Reheating the "global warming" myth: spurred by an agitprop blockbuster movie, radical eco-socialists are renewing their efforts to enact the UN's Kyoto treaty--key elements of which have already been implemented.

"Glaciers at the North Pole are melting. Sea levels are rising. Storms are intensifying. Heat waves, like the one that swept through Europe last summer, are longer and more deadly. Right now, we are in the middle of an unfolding climate crisis."

This catalog of disasters, insists MoveOn.org, is the product of man-caused global warming, most of it produced by America's industrial society. In a new flyer prepared by the radical left-wing activist group, MoveOn warned: "Here in the U.S., cars, trucks and coal-fired power plants spew over half of all pollution that causes global warming." Unless radical measures are taken soon to reduce our output of greenhouse gases--particularly carbon dioxide--the "climate crisis" will escalate to apocalyptic proportions, inflicting both "dangerously cold temperatures" and "extreme heat," and both "floods" and "droughts."

According to the MoveOn flyer, "One man stands in the way of real progress toward stopping global warming." And who is that man? He is none other than George W. Bush, who "at every turn ... has sided with his friends and big campaign contributors in the oil, coal and automobile industries." Presumably, though the flyer does not explicitly say, this includes opposing the UN's Kyoto Protocol--a global treaty supposedly intended to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from developed nations.

Full-scale enactment of the Kyoto treaty would gut our industrial economy by forcing radical reductions in our nation's energy consumption. Countless jobs would be lost; huge new burdens would be imposed on energy consumers. According to Dr. Hugh Ellsaesser, a former climate researcher at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, the Kyoto framework calls for "transfers of trillions of dollars from the developed to the developing world" by way of various UN agencies.

And Kyoto itself is merely one element of the UN's all-encompassing Agenda 21 program, a comprehensive plan intended to regulate all interactions between human beings and the environment. David Sitarz, who edited the UN's official, 700-page version of Agenda 21, acknowledged that its implementation "will require a profound orientation of all human society, unlike anything the world has ever experienced--a major shift in the priorities of both governments and individuals and an unprecedented redeployment of human and financial resources."

To the True Believer, however, all of this is a small price to pay to save Mother Earth (Gaia) from environmental catastrophe. To spread their gospel of eco-apocalypse, MoveOn has enlisted volunteers to distribute copies of the above-quoted flyer outside showings of the new disaster film The Day After Tomorrow. Directed by Roland Emmerich, part of the same creative team responsible for the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day and the 1998 remake of Godzilla, the new movie depicts a planet plunged into climactic chaos--including a new ice age. In the movie, global warming causes the polar ice caps to melt, shutting down the Gulf Stream and causing a cascade of environmental disasters.

As the scientific journal Nature observes, the movie's premise is more fantasy than science fiction, since "the only way to produce an ocean circulation without the Gulf Stream would be to turn off the wind system or stop the Earth's rotation, or both." Even though the MoveOn flyer admits that the "abrupt climate crisis" depicted by the film "is over the top," it asserts in large type, "Global Warming isn't just a movie. It's your future."

The MoveOn website applauds the movie for offering "an unprecedented opportunity to talk to millions of Americans about the real dangers of global warming and expose President Bush's foot-dragging on the issue." MoveOn urges Americans to support both the Kyoto treaty and the "Climate Stewardship Act," a measure sponsored by Senators John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.) that would implement much of the UN's Kyoto protocol.

At some theaters the eager eco-missionaries were countered by demonstrators from Right-March.com, a Republican, pro-Bush group created to be a foil to the Democrat-aligned MoveOn. Assailing The Day After Tomorrow as crude agitprop, Right-March urged film buffs to oppose the Climate Stewardship Act, "because the day after tomorrow, radical leftists may have wrecked America's economy."

This tidy little melodrama offered something for each side of the partisan divide. Communicants in the religion of Gala could see themselves as lonely, ridiculed prophets of ecological doom, boldly rebuking the forces of corporate greed and heedless consumption. Supporters of the Bush administration, on the other hand, have cast themselves as the forces of reason, dispelling irrational superstition and rallying to the cause of a president besieged by advocates of global central planning.

Tidy though this dichotomy may be, it is also part of an artfully wrought, multilayered deception. By essentially dispensing with science altogether, The Day After Tomorrow will prove useful in scaring at least a portion of the public into embracing the comparatively moderate (and just as scientifically untenable) doomsday scenarios peddled by radical environmentalists. And the Gala-worshippers' designation of President Bush as an eco-infidel will have the effect of rallying much of the mainstream public behind the Bush administration's supposed stand against environmental extremism.

