Environmentalists really want redistribution of wealth

A global tax on carbon dioxide emissions was urged at the UN climate conference in Bali to help save the Earth from catastrophic man-made global warming. Participants called for a tax that would represent “a global burden sharing system, fair, with solidarity, and legally binding to all nations.”

One of the attendees at the conference, Othmar Schwank, a global tax advocate from one of the attending NGOs, said the U.S. and other wealthy nations need to “contribute significantly more to a global fund,” and, “It is very essential to tax coal.” Schwank said at least “$10-$40 billion dollars per year” could be generated by the tax, and wealthy nations like the U.S. would bear the biggest burden based on the “polluters pay principle.” (Schwank is a consultant with the Switzerland based Mauch Consulting firm.) Even our own Al Gore repeated his call to place a price on carbon dioxide emissions.

Of course, the money collected from the tax would be administered by the same UN that handled the “Oil for food’ program during the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and we all know how well that worked out.

Did you know that about 17,000 people attended the climate conference in Bali? The resort area of Nusa Dua, and the many luxurious hotels there, was the main center for meetings. The organizations in attendance included La via Capeskin, the international peasant’s movement that works primarily on food sovereignty, and a large contingent from WAHLI, (Friends of the Earth Indonesia). The point these and similar NGOs raised was that because the current economic system got us here in the first place, as Emma Brindal, a climate justice campaigner coordinator for Friends of the Earth said, “A response to climate change must have at its heart a redistribution of wealth and resources”.

At last, finally the real reason for the worldwide clamor to ‘reduce’ global warming is honestly expressed; naturally this won’t appear in the America-hating news media (domestic and international), who probably wished this was not reported at all for fear it may wake up people with the truth.

This is not a new vision of the global warming issue; former Colorado Senator Tim Wirth reportedly said in 1990, "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing — in terms of economic policy and environmental policy." And how can we forget that modern French philosopher, then French President Jacques Chirac, who in 2000 said the UN’s Kyoto Protocol represented "the first component of authentic global governance." Former EU Environment Minister Margot Wallstrom said, "Kyoto is about the economy, about leveling the playing field for big businesses worldwide."

Only Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper dismissed Kyoto as a “socialist scheme designed to suck money out of rich countries”, according to a letter leaked by his Liberal political opponents. The letter, posted on the federal Liberal party website, was apparently written by Harper in 2002, when he was leader of the now-defunct Canadian Alliance party. He was writing to party supporters, asking for money as he prepared to fight then-prime minister Jean Chrétien on the proposed Kyoto accord. "We're gearing up now for the biggest struggle our party has faced since you entrusted me with the leadership," Harper's letter says. "I'm talking about the 'battle of Kyoto' — our campaign to block the job-killing, economy-destroying Kyoto accord."

Canada officially ratified the accord Dec. 17, 2002, under Chrétien's Liberal government. Harper's Conservative government, which took power January 2006, has since been accused of ignoring the accord. Harper said that belief in man-made global warming is based on "tentative and contradictory scientific evidence" and it focuses on carbon dioxide, which is "essential to life." He also said Kyoto requires that Canada make significant cuts in emissions, while countries like Russia, India and China face less of a burden.

Under Kyoto, Canada and the United States would be required to reduce emissions by six and ten per cent by 2012, while Russia was allowed to choose different base years and China and India were exempted from binding targets for reductions. Observing the Kyoto-mandated reductions would cripple the oil and gas industries, which are essential to Canada and the United States.

The Bush administration could make the same points Harper once expressed but instead remains mealy mouth about global warming and still worries about ‘world public opinion’ instead of the best interests of our country. We can only hope congress will ultimately realize global warming is a scam to bring America’s standard of lving down to the lowest common denominator by wealth redistribution, just as was finally admitted in Bali.