Time Immortal

I heard only a snippet of a report about this while away on vacation, because Grace’s grandparents only listen to the CBC (and nothing else), and the news was playing over breakfast most mornings. Predictably, Mothercorp had some dial-an-expert come on the program to claim that the “breaking off” of a huge iceberg from the Wilkins Ice Shelf in Antarctica was a sure-fire sign of the spreading influence of global warming-influenced climate change.

To his credit, the CBC reporter did mention (briefly) that parts of Antarctica seem to be cooling, while others seem to be warming — but any objectivity that statement might have given to the news piece as a whole evaporated (heh) when the dial-an-expert (sorry, I didn’t catch his name while I was passing the bacon) spoke up.

Predictably, though, this iceberg breaking off is not the harbinger of doom it was made out to be.

The full Wilkins 6,000 square mile ice shelf is just 0.39% of the current ice sheet (just 0.1% of the extent last September). Only a small portion of it between 1/10th-1/20th of Wilkins has separated so far, like an icicle falling off a snow and ice covered house. And this winter is coming on quickly. In fact the ice is returning so fast, it is running an amazing 60% ahead (4.0 vs 2.5 million square km extent) of last year when it set a new record. The ice extent is already approaching the second highest level for extent since the measurements began by satellite in 1979 and just a few days into the Southern Hemisphere winter and 6 months ahead of the peak. Wilkins like all the others that temporarily broke up will refreeze soon. We are very likely going to exceed last year’s record. Yet the world is left with the false impression Antarctica’s ice sheet is also starting to disappear.

Ice shelves breaking off to form icebergs is a pretty common phenomenon, or so I’ve heard. It isn’t the climate that has changed in an extreme and dangerous way — what has changed thusly is our ability to look at the normal dynamics of our environment in a rational and calm manner.

This shift to international regulation of various kinds was also rooted in a new social class, namely, the international extension of the New Class — international lawyers, officials in supra-national agencies, NGO organizers, senior managers in multi-national corporations, and those officials in domestic agencies whose career path included transfers to the international level. Though there are divisions of opinion between some of these groups, they tend to share a common outlook of global humanitarianism. John Fonte of the Hudson Institute, who has analyzed their ideology, describes them as transnational progressives, and the London lawyer David Carr has shortened this term to the catchier “Tranzis.” [�]

Insofar as the United States, Britain, and Western Europe now have rulers shaped by this outlook, they can be described as the first nations in history to have a dissident ruling class. Dissidence has consequences. A dissident ruling class, whether consciously or not, will tend to be suspicious of the nation it rules. [�]

[This] can be clearly seen in three highly important developments: the shift of power from legislatures to bureaucratic agencies and the courts in domestic politics; the shift of power from democratic nation states to largely unaccountable supra-national bodies from the UN to the European Union, etc; and the development of ideologies that, lagging behind events, serve to justify these relatively new political practices and institutions as legitimate. [�]

To sum up, Tranzi-ism is an ideology that extends regulation over the full range of human activity while exempting the regulators from democratic control by transferring governance from national democratic parliaments to unaccountable bureaucracies in independent agencies, the courts, and supra-national bodies. [�]

The first task for a serious conservatism is to de-mystify the unaccountable bureaucracies that are not only our enemies but also the enemies of the nation-state, religion, small independent businesses, aspiring entrepreneurs, families and married people, and patriotic and self-reliant citizens. [�] Our second task is to defend democracy at home and the nation-state abroad. [�] Our third general response should be to restrain and obstruct bureaucracies directly. [�]

[W]e should not be afraid of controversy. Persuading the nation, including the media, that such values as patriotism, self-reliance, and enterprise are admirable, and that such policies as choice, competition, and diversity in public services are practicable, is the first step to expressing and implementing them in office. Success is not guaranteed by the controversy; failure is ensured by shrinking from it.

O’Sullivan is a master not only of the English language and its use to the most devastating effect, but he’s also a spot-on researcher with a hunger for truth. If you haven’t checked out his book The President, the Pope, and the Prime Minister, you have done yourself a grave disservice, O Reader.

And he makes an important point above: if, O Reader, we are conservatives, we should not be afraid to be controversial, even though we risk being shouted down by our progressive opposites as a result (”Let them shout us down,” I say…it will not be us who tramples on the rights of others). The truth is sometimes very controversial to speak, especially in a world which has wedded its thinking to a multitude of falsehoods.

The above takes courage to admit and to live.

Chesterton once noted that the soldier who desires life like water must be willing to drink death like wine; the soldier who cowers and waits for the battle to depart from him will almost certainly die (and then be not much more than a convoluted suicide). It is the soldier who is willing to cut his way out of the fracas that may yet live to see another day. That’s the mentality that conservatives, especially conservative bloggers, need to have when speaking about different issues ranging from Islam to abortion, from taxes to social programs, from the Military to the environment.

