Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently wrote an op-ed piece about global warming (NYT 3/31/17). He said we don’t need Washington to win against global warming, especially now that President Trump is denying it. In fact, we are winning the war.
Dream on Mayor. Like the rest of us. The seven billion people on earth are consuming over $50 trillion of goods and services every year, while we dump millions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere. We sit quietly, with rationalized minds, while we watch the world go to pot. Then, with a self-satisfied smile, we hand the earth to the next generation.
Bloomberg says we can comply with the Paris Accords without Washington, and, in fact, we are in the process of meeting all the goals.
He goes on to say that basic motive to fight global warming is the economic self-interest of businessmen. They realize that people — for some absurd reason — like to live in a clean and healthy environment. And where there’s people there’s business, and where there’s business there’s profit potential.
Bloomberg says this is just Economics 101. And he seems to know a thing of two about economics. He owns a TV station, Bloomberg News, and a ticker tape that tells us all what the stock market is doing. When he first became Mayor of New York, he was worth around $7 billion. Now he is worth around $45 billion. So it seems he knows how to make money, not to mention how to run a big city.
So maybe he knows something about global warming and its affects on our economy.
However he is missing one element of this fight: sacrifice. He has over five homes, in various continents, each with a larger carbon footprint that 100 ordinary people. Al Gore is just as bad. He recently built a house of several thousand square feet.
These environmentalists want everyone to sacrifice for the planet — but them. This is exactly the U.S.’s problem. We want all the developing countries to consume less and to protect more forests, while we consume over 25% of the earths goods and services every year – with only 5% of the world’s population.
Global austerity is the only answer. Every one must sacrifice some of their pleasure. But “austerity” and “sacrifice” is a dirty word in today’s politics.
“Man wants it all and he wants it his way.”
– Bob Dylan from “Licence to Kill”
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