Mo money mo money

"This is just as important as stopping nuclear proliferation. This is just as important as stopping terrorism," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.

"The 'war room' will be independent of politics," Branson said. "But in the end it will need the United Nations, governments and other organizations to help make sure implementation happens."

An end to the war in Iraq? Our war efforts in Afghanistan? What are New York City Mayor Bloomberg and Virgin Group CEO Sir Richard Branson speaking about?

"Branson outlined the idea at a press conference with U.N. General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim and actress Daryl Hannah, and then again at a luncheon for the delegates attending the two-day debate."

Okay, I'm gaining perspective here. Whoa! Dignitaries from around the globe are talking in serious......... wait.... Daryl Hannah? That's right. Daryl Hannah.

So the U.N. G.A. President, Mayor of the largest city of the United States and the CEO of a very large international company and of course, actress Daryl Hannah (why not) got together with others to discuss global warming, and the need for a central leader to be the power broker who helps to turn the tide of climate change. "Bloomberg proposed a new U.S. tax on carbon emissions, rather than the market-based approach to letting governments and companies swap emission rights that most in Congress favor."

There it is. A tax. Goody. I believe that there will be taxes upon more taxes for global warming. Oh yeah. What other concerns about global warming have been raised lately? By who? Where?

"Delegates from nearly 190 nations had agreed in December at a U.N.-brokered conference in the Indonesian resort island of Bali to adopt a blueprint to control global warming gases before the end of next year."

Bali. Delegates from 190 countries. Blueprint to control global warming. Check.

"A U.S.-sponsored meeting in Hawaii of delegates from the 16 nations that emit the most pollutants ended earlier this month without concrete targets for slashing greenhouse gas emissions, but participants - including the European Union and the United Nations - praised what they saw as a new willingness by the United States to discuss possible solutions."

Hawaii. Delegates from the 16 highest pollution emitting nations. Blah blah blah. Check.

Hawaii and Bali of course, are no doubt the most geographically central locations possible for meetings of this nature, and of course, there were no significant carbon footprints left by the delegation efforts to get to those meetings.

U. N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is already saying that $20 trillion dollars needs to be thrown at developing cleaner energy sources over the next two decades. That would be fine if most of that money didn't get wasted and over-spent on administrative costs, not to mention the hucksters that will come along and get rich off of the notion. I think anyone with a realistic grasp on the history of U. N. spending knows that a $20 trillion dollar figure will expand into a much larger figure.

And what of the claims of those who say that the cause of global warming has been firmly established to be carbon dioxide pollutants created by mankind? Is anyone bothered that 2007 was not in fact, as it was declared by climatologic experts, hotter than 2006? Is anyone bothered by the fact that it was actually .12 centigrade cooler than 2006, and that none of the climate change experts is commenting on that other than in very general terms?

What about the current measurements regarding solar activity? What significant role does that play in global warming. The sun is the heat source for the earth. Maybe we ought to pay a little bit of attention to that. We now know that the sun's radiation output has increased by at least .05% per decade since we have been able to measure those levels since the 1970s. What we do not know, is how far back in history the levels have been increasing prior to our ability to measure them. If the increases have been steady over many decades, the contribution to global warming would be immensely significant. Along with the fact the sunspot activity has been intense enough occasionally over the last couple of years to knock out satellites, this information should not just arbitrarily be cast aside.

Record cold and snowfall in the United States and China this year, and whether the statistics related to that are or are not caused by global warming will be debated until the cows come home, but the fact is that nobody knows for sure, definitively, whether the entire globe is on a fast-track to permanently increased temperatures caused by mankind or whether this is just a natural cycle that mankind can do nothing to combat. The notion that twenty trillion dollars plus-plus-plus ad infinitum will resolve the issue is just nonsense. The meetings Bali and Hawaii ought to be proof enough of that.

"As believers, we need to be good stewards of what we have been..." yeah yeah yeah. That's a biblical given. I agree completely. I also agree that we are to obey those in authority. I just don't think that we have to swallow everything we are told.