But this is where the deception becomes particularly insidious. Although the Bush administration is perceived by foes and friends alike as being staunchly opposed to the UN's Kyoto Protocol, it has in fact accepted its central premise, adopted many of its provisions in principle, and dutifully reported our nation's "progress" on the global warming front to the UN. As with the war in Iraq, the global warming issue--carefully examined--offers an example of how, behind a barricade of "unilateralist" rhetoric, the Bush administration has been implementing, piece by piece, the UN's international program for global control.

Name That President

Defenders of President Bush often urge conservative Americans to imagine how differently things would have turned out had Al Gore, rather than George W. Bush, been inaugurated on January 20, 2001. For instance, it's not difficult to imagine a President Al Gore expressing thoughts such as these about the supposed menace of global warming, or "climate change":

   The issue of climate change respects
   no border. Its effects cannot be reined
   in by an army nor advanced by any
   ideology. Climate change, with its potential
   to impact every corner of the
   world, is an issue that must be addressed
   by the world.... Our country,
   the United States, is the world's
   largest emitter of manmade
   greenhouse gases.
   We account for almost 20
   percent of the world's
   man-made greenhouse
   emissions. We also account
   for about one-quarter
   of the world's economic
   output. We
   recognize the responsibility
   to reduce our emissions....
   This is a challenge
   that requires a 100
   percent effort; ours, and the rest of the
   world's.... My administration is committed
   to a leadership role on the
   issue of climate change. We recognize
   our responsibility, and we will
   meet it--at home, in our hemisphere,
   and in the world.

Thus spoke, not Al Gore, but President Bush on June 11, 2001, as he announced his decision to commit "the United States of America to work within the United Nations framework and elsewhere to develop with our friends and allies and nations throughout the world an effective and science-based response to the issue of global warming."

Accepting the scientifically invalid claim that man-made concentrations of C[O.sub.2] have measurably altered the Earth's climate patterns, President Bush continued: "The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change commences ... stabilizing concentrations at a level that will prevent dangerous human interference with the climate.... The United States has spent $18 billion on climate research since 1990--three times as much as any other country, and more than Japan and all 15 nations of the EU combined. Today, I make our investment in science even greater. My administration will establish the U.S. Climate Change Research Initiative to study areas of uncertainty and identify priority areas where investments can make a difference."

This represented an apparent change of perspective on the part of President Bush, who just weeks earlier had rejected the UN's Kyoto treaty because of "the incomplete state of scientific knowledge of the causes of, and solutions to, global climate change."

But the key point here was the president's acceptance of the premise that "climate change" is a result of human activity, and that the UN-headed "global community" can--and must--regulate human activity in the interest of averting environmental disaster. The first part of that premise is scientifically invalid (as the subsequent articles will show); the latter amounts to a repudiation, in principle, of our national independence and constitutional order. Once President Bush accepted those assumptions, all that remained was to argue over the details of implementing the UN's agenda.

This approach matches up nicely with recommendations offered by Richard N. Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), a globalist group whose members include numerous high-ranking administration officials (including Vice President Cheney, a former CFR director). In an interview published in the Summer/Fall 2003 issue of Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Haass was asked, "when can we expect an American response to the Kyoto protocol?" Haass's reply tacitly acknowledged that the Bush administration's current approach to global warming is a response to Kyoto, one intended to advance the UN-defined international "consensus" on the issue.

According to Haass, "it is important when the United States dissents from some principle or arrangement that we don't just say we disagree. When we disagree, it should only come after efforts to try to forge a consensus we could live with, and failing that, I think it is incumbent upon us to come up with an alternative very quickly and to try to build a consensus around that.... [T]he complement to opting out of an international consensus is [proposing] reasonable ideas around which an alternative consensus has the potential to be built. It is not enough to simply find fault; you have to also say what it would take to fix it, and try to build a larger consensus around the alternative than around the original."

Note carefully that Haass doesn't allow for the possibility that the U.S. may simply reject the idea that "global warming" is a problem requiring a solution. By his reasoning--which typifies that of the international Power Elite he represents--we are perfectly free to propose alternative approaches to "solving" the UN-defined problem, as long as they earn the support of the international community. And this is exactly the approach being pursued by the Bush administration.

Our "Obligations" to the UN

Two years ago, as dictated by the UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Bush administration submitted the U.S. Climate Action Report--2002 (CAR2002). That document provided a detailed description of America's energy production and use, and outlined the administration's efforts to discharge our UN-defined "obligations."

Significantly, CAR2002 criticizes the Kyoto-based approach to global warming for falling "short of the breadth necessary to confront [the] problem.... A global problem demands a truly participatory global response, while at the same time taking near-term action that would reduce projected growth in emissions cost-effectively and enhance our ability to cope with climate change impacts."

