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Blue Planet in Green Shackles

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Though I live in the USA, Vaclav Klaus is my favorite politician in the entire world! He has the remarkable ability to stand on principle with diplomacy and decorum. A friend from the Czech Republic asked me what I thought of Klaus and the "Global Warming" issue. My letter in response is below. Since I wrote this letter, I have now have read "Blue Planet" and highly recommend the book. It is a clear and sobering look at the implications of using false science for the expansion of tyranny.
(my letter to a Czech friend...)


Dear _____,
Klaus and Global Warming... where do I begin??
How about Global Warming (although now they are calling it "Climate Change", so in case there is cooling they will not be wrong... again!)?
Here it the short version of what I know:
Yes, there is some measured warming of the earth's surface, about 1 degree C. The warming started approximately two hundred years ago. It has been going up in a steady line since that time (minor year and decade variations).
Yes, there is an increase in atmospheric levels of Carbon Dioxide, especially since about 1945, when it started to increase logarithmically. These increased CO2 levels are mostly attributable to humans burning fossil fuels.
Do you see the problem with the Global Warming hypothesis here? The warming itself started two hundred years ago and continues in a linear fashion, but the large CO2 increase started sixty years ago and there has not been an increase in the rate of warming. (A cause has to come before the effect.)
There is a good correlation between solar activity and earth temperature. The charts align almost perfectly, with increased solar activity directly proceeding increased earth temperature. (Cause and effect)
There is good science to this. By "good science", I mean that there are many measurements made in the real world that show this to be true. However, the "science" behind the dramatic Global Warming claims are measurements projected by computer models. Computer modeling is not science.
There are many reasons not to be worried about the current warming of the earth. The first is that the earth has recently been warmer than now. About 1,000 years ago, the earth was about 1 degree C warmer than at present and that period was the Medieval climatic optimum (a good time for climate). Vikings could settle in Greenland, European populations grew, the Sahara was fertile, etc. History shows us that most of the world (except, perhaps, Venice) would be better off with warmer and more moist conditions.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide is also re-adsorbed into seawater and the earth. This is happening at a slower rate than is being accumulated in the atmosphere right now, but there is a natural process that tends toward stasis (nature apparently re-balances the CO2 between earth, seawater, and the atmosphere). Natural systems tend to rebalance, not tip out of control.
Also, carbon dioxide is good for plants. More plants can grow when there is more CO2 available. This is already having a very positive effect on the biomass of the earth (there has been an increase of plants on the earth, very likely because of the increase of CO2). With increased plant life (food), there is a corresponding increase in all animal life, including that of humans.
Increased levels of carbon dioxide allow plants to thrive in environments where they could not grow with lower levels of CO2. This is especially true for plants that do not have enough water. Increased CO2 allows crops to be grown in dry places and so people with poor farms can grow food.
Some scientists and many "environmental activists" believe that Global Warming because of human burning of fossil fuels is a danger to the earth. About 2,000 people, a few of them were scientists, signed the "Rio Summit" paper saying that human-caused Global Warming was a problem.
Many are not convinced. About 30,000 scientists, most with advanced degrees in the "hard" sciences signed a strong paper saying that human-caused Global Warming is NOT a concern and that there are benefits to increased use of fuels (energy) and increased atmospheric CO2.
(I can give you lots of documentation on all of this.)
Klaus is a hero because he prefers liberty to tyranny. (I like him also because he wants to get along with other nations instead of anger them, but those are other issues.)
He (rightly, in my opinion) sees that the "science" of Global Warming is in question (he sees that there is no agreement about its cause, its dangers, or, if it is a danger, the solutions) within the scientific community. Yet he also sees that this issue is being used as a reason to drastically control mankind (carbon credits, etc.) and limit freedom. He compares Environmentalism with Nazism and Communism -- personal sacrifices for a fallacious (false) "good".
The fact is, many thought those "isms" were good at the time (though we look back at them now with horror). But if the radical Environmental Agenda is successful, there will come a time when we will see it through horror, as well. If energy consumption is reduced, there is less medicine, agriculture, refrigeration, jobs, stability. Rich countries will have a harder time, but it is the poor of the world who will suffer most. With totalitarian restrictions increasing the cost of food, I can eat rice instead of meat. When you only have rice, there will be nothing. The Soviets (Stalin) did this in the Ukraine. Eugenicists (those who select some to die and some to live) are monsters, be they of any color, red (Communist) or green (Environmentalist).
I have ordered Klaus' new book (it is just now available in English - I ordered it the first day it was available on Amazon.com!), but, from other speeches and articles, I know what he will say. He is right. We should not enslave others for any reason. And especially not for faulty science.
Best regards,
--Bruce

President Klaus has written a superb economic critique of environmentalism. With justification Mr. Klaus critiques environmentalism as the statist anti-free enterprise descendent of communism. Like communism environmentalism wants to restrict both liberty and prosperity in the name of an ill conceived public good.

