Last week the President gave a talk. He is a real president of a real country, albeit the country has a population of just twice that of Scotland.
He is President Vaclav Klaus of the Czech Republic. 'Doing nothing is better than doing something stupid' is an aphorism he quotes approvingly in regard to current climate policy.
Here is his lecture delivered in London last week. It repays a careful read. And if you haven't time here are a few excerpts.
- It seems to me that the widespread acceptance of the global warming dogma has become one of the main, most costly and most undemocratic public policy mistakes in generations.
- What belongs here is our insisting upon the indisputable fact that there are respectable but highly conflicting scientific hypotheses concerning this subject.
- What also belongs here is our resolute opposition to the attempts to shut down such a crucial public debate concerning us and our way of life on the pretext that the overwhelming scientific consensus is there and that we have to act now.
- Yet the global warming alarmism and especially the public policy measures connected with it have been triumphally marching on. Even the recent worldwide financial and economic crisis and the enormous confusion, fear, as well as indebtedness it created did not stop this victorious “long march.”
- The original ambition probably used to be saving the Planet for human beings but we see now that this target has gradually become less and less important. Many environmentalists do not pay attention to the fate of the people. They want to save the Planet, not mankind. They speak about Nature, not about men.
Emissions trading to emissions tax. In August I described the version of cap and trade coming to