Guest article by "Rich of Medford" (Rich Peterson) on "Global Warming" n/k/a "Climate Change"

To my readers:

I am presently in beautiful Roseburg, Oregon near Eugene and Cottage Grove where I also spoke a few years ago (2006).  I'm speaking for a group of really nice people in Canyonville, Oregon, Lighted Way Ministries.  I return to Michigan on Tuesday, April 22nd.  Richard Peterson, known to most of us as "Rich of Medford" has prepared an article and kindly submitted it for publication here which I am more than honored to do.  He would appreciate your "on topic" comments.  So would I.

Constance

"CLIMATE CHANGE"

by Richard Peterson

Last month the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report on the impacts of climate change.  The message that civilization is on the brink of collapse ought to raise a sense of déjà vu in those familiar with the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment materials, in part, because that is the IPCC’s template.  The Stockholm Conference served to consolidate the environmental movement and provided it with a political voice.

Stockholm’s message was one of urgency: exponential growth would cause the planet to exceed its capacity to sustain human life.  Earth’s carrying capacity was estimated to be one-half of the 1970 population level, or approximately 1.7 billion people.  We were quickly approaching an irreversible environmental crisis caused by the pressures of industrialization and overpopulation.  The crisis later manifested itself as global cooling which changed to global warming and today is called climate change.  The solution proposed was to achieve balance following drastic population reduction with each nation sharing proportionately in the reduction.  Failure to take immediate action would lead to repercussions felt as early as the 1990s; a breakdown in civilization was inevitable.

While some may be unfamiliar with the political process started at Stockholm its subsequent constructs are well known.  Stockholm’s 20-year follow-up was the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janeiro.  Conference participants introduced what they considered to be a world constitution known as the Earth Charter.   (The Earth Summit is also commonly known as Agenda21 while the Charter is known as the biodiversity treaty.)  More recently, the 2012 Rio+20 Conference, concentrated on mobilization and the implementation of the framework.  The Occupy Movement is closely connected to this political process.

Stockholm Conference Secretariat Maurice Strong set the stage saying that the environmental crisis transcends national boundaries and that “no one nation can go it alone”;  global problems require global solutions and need to be managed by a supra national authority.  Yet Strong understood the sensitivities developing nations had about yielding sovereignty so he worked to alleviate their fears.  Nonetheless, the Stockholm Conference preparatory committees indicate otherwise:  erosion of national sovereignty would be necessary but would not be accepted for at least a generation or more.

The adopted environmental crisis would need to be prostituted if Stockholm’s political agenda were to be advanced.  The April 14-16, 1972 preparatory Conference on the Environmental Crisis-International Justice states “In global environmental control…politicization of issues is necessary and desirable if action on environmental problems is to be forthcoming.  Although politics…can be counterproductive, action can be obtained only through the effective use of political processes…International politics, in the Bismarkian sense, can and generally do lead to the prostitution of issues in order to get the upper hand.”

This year we are witnessing politicization of the climate change “crisis” in full swing.  Secretary of State John Kerry set climate change as a top priority for all US ambassadors.   Hillary Clinton called for mass mobilization that demands political change.  Senate Democrats held an all night talkathon to bring attention to the crisis.  The Obama Administration announced the establishment of regional climate hubs to assist farmers and landowners deal with the crisis.  These hubs, one might expect, will take the lead role in the Administration’s war on cow flatulence and wood burning stoves.

The International Justice preparatory committee was charged with identifying the environmental crisis for Stockholm.   Whitman Bassow, Stockholm Conference’s Public Affairs Officer, delivered the keynote address.  Participants were asked “what kind of vehicle will get the world community along the road that we’ll have to travel?”  The vehicle would be given to Earth Watch the newly created environmental watchdog.  The selected issue would serve a purpose:  “this very pedestrian nature of the Stockholm Conference may be an advantage for another reason:  in a revolution you have to have an idea and an ideal.”

While the preparatory committee brainstormed for a crisis to avert they were hard pressed to identify one.  “It is quite difficult to state what the major problem is on a global scale, and it is extremely difficult to set priorities…Sometime something is going to happen that is truly irretrievable, but we have not come to this.  What is most likely to become irreversible?  Should this be the topic of the Stockholm Conference?  Not really because Stockholm is looking to world-wide situations and there is no particular environmental (pollution, at least) issue that needs an immediate global response.”

The committee, however, did conclude with a recommendation.  “Earth Watch as a global effort at environmental cooperation, should obviously be directed to a global problem.  The problem priority for Earth Watch should involve that global problem which may most easily become irreversible.  We suggest that seas and oceans…represent a prime global concern.”

The crisis which underlies the rising seas and oceans is global warming.  Stockholm’s roadmap for averting this crisis includes:  1) global governance; 2) the erosion of national sovereignty; 3) the erosion of private property rights; 4) the redefinition of religious beliefs; and 5) the formation of a supra national moral authority (a role now claimed by the UN’s Alliance of Civilizations initiative).

The time for debate is over declare those convinced of human caused climate change and they really mean it.  The UK now seeks to severely restrict climate change critics to be heard.  CNN’s Carol Costello declared the climate debate over and used a discredited survey to portray a 97 percent consensus amongst climate scientists that humans have caused global warming.   President Obama’s “we don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society” message reflects a strategy of ridicule and marginalization typically employed by the radical left.  The marriage of politics and environmentalism has made is especially difficult for dissenting scientists.  The media has shown itself to be, more or less, escorts.

Evidence shows that climate scientists are far from unanimous in their agreement.  The US Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works posted a report showing more than 700 international scientists dissent that man is causing global warming.  The International Climate Science Coalition exists to counter the global warming scare.  The 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference was overshadowed by “climategate” where hacked e-mails suggested that dissenting scientific opinion had been suppressed by IPCC scientists.

The Stockholm International Justice committee concluded “we respectfully ask all to consider the world’s resources as the common property of all man.  No person or nation has an absolute right to any property.  Private or national property exists merely to offer to an individual or nation a decent quality of life.  It carries with it the responsibility to share with those in need.  We suggest that all consider the proposition that the right to property (whether individually or nationally held) must be looked on as a guarantee of the capability and obligation to share it with those in need.”

Repackaged communism is being delivered to us through the vehicle of the environmental movement.  History has demonstrated Marxism does not work.  The people of the United States need to carefully consider and resist any attempts to yield national sovereignty and property rights to a supranational authority which, upon scrutiny, shows it holds very different values than those of a free people.