The Hypocrisy of Climate Change

A few observations from Dr. Roy Spencer who attended the ever-so-interesting conference (COP 11) on climate change in Montreal. He makes an interesting observation on the attendees:

The people at COP-11 are well-fed, well-dressed, have been transported half way around the world by fossil-fueled aircraft, and are totally dependent upon myriad goods and services that require access to affordable energy. But that hasn't seemed to cross their minds. If it has, they are under the illusion that the world can live on a whole lot less energy than it is right now. I look around and wonder how all of these people would contribute to life on Earth if they were not so busy trying to save it.

And then he further observes, that maybe the best way to avoid climate change is to do what Jimmy Stewart did in It's a Wonderful Life - wish that we had never been born.

I suppose the only way to have avoided getting ourselves into this whole climate change mess was for us to have never progressed as a civilization in the first place. We could still be hunters and gatherers. Children would probably die at an early age from disease or exposure, but at least the population would not be so burdensome to the Earth. I guess we would all be much happier with a simpler existence, communing with nature, gathering berries, killing wild hares. Yet as I look at all of the people around me, they look, well…affluent. Maybe the policies they are pushing don't really apply to them, but to those they claim to represent?(I'm reminded of people like Fidel Castro who live lavishly while his people live in poverty. He does it for them.)