Walter Russell Mead has been giving us a lot to think about lately — especially on global warming scandals. My hat is off to him for some thoughtful writing — especially given that he claims he personally accepts anthropogenic global warming as fact. He is however disappointed by sloppy science and sloppy reporting on the issue. Aren’t we all.
In the spirit of Mead’s “let’s be reasonable approach,” allow me to offer a few observations.
I am admittedly a climate skeptic. Like Mead I think skepticism is healthy — especially in someone who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist. I think skepticism is a survival instinct honed over many generations of human existence. Gullible types tend not to survive in the long run.
Here are a series of really basic questions I think any healthy skeptic ought to have about climate change — questions that our so-called journalist protectors should have insisted on being settled long ago, instead of playing cheerleaders for climate alarmism.
The latest issue of Foreign Policy includes an “FP Guide to Climate Skeptics” as compiled by Christina Larson and Joshua Keating. It’s an interesting collection both for what it says and what it leaves out regarding the current climate debate — the perfect candidate for an old-style fisking.
Let’s begin at the beginning:
February 1, 2010 – 9:56 am
If we’re really serious about putting pressure on China, boosting Taiwan’s security, and giving Taiwan a deterrent that doesn’t depend on the U.S. Navy, then we should quietly assist Taiwan to acquire the technology to develop its own ballistic missiles, and do nothing to discourage its acquisition of nuclear weapons. Just like China did for North Korea.
November 2, 2009 – 10:59 am
The end of the current North Korean regime is the only plausible solution to the North Korean nuclear crisis, and to the humanitarian disaster Kim Jong Il has inflicted on the North Korean people. The solution to all of the problems we face in North Korea begins with a subversive outreach to its people.
October 4, 2009 – 4:51 pm
This editorial should increase concerns about the U.N.’s incoherent response to what clearly appears to have been fraud in the recent round of presidential elections between the incumbent, Hamid Karzai, and the former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah.
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
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Posted in Blogs, Chequer-Board
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Also tagged Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan, Ban Ki-moon, Barack Obama, Hamid Karzai, Kai Eide, Obama Administration, Peter Galbraith, Presidential Elections, Vote Fraud
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October 2, 2009 – 8:35 am
In the event that you are not familiar with this story, Peter Galbraith, who was serving as the second-highest ranking UN official in Afghanistan, was fired over an argument with his superior, Kai Eide, the UN special representative in Afghanistan, concerning allegations of fraud in the presidential race between Hamid Karzai, and the former foreign minister, Abdullah Abdullah. Galbraith was pushing for a tough statement on allegations of fraud, and the UN was holding back.
By Pejman Yousefzadeh
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Posted in Blogs, Chequer-Board
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Also tagged Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan, Ban Ki-moon, Barack Obama, Hamid Karzai, Kai Eide, Obama Administration, Peter Galbraith, Presidential Elections, Vote Fraud
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The United Nations has been encouraging the new Government of South Sudan to carry out a UN-backed program which is leading to more deaths and suffering. For years the mantra of the UN’s disarmament bureaucracy has been that fewer guns means more safety — but UN gun confiscation, Sudanese style, is a deadly disaster for human rights.
In our dealings with North Korea, we’ve paid a terrible price for the North Koreans’ well-founded conclusion that our words and warnings mean nothing in practice. Backing our diplomacy with principle comes with a cost in short-term expediency, to be sure, but the long-term cost of its absence has been much greater. From it, North Korea has inferred a license to disregard both our demands and its own commitments.
North Korea’s announcement of its second nuclear test in three years is the only the latest setback for the view that North Korea could be appeased into the loving arms of the fictitious oxymoron some call the “international community.” An essential element of this view is the belief that China is acting in good faith to help America contain North Korea’s nuclear contagion. It’s time to question that assumption.
The UN’s push for a “zero DDT world”, ignores the millions of lives DDT has saved over the past century, with little to no adverse environmental impact and no harm to human health. So while there are many alternatives to DDT, after 65 years of use, DDT is still a key, yet largely unfunded, part of the anti-malaria arsenal. The children of Africa pay the price for the UN’s political correctness.
It appears to have “fizzled,” but it has made enough of an impression to attract the attention of the UN Security Council.
