Climate Zealots, Firing Squads, And A Load Of Manure

The United Nations’ 25th Conference Of The Parties climate summit ended Sunday with participants unable to agree on what are the media are calling “key” emissions targets. Some participants are blaming America’s absence for the failure. The more sober-minded, though, are grateful President Donald Trump has no time for the global warming nonsense.

Even with the canonized Greta Thunberg threatening to put the world’s national leaders “against the wall” if they don’t “do their job and to protect our futures,” the principals could work out nothing more than, according to the all-in-on-the-global-warming-hysterics Guardian, “a partial agreement to ask countries to come up with more ambitious targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions in order to meet the terms of the 2015 Paris accord.”

(For the record, the Swedish teen scold apologized for her comment. Maybe someone told her that her rant sounded as if she wanted to round up those who have failed her, and line them up for a firing squad, revealing a little too much of the fantasies many of the hate-filled alarmists play out in their heads.)

The response from activists was predictable. They made a “really futile and stupid gesture” by dumping horse manure outside the meeting and staging a mock hanging in which one of the “condemned” held a baby while she had a rope around her neck. Reuters said these woke folk were “frustrated” by the talks. Frustrated, we’d say, in the same way a child becomes upset and throws a tantrum because he couldn’t get his way.

The U.S. had no official representatives at the summit, though a delegation of congressional Democrats did travel to Madrid, where Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi assured the delegates, feckless poseurs whose greatest achievement has been to convince the world that they’re important people doing important work, that “we are still in.”

“Our delegation is here to send a message that Congress’ commitment to take action on the climate crisis is iron clad,” she said.

As a member of the legislative branch, she has no authority to conduct foreign affairs, a duty left exclusively to the executive branch. So like the rest of summit, the Democrats’ appearance was all for show.

Outside the madness demonstrated by a few true believers, efforts to “fight global warming,” particularly at official levels, are a cover for other objectives. The climate alarmists hope to:

  • Show their moral superiority by claiming to be on the right side of the argument (which is why empty-headed celebrities are always so eager to demonstrate their support for the climate crusade).
  • Punish success, whether it’s national (produced by free-market economic systems), corporate (produced by hard work and savvy business decisions), or individual (produced by perseverance and character), and vilify and manage Western consumption habits.
  • Save the reputations of researchers who have staked their academic lives on the man-made global warming narrative.
  • Control the behavior of others.
  • Feed their oversized egos by making sure they’re seen associating with the “right” people.

Trump has promised to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate accord, which has attracted the wrath of the domestic and international left, but is a sensible policy decision. No nation should handicap its economy and burden its citizens based on the sketchy conjecture that man is overheating his planet. Americans should be thankful they have a president who isn’t concerned about his reputation among elitists who haven’t changed their behavior since high school, yet are running, and ruining, our halls of government, foundational institutions, and once-respected academies.