The Star Misportrays: Empty Bali Talks

The Star carried my letter on the worthless and hypocritical Bali talks (UN Conference on Climate Change).

But I am less than pleased.

First, take a look at their published version:

—————————

From The Star 18 Dec 2007:

     

It’s empty talk without concrete action

I READ with a sinking feeling the report “Getting hot over global warming” (The Star, Dec 16), which states: Two weeks of heated talks in Bali on global warming has led to nothing but plans for more talks.

It is totally unsurprising that the Bali talks are going nowhere fast. Kelly Greenman, a reporter for the Youth Climate Movement, had this first-hand experience to report: “After 45 minutes of discussing how the discussion should take place, the facilitator noted that time was up and dismissed the meeting.”

Amazing, almost an hour of discussing how to have a discussion, and nothing was decided. 

The Bali talks are not without dissenting voices. It might seemed that the United States stood alone in rejecting on Dec 13 the consensus on climate 100 scientists with a slew of PhDs from various fields and over a dozen nations prepared in a signed open letter to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon as well as the assembled heads of states.

The letter was titled “UN climate conference taking the World in entirely the wrong direction”. The assembled scientists were concerned that political advocates, untrained in the relevant sciences, were passing laws based on often-contested information. 

The letter listed reams of data that contradict the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports the Bali talks were based on.

Sceptics have said many times before: “We’ll believe there is a global warming crisis when the people who say that there is a crisis start acting like there is a crisis.” 

And this also means taking action to cut down massive carbon emissions.

SCOTT THONG YU YUEN, Ipoh.

———————-

Now read the third factoid that I sent in, which The Star decided to cut out, then compare how each version ends:

- – -

Bali will produce as much as 100,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the two weeks of the conference – more greenhouse gases than the entire country of Chad exudes in an entire year. And these are the people claiming to be discussing how to limit our carbon output?

This would be due in a large part to the taxis, cars, SUVs and huge numbers of private jets shuttling the various dignatories from halfway across the world. In fact, there are so many of the CO2-spewing jets, there were real concerns that Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport could not accomodate all of them, even parked on all the apron areas.

This is particularly nauseating when you realize that the more than 10,000 attendees could have just as effectively met at the UN headquarters in; that they are attending a fortnight of leisurely schedules at the massive expense of taxpayers worldwide; and that they are taking things shockingly casually, as the failed discussion on discussing shows.

Global warming and climate change truly sicken me. But it has nothing to do with the purported end of the world that the doomsayers relentlessly prophecy.

Rather, it is the political footsie-playing, the ignorance of all contradictory scientific data, the massive inefficiency and waste, and the sheer audacious hypocrisy of the most polluting individuals on the planet presuming to tell the rest of us where to stuff our carbon emissions.

Sceptics have said quoted the soundbite many times before, and I will quote it again: ‘We’ll believe there is a global warming crisis when the people who say that there is a crisis start acting like there is a crisis.’

And may I add, acting like there really is a crisis does not involve merely talking about future talks – but actual doing, such as cutting down the massive carbon emissions of those who cry the loudest for everyone else’s carbon emissions to be cut down.

- – -

Do you see what they did? By removing all of the third factoid but leaving and modifying the closing paragraph, they misportrayed my letter as a general call to reduce carbon emissions – which is exactly what the Bali talkosaurs are doing.

But in my original letter, I was directly referring to the massive 100,000-tons-of-pollution-spewing Bali conference bureaucrats when I said “Cut down your own massive carbon before you ask us to cut down ours!”

In short, The Star for the second time sabotaged my letter to strengthen the case for radical and self-crippling action against the nonexistent threat of global warming. Cuh.

I definitely like NST better now.

(For the record, I do not support cutting carbon emissions just for the sake of avoiding global warming – it simply has not been proven empirically, merely  conjectured. Still, Al Gore and his cronies are being total hypocrites by asking us all to stop emitting CO2 when they are by far the worst CO2 spewers of all.)

More reading:

Coyote Blog: Your UN At Work (The infamous 45 minutes spent discussing about discussing, and failing at it)

100 Scientists Dissent Global Warming (The open letter refuting the common wisdom of the Bali talks, plus more info)

Moonbattery: Global Warming Crusaders Menace Environment and Moonbattery: Shortage of Private Jet Parking at U.N. Climate Change Conference (The Bali conference attendees are dooming the world faster than anyon else)

Moonbattery: Bali Bureaucrats Are Coming for Your Wallet and Climate Skeptic: Climate Activism is about Socialism, Not Science (Global warming is more about promoting socialism than saving the planet)

Tags: ali talks, climate change, global warming, United Nations Conference on Climate Change