Copenhagen - a dangerous deception? By Nathan Allonby
Submitted for publication on Information Clearing House www.informationclearinghouse.info
Why do I feel so uncomfortable about the Copenhagen treaty? As an environmentalist, for decades, I have wanted action to stop the destruction of the planet. Why am I so unhappy now that, finally, it is proposed something should be done?
It’s because it’s phoney. We can‘t believe any of it - we can‘t believe the people, the leaders - we can‘t believe in their good faith; we can’t believe in the solution they are offering; we can‘t believe they have identified the right problem; we can‘t believe the science that supports it; we can‘t believe they can be trusted with the new powers they demand; we can‘t believe they won‘t make things worse instead of better; we can’t believe this isn’t just an excuse for yet more corporate looting; we can‘t believe in the phoney cheerleading, or that there is real public support for any of this.
Yes, it’s true that the science behind the claims has been exposed, but that is the least of the issues. It is, however, deeply symptomatic of everything that’s wrong.
If you think you are going to get anywhere by arguing about science, then think again. This is no longer about reason - it’s about feelings and adrenaline.
There is a well-orchestrated chorus, cheering for Copenhagen. Lots of attractive, young people, are shouting in the street.
Copenhagen is claimed to be about justice; about redistribution of wealth, from rich to poor; about protecting the planet; about protecting the future. Copenhagen is claimed to be about saving people's lives, indeed saving the whole of humanity.
The Copenhagen treaty is seen to be a good thing, with good objectives, desirable regardless of whether climate change is real,
whether it is man-made, or whatever. When the cause is just, the science doesn't matter.
There is no debate - we have entered a situation where no rational debate is possible. This is a very dangerous situation for democracy.
The Copenhagen treaty will overturn the very concepts of democracy, national self-government and the right of self-determination. The Copenhagen treaty will overturn traditional democracy and bring in a new trans-national process of decision-making, with authority over large areas of public policy, with no democratic control or accountability, in a system to be controlled by the very people that have been responsible for serial wars, economic exploitation and famines.
There should be an outcry, but instead this is being greeted with fanfares. Why is this?
We could mention that, for years, our leaders have talked about encouraging these demonstrations, in support of government action. Governments capable of organising colour revolutions in hostile nations would have no problem organising pro-government rallies in their own home-towns.
More than half the UK population doesn't believe the official story of man-made global warming. But you wouldn’t think that, to look at newspaper coverage, or "protests" on climate change.
It all feels so unreal - it is unreal. What this situation needs is a healthy dose of realism.
Here is the message that needs to be put across to Copenhagen activists.
Firstly
, if you are looking for a solution, do you go to the people who made the problem? If you wanted economic and social justice, would you go to be people who have carefully installed a rapacious system of exploitation? If you wanted to protect the environment, would you go to the people who systematically dismantled environmental protection, to make greater profits? In short, how will it fix the system to give these failed leaders more power, by creating a new world authority, run by them, with no elections, no democratic accountability, no checks and balances? Wouldn't that make things worse, not better?
Secondly
, at every democratic election, these people let you down, and did something different, often opposite, to what they
promised. Why would you trust them now? Isn't it more reasonable to expect them to disappoint you again?
How does it feel to be duped, time after time? Do you really want to invite this again, only this time on a disastrously larger scale?
Thirdly
, look at the current plans our global leaders - what they plan is the opposite of what they say.
The Copenhagen treaty is supposed to provide money and investment to provide new lifestyles for people displaced "by climate change".
Most population displacement worldwide is not due to climate change, but due to engineered events - such as government action (land seizure, grant of mining rights, special economic zones, etc.), financial policies and war. In most of these events, the West is implicated, even the wars (Congo is a good example).