The most important impediment to concerted global action on climate change, asserted the administration, is the fact that "no one will forego meeting basic family needs in order to protect the global commons." Al Gore and other habitues of the eco-radical fringe want to make protection of the environment the "central organizing principle" of human society, but most Americans--like people elsewhere--are understandably more concerned with their family's standard of living. This makes the immediate imposition of draconian eco-regulations politically unfeasible--at least for now.

Under the Kyoto treaty, the U.S. would have been committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions to seven percent below 1990 levels. But rather than imposing the entire Kyoto package at once, the Bush administration favors an incrementalist approach that would "harness the power of markets and technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions"; the objective is to "reduce the greenhouse gas intensity of the U.S. economy by 18 percent" by 2012. Administration officials told CNN in January 2002 that this would be "the equivalent of 70 million cars being taken off the road, roughly the same projections as the Kyoto agreement."

Among the specific measures undertaken by the administration are the following:

* Expanded taxpayer subsidies and technology transfers to nations in the developing world;

* Creation of transferable "emission reduction" credits;

* Tax incentives for "investment in low-emission energy equipment";

* Federal funding for climate research, and for development of emissions-control technology;

* Creation of the "Western Hemisphere Initiative," which would "enhance climate change cooperation with developing countries in the Americas and elsewhere";

* "Review of progress in 2012 to determine if additional steps may be needed--as the science justifies--to achieve further reductions in our national greenhouse gas emission intensity."

That last item is extremely important, since it underscores the open-ended nature of the Bush administration's climate change policy. "All of this is just the beginning," the report specifies. All of these proposals "'are expected to achieve emission reductions comparable to the average reductions prescribed by the Kyoto agreement, but without the threats to economic growth that rigid national emission limits would bring."

That is to say, the Bush administration is substantively committed to Kyoto, in everything but name. The administration subscribes to the pseudo-science behind the UN treaty, and has committed our nation to pursuing the objectives contained therein.

All of this is being done. it should be remembered, through executive branch action, without Senate ratification of the UN treaty. When the Kyoto treaty was completed, the Clinton administration openly supported it but did not send it to the Senate for ratification, recognizing that it would be dead on arrival. What the Clintonistas did instead was to begin devising executive branch strategies to implement provisions of Kyoto without the Senate's consent.

Much of the Bush administration's climate change policy was adopted wholesale from its predecessor administration. And since this open-ended process will continue until at least 2012, there's plenty of time for a succeeding administration to adopt more radical measures.

Global Corporatism

As the CAR2002 document stated, the Bush administration's policy is to harness the marketplace by making private business entities partners in the UN-mandated climate-change crusade. Any such fascistic public-private partnership, however, is dominated by government, with businesses who do government's bidding rewarded with subsidies, tax breaks or other perquisites that offer competitive advantage over those who decline to come on board.

Subsidies and exemptions can induce reluctant businesses to offer "voluntary" compliance with the UN-inspired emissions restrictions. Once they're enlisted, they have an incentive to support measures intended to compel non-compliant businesses to adopt the restrictions as well. And of course, all measures of this sort help insulate larger, politically well-connected corporate interests from smaller potential competitors who can't afford the costs of compliance. These dynamics are already at work in the Bush administration's "voluntary" climate change program.

"Some U.S. companies are starting to complain that President Bush's plan to fight global warming isn't as business-friendly as advertised," observed the February 11, 2003 Wall Street Journal, pointing to "two distinct camps" of critics within the business community. "One frets that Mr. Bush's plan will unintentionally boost pressure for more onerous regulation. Another, including companies that already have invested in emissions-cutting technology and want competitors to be forced to do the same, worries it doesn't go far enough." (Emphasis added.)

Among the corporate leaders who support more forceful federal action is Steven Willis of Whirlpool Corporation. "It seems like we have conflicting goals here," he told the Journal. "Aren't we trying to protect the global environment? Doesn't that really mean we're going to have to make absolute changes? I think we're going to have to suck it up and do what needs to be done."

Other major U.S. corporations, having been browbeaten into supporting the global warming crusade, now want Washington to force their competitors to share the misery. "Anticipating that global climate change would become a headline environmental issue during the 1990s, companies such as DuPont Co. sought to get ahead of potential regulation by retrofitting their manufacturing facilities with millions of dollars in emissions-cutting technology," reported the paper. Now DuPont is among the major corporations seeking to dispense with the Bush administration's "voluntary" approach in favor of the McCain-Lieberman bill, which would impose "a mandatory cap" on greenhouse emissions.