Mr. Klaus writes very clearly in introducing such economic concepts as prices measuring scarcity, discounted future consumption, opportunity cost, and cost benefit analysis to demonstrate that environmentalism egregiously neglects and denies economic reality. Mr. Klaus propounds the benefits of technological advance on human living conditions.

This work is not long but very profound, unique, and necessary. The book should be and I believe will be widely read for what it is, a readable economic critque of the common place eco-freakery.

I have not read the book but heard several excerpts from president Klaus's speech at Nat. Press Club and he is right on target and articulated exactly what is happening with environmentalism, global warming and its ideology while ignoring real science. President Klaus brilliantly clarifies what is happening and makes it obvious. I will read the book as soon as I can get it.

NOTE: Demand for the new English translation of President Václav Klaus's book has been high following his press conference at the National Press Club and keynote address at the Competitive Enterprise Institute's annual dinner. So high, in fact, that the initial stock available through Amazon.com sold out within hours of their being made available. CEI is in the process of sending thousands of additional copies to warehouses so that orders can continue to be fufilled. We thank you for your patience and for the incredible level of interest in President Klaus's book.

-Competitive Enterprise Institute

I rate this book as an extremely thoughtful and perceptive statement about the real truth and intentions of the environmental movement and its global warming initiative. The book's basic thesis is that from an economic and practical standpoint, the threat of global warming is deliberately exaggerated, the economic consequences are disastrous, proposed mitigation solutions fail the test of cost-effectiveness, and the real threat of the movement is to take away individual initiative, a desire to excel, a will to achieve, and development of one's creative skills. I couldn't agree more and recommend every concerned citizen read this excellent book. The sensible balanced section on solutions at the end shows ways we can ACCOMMODATE and ADAPT to climate change without shutting down the American Dream (which everyone in the world wants to emulate), and can do so with making a few minor adjustemtns as a society.

My exposure to the stridency of the environmental movement came when I served in the joint position of President of the New Jersey Marine Sciences and as Director of the New Jersey State Sea Grant College Program between 1993 and 1996. The consortium headquarters are on Sandy Hook in Monmouth County, a hotbed of Coastal environmental activists.

Let me share two examples of what I observed.

1). One of the Board members of the NJ Marine Science Consortium was executive director of a coastal environmental activist group. Every year, her organization held a fund-raiser at a period-piece Jersey shore hotel in Monmouth County.

To show support for a board member, my wife and I attended. When we arrived, we noticed the cars were all high end (mine was mid-end). The people attending the event were all financially well off, judging from their clothes and jewelry. They were all LILLY WHITE. The only non-white person there was my wife, a Korean (now an American citizen), and absolutely no-one, and I mean no one, talked with us, much less sat at our table!.

Then the guest of honor arrived. He was a local legislator who I knew personally and he also had met my wife at another function we attended. After going to the head table to notify the organizer he was there, he turned around, scanned the audience, saw my wife and me, and immediately came over to talk with us for about five minutes. From that point on, everyone started to talk with us and people sat at our table.

That experience suggested to me that the environmental crowd is affluent, wishes to use the environmental agenda to control people who are not of their class or race, and use whatever means are at their disposal to keep people unlike them in their place (like in Medieval times). Their concerns are their own rights, not Human Rights.

I discussed this with two influential New Jersey leaders, one a former minority leader of the NJ State Senate, and the other the director of an infrastructure group. Both agreed that my inference and they also added that "The federal government is watching those movements carefully to be sure they are in compliance with all laws governing equal opportunity and civil rights. Funding decisions were to be scrutinized if there is no compliance."

2). While NJ Sea Grant director, the program funded a marine biologist at member college. Her research was on the fate of pollutants in fish. She discovered that pollutants preferentially resided in fish organs, so when preparing fish for consumption, she recommended they be filleted and the organs removed. The filleted remains were edible because there was no dispersal of pollutants from the organs into the rest of the fish body.
Two things happened after her findings were announced. First, the New Jersey Department of the Environment immediately published advisories banning recreational fishing in areas of known water pollution. Second, the ever-aggressive press officer at her college sent out a press release about the marine biologist's findings and it was picked up by a local TV station in the greater New York area.

After telling the audience the results of the marine biologist's work in lay English, they panned a shot of the advisory notice because they sent out a video crew and announcer to see if it people paid attention. The video crew then interviewed three people who were fishing and asked each one if they had read the notices and why were they still fishing.

Fisherman #1 - A Caucasian, unshaven man of around 80 merely said "I ain't dead yet" and cast his fly rod into the water while smiling.
Fisherman #2 - An African-American man who said "Yes, I read the notices, but life is very difficult for us. I have a family to feed and that's more important".

Fisherman #3 - A Hispanic man, who barely spoke English, mumbled something about not understanding `gringo' rules.