Because if we are to be defeated, it is better to be defeated having spoken what we hold to be the truth, rather than be defeated for having meekly held our tongue and let only our opponent’s voice be heard.

This is especially true in regard to conservative protestation against the emergence of the immense bureaucracies that plague Western society today. It has been jokingly said that bureaucracy has “no mass, only inertia”, and that certainly seems true enough. That bureaucracy and the mentality that drives it is a threat to Western society is also a fairly obvious thing — one need look no further than the human rights commissions to see that much.

Or, as Kathy notes:

Too many of my fellow “conservative” Canadian bloggers, being ambitious (would-be) careerist hacks, are obsessed with Party politics, with ridings and leaders and constituencies and so forth.

None. Of. This. Matters.

No matter who is in power, the Bureaucracy remains intact. The Bureaucracy is the “new boss, same as the old boss” we joke about, not this or that Prime Minister.

The Bureaucracy must be destroyed.

Just so. And to do so will take the courage to not only actually have the convictions one professes to hold, but to act on them and speak them without fear of what reprisals may result. After all, if it means someone is going to post a snitty note to my Facebook profile just because I cross-posted my most recent article on abortion there, that’s…well, that’s just that, isn’t it? What’s important is that what had to be said was said…the fallout is just a part of having spoken up that I necessarily accept.

Interesting article from John Robson, which gives some context and meat to observations I’ve made before in various comment-level discussions here on the site. Namely, he points out that when governments tend to fail in their efforts to promote “environmentally friendly” initiatives, private enterprise usually succeeds.

It will upset others that companies are succeeding where governments often fail. The European Union’s environment commissioner just admitted that biofuels promote rainforest destruction. Legally mandated efficient light bulbs may give some people skin problems. The failure of governments to build nuclear plants has contributed massively to greenhouse-gas production. But over there in the private sector, it’s just progress progress progress. Wretched, isn’t it?

The progress is enormous. That digital dictaphones use less power not only means fewer dead batteries full of weird metals chucked into landfills, it also means fewer new batteries manufactured then schlepped about using fossil fuels. Thes we store s on require far fewer resources to manufacture, and generate far less trash when they’re history, than LPs, spools or the aforementioned three drawers’ worth of microcassettes. (And just wait until I discover external hard drives.) Fourth, a subtle refinement, early digital dictaphones required proprietary software CDs and connection cables that also had to be manufactured, transported and, one day, discarded; newer ones send standard files through standard USB ports or wireless. Fifth, we e-mail, FTP and stream this stuff instead of couriering or mailing physical copies.

If you’ve ever been in a darkroom while “film” was being “developed” (Google it, kids) the stench of sodium thiosulphate tells you instantly that digital photos convey at least equal benefits. (And how, incidentally, do you dispose of old photos you no longer want? Landfill? Burn? Yuck. Whereas now it’s right-click, delete, empty recycle bin, goodbye ex-mother-in-law.)

Some greens advocate going back to a time when the human “footprint” on the environment was smaller. But we actually have to go forward, technologically speaking. The “footprint” of a portable cassette device was far larger than that of a digital player, while a medieval monk would have had to lug some nit with a lute on his back to enjoy Greensleeves while he jogged, to say nothing of plucking geese, skinning sheep and mixing who knows what gunk to write down the sheet music.

If you think about it, this makes a good deal of sense. Progress and technical innovation, especially in the field of consumable products of almost every variety, are inherently driven toward greater efficiency. That’s the nature of the give and take of supply and demand — consumers want devices that perform a wider variety of roles, and different companies will race to meet that demand. The companies that will thrive, and the products that will survive, are the ones that offer the best balance between price and capability — this is why the iPod dominates the digital music market despite the fact that there are dozens of brands of mp3 players out there.

But the principle is applicable in a broader sense as well. Obviously, not everyone buys like this, but the average comsumer looking for a new vehicle will tend to want (especially given fuel prices these days) to buy a vehicle that gets better gas mileage. That means that the pressure is put, because of consumer demand, to develop more efficient automobile engines that burn fuel at a more efficient rate. That also (surprise, surprise!) has the effect of reducing emissions.

It’s no coincidence that the Western nation with one of the best environmental track records in terms of emissions controls in the last decade is also the nation that has been enjoying, for most of said decade, a major economic boom: the United States of America. Almost as a matter of course, greater efficiency of products and diminished levels of environmental impact necessarily follow prosperity.

Of course, this effect can go too far as well, and I have in the past been highly critical of the situation that megachains like have created by reducing price points to so low a level that it is easier and cheper to throw away a defective electronic device and buy a replacement for it than it is to have said device repaired. I think that’s a case of the pendulum swinging too far in the opposite direction, crossing the like from progress and efficiency into wasteful decadence.

But on the flip side, I can’t deny that private industry seems to be getting things right where most governments are getting things wrong, in terms of driving us all toward the use of products and methods which, as a side benefit of their profitability, are more efficient and environmentally friendly.

(In Soviet Russia, hat tips you: SDA)