From a Dec. 5 AP article: BALI, Indonesia — Never before have so many people converged to try to save the planet from global warming, with more than 10,000 jetting into this Indonesian resort island, from government ministers to Nobel laureates to drought-stricken farmers.

But critics say they are contributing to the very problem they aim to solve.

“Nobody denies this is an important event, but huge numbers of people are going, and their emissions are probably going to be greater than a small African country,” said Chris Goodall, author of the book “How to Live a Low-Carbon Life.”

Interest in climate change is at an all-time high after former Vice President Al Gore and a team of U.N. scientists won the Nobel Peace Prize for highlighting the dangers of rising temperatures, melting polar ice, worsening droughts and floods, and lengthening heat waves.

Two big climate conferences have been held in less than a month, both in idyllic, far-flung holiday destinations — first Valencia, Spain, and now Bali. They were preceded by dozens of smaller gatherings. In Bangkok, Paris, Vienna, Washington, New York and Sydney, in Rio de Janeiro, Anchorage, Helsinki and the Indian Ocean island of Kurumba.

The pace is only expected to pick up, prompting some to ask if the issue is creating a “cure” industry as various groups claim a stake in efforts to curb global warming.

No, says Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the U.N. Climate Change Conference. “Wherever you held it, people would still have to travel to get there,” he said. “The question is, perhaps: Do you need to do it at all? My answer to that is yes.”

“If you don’t put the U.S., the big developing countries, the European Union around the table to craft a solution together, nothing will happen and then the prophecy of scientists in terms of rising emissions and its consequences will become a reality,” de Boer said.

The U.N. estimates 47,000 tons of carbon dioxide and other pollutants will be pumped into the atmosphere during the 12-day conference in Bali, mostly from plane flights but also from waste and electricity used by hotel air conditioners.

Oh, really, Mr. de Boer?  With all of the advances in video conferencing are you telling me that it can’t be done?  That’s funny because I work for the federal government – not one of the quickest organizations to pick up on modern technology – and we use video conferencing all the time.  I can tell you from experience that it’s as good as getting all of the people around a table.

I can tell you now that the environmental movement is simply the latest refuge for the anti-capitalist crowd.  With the fall of communism world-wide, the Marxists had to find a new home, and the environmental movement was easy to turn to their designs.  Don’t get me wrong, I think the desire by true environmentalists to clean up this planet is a noble one, and I can get behind that; but by trumpeting impending doom and the demise of mankind and blaming it all on man-made “global warming” without solid scientific evidence, they’ve lost all credibility.  And to all of those who argue that there is scientific evidence to support global warming – there is scientific evidence, but it has been twisted to fit a preconceived hypothesis, and that is NOT science.  For example, most studies on climatilogical data go back only 100 years or so, but when you try to extrapolate 100 years of data into periods of time that run back hundreds of years, it does not work.  If we assume that the 1990’s were the hottest years on record (and there is some debate about whether the dust bowl years of the 1930’s were hotter – but for the sake of arguement we’ll accept that the 90’s were hotter) and we take that as proof that we are in a warm period such as the Earth has never seen, then how do we explain that the retreat of a glacier in Switzerland has revealed an entrance to an ancient mineshaft with mining tools still strewn about the entrance.  Seems to me that this would suggest that the glaciers have retreated before – an indication that there have been warmer periods that we simply do not have records on.

