Why the Paris Climate Accords are Bad Rubbish

It's BAAAaack!

As much as I'd like to be able to say 'Good riddance to Bad Rubbish,' the Paris Climate Accords are going to be in the news again. 🙄

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (And how does she pronounce the g in her name anyway?)¹ is already gaining international press coverage for her thinly veiled Anti-Trump remarks. As of today, 29 June, she is in a European version of a pow-wow to draw up a battle plan. Here's a LINK

Why the Paris Climate Accords are Bad Rubbish

A. The Climate Accords are based on two false assumptions.

    1. Contrary to the tenor of many globalist voices, the United States does not want a dirty environment or a crashing climate. No sane person wants the climate to go haywire. But submission to coercion from greedy outsiders is not the way to get the best result the quickest and for an affordable cost. We do not need a treaty that tells us to do the right thing the wrong and expensive way!   We do not need a treaty to tell us to do the right thing period.

    2. The so-called science is bad. Really bad. I had the good fortune of earning my university degree in Earth Science prior to Al Gore's 1992 Earth in the Lurch publication,³ so the curriculum had not yet been hamstrung by political correctness. Mankind cannot affect the environment as much as the fear mongers are claiming.
Global climate change is affected primarily by the activity of the Sun. Forces way beyond human control, such as sun spots and magnetic fields, play the greatest role in determining the climate.
A lesser secondary cause, tectonic activity related to volcanism is equally uncontrollable.
Real science says that we ought to be preparing for:
        a. Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs) from the sun, and 
        b. Tsunami waves that could wipe out coastal urban areas.
These are realistic dangers, scientifically demonstrable, and they are something that we could actually if not ameliorate, at least make more survivable with proper planning.

B. The Climate Accords are based on political power, not science.

    1. Bigger National Government - Implementing the accords would entail a dramatic expansion of the administrative state.
        a. More rules, more regulations = more bureaucrats.
        b. More bureaucracy = less efficiency in both time and spending of tax dollars.
        c. Higher taxes across the board, many hidden in retail costs.
        d. Intrusive data-collection agencies.

    2. Global Government – Not only will the countries that sign the accords experience increasing burdens on their national bureaucracy, but they will also become subservient to unelected global administrative boards. These boards or commissions will not be made up of scientists who understand the factors of climate or who have genuine concern for the environment, but those positions will be filled by elitist power brokers.

C. The accords are structured on the basis of economic power, not verifiable scientific results.

    1. "The agreement basically made the U.S. economy and Europe’s strongest economies sacrificial lambs to the cause of climate change." ² This is true because there is nothing enforceable about the accords. The Paris Climate Accord is basically a dry run that depends on the 'honor system' for cooperation. BUT… cooperation is not really the main goal, not yet. It is designed to have the United States and progressive European nations implement climate change rules, then in a year or so, claim that this is unfair and say they need an international enforcement mechanism. The UN will agree and the pathway will be clear to set up a global enforcement agency.

    2. Carbon Tax. 'nuf said. (Well, maybe it is not enough said, but to say it all would take up an entire new post.)

D. What is wrong with an 'America First' approach anyway?
It is not as selfish as the rhetoric makes it seem, and I can give you two quick illustrations of why an America First approach is the smart thing to do.

    1. Have you ever flown on an airplane? If so, you have been instructed that I the event of an emergency, you should put on your own oxygen mask first before trying to help others. If you don't, you will quickly pass out and both you and the person you wanted to help will be dead. Similarly, a weakened America is not going to be able to help other countries as we have in the past; the strong are the ones able to offer help, not the crippled.