Clearly, in this case, economic need by the less-advantaged members of society trumped environmental regulation OR human needs/rights trumped environmental elitism. The eindividual made their chocies and understood the consequences in one case.

3). All this comes down to a third issue. Do environmental rules and laws place Human beings at a disadvantage? Klaus's observations suggest the goals of the environmental movement are no different from the practices of totalitarian communist states (and he should know). In many respects he is right.

In short, this book provides a balanced and fair insight into the global climate change and environmental movement.

I saw President Klaus on TV talking about his book and I knew I wanted to read it. Not only was it about something I was very interested in, but it was short and that was very appealing. Also, President Klaus was very charming, down-to-earth, had a great sense of humor and was not full of himself as so many people in important positions are. I am just an average guy with average intelligence, but I can recognize political agendas when I see them and from day one I have seen the global warming myth as just that. So even though he is obviously preaching to the choir as far as I'm concerned, I can still review his wonderful book.

Overall, it was very readable for the lay person. There were necessarily some spots that were slow because of data or graphs that had to be explored. For my purposes it was extremely informative in a concise format and for that I am grateful.

I would highly recommend this book for everyone. For the choir, it gives us lots of usable ammo and for the deluded, it may shed some light on the way they are being deceived (even though as Paul Simon once said, "..man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest").

To President Klaus: I thank you for your offering. Especially satisfying was reading your response to questions from congress. You are a man of great conviction and integrity and a breath of fresh air among world-class statesmen. I look forward to hearing from you in the future. I hope you can remain humble after all the glowing praise you will receive from citizens like me whose voices are not heard through our media and conventional outlets in the US.

BLUE PLANET IN GREEN SHACKLES is Czech President Vaclav Klaus's contribution to the debate over global warming. Klaus points his readers in some useful directions. As a longtime advocate of market economics, Klaus worries that peoples' inordinate fears over global warming will reverse the positive trend toward decentralized economies that we've seen since the 1980s. He has watched the environmental movement embrace planning, centralization, and top-down control: the tenets of the old-style Soviet Communism, which his country suffered under for so many years. Klaus suggests that when governments control economies, people cannot creatively adapt and moribund societies result. For this book's author, Czechoslovakia is a case in point. People will make a better world, less polluted, healthier, and more vibrant when they are allowed to respond to social challenges with freedom and autonomy.

In his book, Klaus is not denying the possibility of warming. In fact, he admits, "I, too share their [environmentalists'] concerns and anxieties." Nevertheless, he reminds readers that, "the average global temperature in the 20th century increased by a mere 1.1 degree Fahrenheit." In response to this small variation, environmentalists--such as Al Gore--are "creating an environmentally obsessed society." What does Klaus suggest to counter our society's mass paranoia? He proposes that we try to answer four questions, scientifically, and without prejudice. 1. Is there global warming? 2. If so, have people caused it? 3. If so, can we do something about it? 4. Does an eventual moderate temperature increase matter?

It is easy for environmentalists to dismiss Klaus as irrelevant: environmentalists have already won the debate in terms of public opinion. Nevertheless, thoughtful people should read Klaus's book. Right now, a far-reaching proposal--selling carbon credits--is being debated, and this debate would benefit from Klaus's insights. Before we jump on board the environmental bandwagon, we owe it to ourselves to consider the long-term social consequences. For example, are the various proposals for governments selling carbon credits of any use in changing our environment? How much? And, at what cost? Klaus reminds us that the costs are more than just a matter of dollars and cents. Everyone can benefit from this book's easy to understand analysis. Get it; read it; enjoy it, and share a copy with friends.

The manmade global warming alarmists do not want a debate on their dodgy theory, but they are going to get one, and Klaus makes a great case. He is the one who should have the Nobel Prize, not the self-styled internet inventor. Klaus is a great writer, as well as a staunch defender of freedom.

I wish I could find a store that had copies of this book! I would have bought it the day it was announced but no one seems to be selling it. (and Barns & Nobel are sold out ...)

Blue Planet in Green Shackles is an excellent tour of the global climate change policy debate.

Key ideas reviewed by Vaclav Klaus include:

Resources, Their Exhaustibility, and the Irreplaceable Role of Prices
The Wealth Effect and the Effect of Technological Progress
Discounting and Time Preference
The Absolutism of the Precautionary Principle
What is Really Happening with Global Warming

If you have received most of your information about global warming from the popular media, you will be very surprised or even shocked by the information Klaus provides. The existence of so many scientific and economic reasons to doubt the conclusions of the climate alarmists and reject their efforts to control or even "un-develop" modern societies is never publicly discussed. Klaus catalogs these reasons.

The introduction quotes Professor Richard S. Lindzen of MIT:

"Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early twenty-first century's developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree, and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference, proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age."

You should read this book.