But back to my arguement about the communists.  This whole climate change thing is a convenient ruse trumped up by the anti-capitalists.  Is the climate changing?  Of course!  Who would be silly enough to believe that the climate isn’t constantly changing, what with the cycles of the sun, and Earth’s relative distance to it, El Nino, La Nina.  That’s first grade science – Earth’s climate is changing all the time, a little bit at a time.  But this drastic change that everyone is crying about simply is not taking place – they’ve been making it an issue for at least 10 years and the oceans haven’t risen an inch – if it’s so drastic why aren’t we seeing it?  No, it’s an attempt by the anti-capitalist crowd at world-wide income redistribution.  The rich nations need to give some of their money to the poor nations.  That’s what Bali is all about.  Indonesia wants some billions of dollars from the U.S. and wealthy nations NOT to cut down their rainforest.  Could you imagine what would happen if the U.S. said to Indonesia, “give me a billion dollars not to use our missles to nuke you into the stone age”.  Blackmail pure and simple and blackmail is blackmail whether you’re talking trees or missles.  I say let them cut the trees down – I’ve been looking for some nice Indonesian rosewood for an guitar project and right now it’s just too expensive – a glut on the market would bring the price down more in my range.  I don’t understand anti-capitalism and communism, they are self-defeating ideologies – like a reverse ponzi scheme.  If it’s really all about income redistribution, take from the rich and give to the poor, that can only go so far.  It needs capitalism to survive.  Let’s say you competely eliminate capitalism – flip a switch and all of the sudden the world is a socialist paradise.  So then you take all of the money away from the evil rich and give it to the wonderful poor.  Everybody is equal.  But now we run into a problem.  The evil rich – the ones who used to earn all of the money that you’ve given to the poor- they’re not so inclined to be productive anymore because you’re just going to take any money they earn.  So now there’s no capital to redistribute but people still have to buy the essentials (which there are now less of, by the way, because the producers aren’t producing – remind anyone of the Soviet Union yet).  It reminds me of a woman I used to work with who was from Communist China – she used to say that communism made everyone in China equal – equally poor.  Like it or not, capitalim makes the world go round.

So Benazir Bhutto got whacked, eh?  It’s too bad, really, but I mean she had to see that coming. Setting yourself up as the opposition in the upcoming elections against a dictatorial ruler who contols a massive security and intelligence apparatus with known ties to multinational terrorist organizations, including al-Queda – not to mention the fact that she is a woman running for a position of power in a Muslim country.  Plus she rides around in an open vehicle – yeah, she couldn’t have expected that!  Hell, we can’t let our own presidents ride around in open cars, and we’re supposedly civilized about such things.

By the way, does anyone find it odd that no one has tried to off Bush, yet?  Lord knows there are a ton of Bush haters out there, and it surprises me that someone did try to assassinate both Reagan – who it seems like everybody seemed to like – and Ford – who was more like Uncle Jerry than a serious president (and not much of a threat to anyone) – but not one attempt has been made on W.  Don’t get me wrong, I would be seriously pissed if someone did try to knock him off.  I’ve got my issues with the way W has run some things, but you don’t try to kill the president just because you think he’s a screw up.  That’s what elections are for.  We’re not animals!  (That’s the Somalians)  Sorry, just watched Blackhawk Down again and I always get that way.  Speaking of which, I don’t think I could handle that.  I played paintball once and took cover behind this tin sheet, but everyone saw me and just opened up on it.  Sounded like a damn hailstorm and I actually was a little shaken up because I knew that if I broke cover, I’d be dead meat – and those paintballs DO hurt.  So I can about imagine the abject terror of being surrounded by an angry mob with REAL guns.

Santa was good to me this year.  I got an MP3 player that I’ve been dying for since I love music and the ol’ CD collection just wasn’t cutting it.  I also got a radio controlled model plane – a Corsair.  It’s really cool, but I’m terrified of destroying it since I have no flying experience and it’s supposedly for “expert”‘ flyers.  I put it together and taxied it around, but have yet to work up the courage to put it up in the air.  I’ve debated the merits of joining one of those RC clubs, but I don’t do well with having people tell me what I can and can’t do.  You have to go through this whole rigormarole where you have to have an instructor fly with you until they think you are okay to fly on your own (they have this deal where you can connect your radio to theirs and have dual control over the airplane – kinda like drivers ed cars).  Makes sense I suppose, but they also specify what kind of plane you can fly as a student pilot and on and on with the rules.  Again, I suppose it makes sense since you can’t very well have a lot of people flying planes at the same time and crashing them into cars and houses and other people, etc.  Of course, I also have this image of a bunch of guys (and maybe some girls too) who know a hell of a lot more about flying RC models than I do copping an attitude with me, especially since my entire little Chinese made electric plane cost less than one of their super cool nitro gas engines.  So I guess I’ll just dick around with my little model till I get the hang of things and then maybe build a gas powered trainer and sign up with a club.  Maybe by then I’ll know enough that they won’t make me train with an instructor after all. 

That’s about all I’ve got for now.

Ever wanted to know all about real Corsairs?  Check this out.

Website of the week: http://www.warbirdregistry.org/corsairregistry/corsairregistry.html