Something Rotten in the State of Denmark

It's that time again. We're getting bombarded with more climate change hysteria by "scientists" and activists as world leaders prepare to meet in Copenhagen. The goal of the meeting is to hash out a new deal to replace the largely failed Kyoto Protocol of 11 years ago. Arguably, there is a lot more debate now than there was, say five years ago. The problem is that the United Nations and powerful NGOs like GreenPeace have long entrenched themselves. Any argument that states that climate change may not be real, or a natural phenomenon, or that carbon reduction schemes would devastate the global economy usually falls on deaf ears. It doesn't matter how much evidence you have in favour of your argument, or how good it is. It's like trying to argue with a wall.

So far, the goal of Copenhagen seems to involve massive monetary transfers to developing countries in order to pay for them to limit emissions of carbon dioxide. This sounds an awful lot like a "social justice" wealth transfer scheme. It's not so much that I disagree with this idea, even though I do. Foreign aid has proven futile in solving poverty issues. What really bothers me is why not just call it what it is. It always amazes me that people are more moved by sad polar bears than AIDS riddled, starving African children. That is they're more willing to open their wallet if they think the "disaster" will affect them; as opposed to child poverty, which they can happily ignored without any direct influence on their own lives. I think it's a sad statement on ourselves as society, and a particularly large black mark on the "textbook" liberals.

So what should we do? Should we still push ahead with a climate agreement? Absolutely not. Rather, if you want to help developing countries, even in the name of stopping climate change, technology sharing and free trade are a far better solution for dealing with both. Money just ends up in the hands of corrupt officials. Give people something tangible.