    2. It is Biblical; God teaches us to take care of our own house first. "If anyone does not provide for his own, and especially his own household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. 1 Timothy 5:8. 
        a. The regulations necessary to implement the Paris agreement would have cost the U.S. industrial sector 1.1 million jobs, (U.S. Chamber of Commerce). Bureaucratically eliminating this many jobs in the cement, iron and steel, and petroleum industries, the very ones needed to BUILD infrastructure, is not taking care of one's own.
        b. Driving small family-owned companies out of business is not providing for America's households; it is promoting power-grabbing globalism. "(T)he backers of the climate deal reads like a “who’s who” of big American businesses: Apple, General Electric, Intel, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, General Mills, Walmart, DuPont, Unilever, and Johnson & Johnson." ²
        c. The Paris Climate Accords have the potential to reduce U.S. GDP by over $2.5 trillion and eliminate 400,000 jobs by 2035. (The Heritage Foundation study) This, of course, would make more people dependent upon government and stress America's social security funding/payments. This explains why the so-called conspiracy theories are so popular: This is exactly the kind of weakening that an enemy would want to do before attacking a strong country directly.
Or… maybe not even a hostile enemy. Maybe it is the posturing of a jealous "friend." A true I-have-your-back kind of friend always wants the best for you. But America has many high school girl friends; a "high school girl" friendship is shallow. You don't have that much in common outside of high school stuff, and you won't hang out after graduation. And even though you do a lot of stuff together now because you go to the same school, you'll indulge in cattiness if you think it can put you in a better position— it's bitchy-lite. Not quite as cruel, the motivation is more likely to be either insecurity or envy rather than meanness. America has some foreign leaders who are the kind of "friend" that stops short of wishing we were dead, but who would get a certain satisfaction out of seeing us suffer the way they are suffering.

In the final assessment, climate catastrophe has not been averted,⁴ jobs are lost, middle-class families are further damaged (and in some cases destroyed) by burdensome taxes that will enrich the elite, freedoms are restricted, and power is shifted further away from the average person. Pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords was the right thing to do, but...

Those are the pragmatic reasons—actual facts, not some theory about the future based on imperfect computer models. But what about the Spiritual dimension— how should the cadets of the Bootcamp Planet view the Earth's climate?

First, I would suggest remembering that Earth is a created dimension, the work of a Creator God. He is ultimately competent.  Time wasted worrying about the environment is time that we are not spending glorifying Him, which happens to be the chief reason He created us in the first place.

 ⁴ In Christ he chose us before the world was founded, to be dedicated, to be without blemish in his sight,  ⁵ and In his love he destined us such was his will and pleasure to be accepted as his sons through Jesus Christ, ⁶ in order that the glory of his gracious gift, so graciously bestowed on us in his Beloved, might redound to his praise. ⁷ For in Christ our release is secured and our sins are forgiven through the shedding of his blood. ⁸ Therein lies the richness of God's free grace lavished upon us, imparting full wisdom and insight. ⁹ He has made known to us his hidden purpose—such was his will and pleasure determined beforehand in Christ— ¹⁰ to be put into effect when the time was ripe: namely, that the universe, all in heaven and on earth, might be brought into a unity in Christ.
Ephesians 4:1-10, The New English Bible

I have used two different colors of highlighting here to make two different points:

1. pre-planned
2. at His pleasure

Our existence here on the Bootcamp Planet was pre-planned at God's pleasure. He has a purpose for us. We are the only ones who can screw that up by rejecting Him. It is human arrogance and a grave insult to our Creator to presume that God now needs a few elitists to boss others around because He lost control of Earth's climate!  To the contrary, signing the accord is rejecting God's plan for mankind. 



Footnotes

¹ The American and Brit English pronunciations of Chancellor Merkel's first name are different. Americans use a soft g that is voiced more like a j, making "Angela" sound more like an 😇 angel, but British news sites frequently use a hard g, giving the impression of an ∠ angle. I will let you figure out the humor of the opposing pronunciations on your own. 

² John Carney, 31 May 2017. "Every Bad Thing We Will Avoid By Rejecting the Paris Climate Accords." Breitbart.

³ Okay, so the real title is Earth in the Balance: Ecology and the Human Spirit. But Rush Limbaugh nicknamed it Earth in the Lurch, which is closer to the truth of the book's message, so that is how I think of it.

⁴ Again, and leaning a bit to the conspiracy theory side, any junk science used to sell the need for regulations to avert the climate catastrophe has a built-in outcome of "proving" the regulations "worked" when the catastrophe never happens.