Vaclav Klaus’s Denialist Ranting

Have I mentioned that I take requests? If you email

me, or leave

a comment asking for my take on a certain subject, there’s a very good chance

I’ll do as asked. And so: Anne wants to know what I think of Czech president

Vaclav Klaus’s editorial

in the FT, which Henry

Farrell describes as an attempt "to figure out how many denialist cliches

can be squeezed into a single 700 word op-ed".

Part of my problem with Klaus’s piece is that I honestly have no idea what

he’s talking about, much of the time. "Small climate changes do not demand

far-reaching restrictive measures," he writes. "Any suppression of

freedom and democracy should be avoided." Um, no disagreement there. But

what "restrictive measures" and "suppression of freedom and democracy,"

exactly, does he have in mind? We might learn more on Thursday, when Klaus will

respond to FT readers in a Q&A. But for the time being, I think we have

to assume that Klaus is simply performing the classic politician’s trick of

Blaming The Other – in this case, European technocrats who would slow

down his country’s economic growth in the name of preventing a global environmental

catastrophe.

There’s really no argument in Klaus’s piece, so it’s hard to argue against

it. I mean, how does one sensibly respond to a writer who can write this?

In the past year, Al Gore’s so-called “documentary” film

was shown in cinemas worldwide, Britain’s – more or less Tony

Blair’s – Stern report was published, the fourth report of the

United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was put together

and the Group of Eight summit announced ambitions to do something about the

weather. Rational and freedom-loving people have to respond.

The fact, of course, is that Al Gore, and Tony Blair, and Nick Stern, and the

scientists at the IPCC, and the politicians at the G8, are all very much "rational

and freedom-loving people". And frankly, the only way for rational and

freedom-loving people to respond to the IPCC reports and everything else is

by trying their darndest to minimise greenhouse-gas emissions. Because if they

don’t, they’ll find billions of environmental refugees swarming to the few places

on the planet which will still be inhabitable – places, I might add, like

the USA and the Czech Republic.

The fact is that the Czech Republic, of all countries, probably has more upside

than downside from at least the next degree or two of global warming. Its agriculture

will become more fertile, its winters will become milder, and overall it will

become a more attractive place to live. After that, when everything starts going

horribly pear-shaped, Vaclav Klaus, who’s turning 66 next week, will probably

be in no position to care.

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