In fact, many companies "consider a mandate inevitable in the long run, notwithstanding Mr. Bush's opposition, and are moving now to prepare themselves" through a strategy that could be called "pre-emptive capitulation." "I am banking on the expectation that when the U.S. Congress decides to impose mandatory controls on greenhouse gases, they will look back and recognize that some companies acted early," states Dale Heydlauff, senior vice president at American Electric Power. "And they will give us credit for early action."

There have also been the first stirrings of "a U.S. market in emissions trading," in which companies would buy and sell emissions credits. Economist Ross McKitrick of Canada's University of Guelph explains: "If emissions are controlled by tradable credits, this creates a new, artificial scarcity in something that hitherto had been free--the right to release carbon dioxide." That is to say, unlike public offerings by companies that produce something, an emissions trading market would encourage investment in government restrictions on production.

In January 2003, several large U.S. companies, led by Ford Motor Co., created a voluntary market in greenhouse-gas trading called the Chicago Climate Exchange. Companies who join promise to cut their emissions by 4 percent over the next four years. Those who miss their targets "would face the potential embarrassment of disciplinary proceedings by their corporate peers."

Interestingly, this approach, outlined in 1995 by the UN-funded Commission on Global Governance, was championed by the infamous Enron Corporation. Although George W. Bush's liberal critics delight in describing the Bush family's numerous connections to the scandal-plagued energy firm, little attention has been paid to Enron's even more intimate links to the UN, including its efforts to secure Senate ratification of the UN's Kyoto accord.

"With a payoff worth tens of billions of dollars at stake, Enron Corporation laid out millions in campaign contributions in the 1990s apparently in part to persuade the Clinton administration and the U.S. Senate to support the Kyoto global warming treaty," notes Amy Ridenour of the National Center for Public Policy Research. "Enron hoped to cash in on the Kyoto treaty by masterminding a worldwide trading network in which major industries could buy and sell credits to emit carbon dioxide.... The Houston firm's lobbying push appeared to be on the verge of success when Vice President Al Gore signed the Kyoto Protocol in November of 1998."

As an "overseer of the global trading network, Enron almost certainly would have leap-frogged ahead of many older, established companies that actually produce far more energy than Enron, essentially an energy broker," continues Ridenour. In addition, the firm's natural gas holdings would have become immensely more profitable as a result of federal policies forcing companies to phase out coal-burning plants in favor of natural gas.

It's About Control

To help agitate on behalf of Kyoto, Enron joined the Business Environmental Leadership Council (BELC). Organized by the Pew Center for Global Climate Change (one of the most radical eco-lobbies), BELC's membership also included Boeing, British Petroleum, International Paper, Lockheed-Martin, Maytag, 3M, Weyerhauser and Whirlpool--all of which had positioned themselves to profit from Kyoto-based regulatory measures.

Ken Lay, Enron's scandal-tainted former CEO, personally joined two ultra-radical environmental groups--the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council. He was also tapped by the Clinton administration for the President's Council on Sustainable Development, a group of business, political. academic, and bureaucratic figures who advise the government on implementing the UN's Agenda 21 program for global eco-dictatorship.

Even as his corrupt corporation defrauded shareholders and investors out of billions of dollars, Lay was being hailed as a model corporate global citizen. In 1997 he received three awards from the Climate Institute, recognizing his work in "fostering effective responses to climate change." The next year Enron was among 19 individuals and firms presented with the EPA's Climate Protection Award for its "exemplary efforts and achievements in protecting the global climate."

Once again, beneath Enron's eco-altruism was cold, calculated cynicism. As the Hoover Institution's Bruce Yandle points out, the Clinton administration's global warming strategy included lucrative subsidies that "will make life easier for firms like Enron." By placing itself at the center of the global market for emissions credits, the energy brokerage firm stood to reap incalculable profits. As the January 13, 2002 Washington Post reported, Enron executives concluded that the Kyoto Protocol would "do more to promote Enron's business than almost any other regulatory initiative outside of restructuring the energy and natural gas industries...."

Collaborating in the UN's efforts to decimate our energy economy, concluded Enron's corporate elite, was "good for Enron stock." Not surprisingly, the company's stock value was propped up by bookkeeping nearly as fraudulent as the science behind the global warming scare--and once that fraud was exposed, Enron collapsed under the weight of its accumulated corruption.

In similar fashion, the global warming hoax would collapse under the burden of its own absurdity--if a sufficient portion of the public were properly informed and motivated to act. The largest impediment to such principled action, however, is not the headline-grabbing cinematic alarmism of The Day After Tomorrow, but the Bush administration's quiet, little-understood support for the UN's climate change agenda.