change. The fact that the UN expects massive numbers of individuals to voluntarily act against their best interests means they are either completely disingenuous about their climate change hysteria or so vastly naive about the way human beings function that the organization needs to be disbanded forthwith. So, since the global government just told us yet again that we are going to die one would think they should have some good answers for the "crisis"... and yet they don't. So let's try to find some actually viable solutions while breaking down the weakness of the UN's current offers.
In advance, it is important to note that the climate "debate" has been fought by journalists, pundits and "concerned" celebrities, who all claim to have science and scientists on their side. If there is a clear truth of what faces us it has been lost in the tweets years ago. So for this strategy session, for the sake of argument, we will assume that climate change is 100% true just as it appears in Greta Thunberg's nightmares. This is not because it is actually real (or fake) but because the UN considers it to be Gospel and their actions should reflect that belief.
How could taxation possibly solve this problem?
Besides begging and guilt tripping people of importance into voluntary action, one big push by the UN to solve the climate problem is through carbon taxes. To a simpleton living a sheltered existence this makes perfect sense - penalty fees are a deterrent that makes them not park their car illegally, so it will surely make the Chinese go green closing down their factories with no blowback for minimum wage America. It is so deeply naive to believe that taxation will save the environment that it is hard to put into words just how mental the idea is.
So assuming that we can actually measure cubic meters of carbon emissions accurately and get industrial nations to pay their carbon taxes, just how exactly does this reduce demand? Alcohol is taxed in many European countries. Perhaps due to the price some people drink less than they normally would, but taxing alcohol hasn't killed demand for it, meaning it is still produced in big volumes taxed or untaxed. Applying a carbon tax to a nation will not make demand go down, just prices rise to compensate i.e. they will still be polluting at the same level. The only difference is that the citizens of that country and those who buy their exports will be forced to pay a percentage to a massive international bureaucracy that will somehow save the environment with the cash. The world economy has a roughly 80 trillion dollar estimated value, even if used efficiently what can UN programs paid for by a few billion in carbon taxes actually do to stop the pollutive juggernaut?
Image: Globalization and big box stores are not the problems but a lack of taxation on them according to the UN.
Furthermore, setting the precedent for international taxation is not a particularly great option (especially in the questionable hands of the World Bank) considering how much of tax money is squandered, stolen or misused on a national level, with politicians seeming to always need more. Soulless technocrats dream up soulless technocratic solutions, let's keep "tax and spend" schemes out of "global government".
Why is personal (national) responsibility never an option?
As an organization that functions as a worldwide overseer of sorts, logically, the UN cannot simply say "deal with your problems on your own". This would undermine the justification for their existence, but it certainly would work better than a constant vague stream of doomsaying that rebrands itself every 10 years or so.
The UN believes there will be massive food and water shortages that will lead to a migrant crisis by 2050. This is interesting verbiage as it puts the destiny of the potentially starving people in the hands of the West as a "migrant crisis". One would think that the UN could come up with some custom plans of action for certain poorer countries to adapt before it is too late, but that would be giving the Global South agency which is a big Liberal "no-no". The West will always see Brown and Black people as irresponsible children that need Western Parent #1 to look over them.
Why is the nuclear option never on the table?
Yes, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were scary events but nuclear power can meet all of our energy needs. If you really want our air to be from coal and fossil fuels and yet live a comfortable high-tech life you will have to grow up, understand that wind and solar will always play a supplemental role and order an atomic reactor from the Russians.
Image: Ancient Cold Warrior tribes had the answer to our energy needs.
There is an irrational hippy fear of nuclear power along with an emotional approach to the realities of energy that have put this type of energy in the rear view mirror when it should still be on the horizon. Accepting the risk of a possible once-in-a-generation Fukushima for thousands of years of glutinous electricity usage that does not pollute the air is worth it.
Perhaps the real problem the UN has with nuclear power is that uppity nations like North Korea and Iran can use it for non-energy related purposes.
Why is the "new normal" not taken into consideration as a plan for the future?
It is uncertain what the future will look like but the Covid-19 Pandemic has opened our eyes to the fact that going to work at an office like it is 1950 is pointless and wasteful and that delivery services are killing the need for big box stores.
The UN cannot kill the human desire to have nice things, but we can have nice things ordered online and delivered to us vastly reducing how much global energy is put into transport. In the pre-internet world, trucks brought things to a big store, people drove to the store and drove back home. Now a truck can drive directly to many consumers on one tank of gas thanks to the power of modern computing and organization of deliveries.
It remains to be seen if animals/nature are really benefiting as much from the pandemic as advertised, but fossil fuel consumption is down and working from home has gone mainstream. The " new normal" is part of the UN lexicon but it doesn't seem to be seen as an alternative to carbon taxes.
Why are property rights never part of environmentalism?
One major downside to Globalism is highlighted by the "peached meme" that shows how peaches were grown in Argentina, packed in Thailand and sold for consumption in America. For those who may not know, peaches can and do grow very well in the U.S. further underscoring this madness.
Image: the "peaches meme"
But then again if an average does try to do some gardening or raise chickens on their own land they face the real chance of being arrested. The UN should really push for people to have the right to at least garden if not raise livestock. Subsistence/supplemental level farming creates far less pollution per square foot and reduces demand to have modified potatoes shipped in from distant lands.
The more people make locally the less needs to be shipped in. The UN should stand firm on the idea that we have the right to farm or produce things on our own territory, which we cannot completely trash because we have to live there. The European villages of old may have been a bit messy but they were certainly better for us and the planet than the Walmart lifestyle.
So if we are really going to die, then...
Well the UN is sure we are going to live in a nightmare by 2050 and yet the general consensus on how to "save the planet" starts with carbon taxes and ends with depopulation. Both of which are horribly naive pessimistic non-answers, when there is so much that could be done. It almost seems like environmental issues are being used as an excuse to push for certain policies that would otherwise never see the light of day.