Around the world, billions of people will be displaced from sustainable lifestyles, that have endured for thousands of years, to be forced into urban slums, living in indescribable squalor, to work in sweatshops. They will be forced from zero-impact lifestyles into dependency on mineral fuel and scarce resources. In India alone, at least 400 million people - roughly equivalent to the population of Europe - will be displaced from farming into urban slums. This is planned and engineered, not the by-product of natural forces, such as climate change. Our world leaders plan this, to force these innocent victims to work in service to the Western economy, to fuel global economic growth.
"Aid" to Third World nations - who does it help? Do the people who live sustainable lifestyles need financial investment? No –
they need to be left alone. They haven't needed investment for thousands of years - that's what 'sustainable' means. Is it lack of investment that threatens indigenous people around the world? Or is it the investment itself that threatens to displace them - the new dams, roads and development projects? Is this investment actually creating the infrastructure of exploitation? Is it helping to build the slums and sweatshops into which its victims will be forced?
Fourthly
, we know that Copenhagen will actually create a whole new multi-trillion $ economy in trading carbon credits - money
that will ultimately come from us.
We have already had leaks of the world leaders' bad faith - from the G20 conference - they plan to turn aid into exploitation, and
to use their new powers to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich.
Now we have the leak of the so-called Danish text, which will permanently enforce inequality between rich and poor nations, and freeze developing nations out of decision-making power.
Fifthly
, we have seen how international bodies work already. How many environmentalists think the WTO has been a good
thing? So why ask for more of the same? Governments hide behind such bodies and use them as the opportunity to "launder" policies - at WTO meetings, our governments can press, unseen and unreported, for policies that would be unacceptable to their voters at home, but go back and pretend "It's not our fault, the WTO forced us to do it".
Finally
, this is time to ask, what have we learned about democracy? Have we learned anything from all the mistakes we made
in the past? Have we learned anything from all the leaders who lied to us? Do we want to trust our leaders with unlimited power, and ask no questions, or have we learned we tie them down with checks and balances, and force them to make specific commitments?
Let's look at the things we want, and ask whether we could achieve them without trans-national government. (Some of these issues were discussed in an earlier article)
We already want lower fuel consumption - we don't want high fuel bills - we want better insulated homes. We want old people to be able to afford to keep warm, to get help to insulate their homes, so they don't freeze in the winter. Hey, we can already have that, with home insulation grants! Do we need world government to solve this?
We want cars that can do 200 miles per gallon, instead of 30 mpg. Hey, we could already do that! Engineers kept on bringing cars like that to motor shows, but the car companies didn't want to sell them. Now we own the car companies, via bail-out, we could insist they build the cars we really want.
We want the money from higher fuel bills, instead of going into record corporate profits, to go into investment in alternative energy technology, to reduce dependence on oil. Hey, we could do that, without world government! We need a windfall tax on energy profits, combined with a tax-break on investment in renewable-energy.
There is every reason to be concerned about our planet: - destruction of the rainforests, the oceans dying, breaks in our food chain, toxic pollution, exhaustion of resources, extinction of species, the disappearance of songbirds. These are the real issues that lie behind the activists’ concern about global warming. Man’s impact on the planet is real and undeniable - action is needed. In the eyes, hearts and minds of activists, global warming is the issue that encapsulates and symbolises all the others. They feel that action on global warming will lead to action on all those other issues. But they are wrong - those activists should notice how global warming has pushed all other issues aside, out of discussion. Copenhagen doesn’t address any of the other, arguably more real, issues. Action on global warming could end up as a substitute, displacing action on every other problem.
To a large extent, we have to blame the environmental campaign organisations for their lack of focus, in failing to promote attainable, specific, realistic solutions. Instead, they have led us, directly and indirectly, into the arms of Copenhagen, a broad, indiscriminate and, ultimately, a false solution - a deception. This is exactly the type of chimera or mirage that real campaigners should have warned us against, instead of cheering on.
We don't need Copenhagen - we need to master our existing democracies, to make our politicians deliver the policies we really want. We need to bring our politicians to heel, not give them more power. The Copenhagen treaty will make it less likely we will get what we really want - that should be the message for all environmental activists.
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