Climate change shouldn't be an excuse for global government

Daniel Hannan, Conservative MEP for South East England, giving a speech in Strasbourg on 25 November 2009 on attempts to turn the climate change debate into a reason for greater global governance, ever more distant from national democracies.

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• Hannan
• climate
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• conservatives
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[rockhuddy]

Global Warming is a fraud intended to justify world government, and fund it through carbon taxes.

[Orchard6773]

This scam is just an excuse for more government control.

[soylentgreenb]

@ignbtd err... that should be CAN'T assign.

[soylentgreenb]

@ignbtd You can assign property rights to the fish before they are caught because you can't track them individually; that's too late.

It's true that you can charge me for the services of a water treatment plant or a beekeeper. But in the case of eco-system services, you have no ability to selectively deny me service for non-payment; everyone has the incentive to free-load off of your nature preserve, thus your incentive is to destroy it and build something you can capture the profits from.

[soylentgreenb]

@ignbtd I'd like to first point out that property rights work in a large number of applications so you don't think I'm a lefty nutter; but air-pollution is hardly the only case where they fail.

Wild fish roam vast areas of ocean the size of continents. Fishing is a massive tragedy of the commons.

A national park may be the best use for a certain parcel of land, but the value is largely non-monetary or non-monetizable(e.g. ecosystem services like crop pollination, water treatment or CO2 sink).

[soylentgreenb]

@ignbtd Some things are naturally commons and almost impossible to privatize in any meaningful way. You can't cordon off columns of atmosphere extending into the stratosphere; that air will move around everywhere, taking with it whatever it is that you put in it.

The only property-rights-like solution ever suggested to my knowledge is cap and trade, and that's pretty much universally hated by all sides.

[soylentgreenb]

The free-market folks have spent the last 30 years either going apoplectic or indulging in wishful thinking and mindless conspiracy pap instead of suggesting any good solutions.

They still haven't gotten past the denial stage. It may be possible to forestall action for years to come; but there is a heavy cost. All the deceit, wishful thinking and vacuous crap will come home to roost, you will be responsible for discrediting yourselves empowering your political opposites.

[Historyisthekey]

@ymonkey333 you are what's wrong with Britain today

[Historyisthekey]

@rockhuddy sadly you are 100% correct. Fortunately, more people are aware of this fact now

[gingergiblet]

@ymonkey333

Centralize all the worlds power into the hands of a small few. That sounds like a really safe idea because never throughout human history have tyrants ever existed and weaseled their way into seats of power. It has never happened ever, Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Chairman Mao, George Bush etc. etc. never existed.

[ymonkey333]

what's wrong with a global government? c'mon you paranoid people!

[shocky2012]

you go boy, well said