University towns tend to be the worst when it comes to vapidity and useless symbolic gestures promoting Leftist hyper control. In that tradition, Cambridge, MA–home of Harvard (of course)–has decided to take the point on fighting global warming! And they are serious about it, no fooling around. From the story:
Going green will not be optional in Cambridge, Mass., if the Cambridge Climate Congress has its way. It will be mandatory. There will be congestion pricing to reduce car travel. Curbside parking will be eliminated. There will be a carbon tax “of some kind,” not to mention taxes on plastic and paper bags. And the Massachusetts city, home of Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, will advocate vegetarianism and veganism, complete with “Meatless or Vegan Mondays.”
Those are just some of the proposals put forth by the Congress, which was created in May 2009 to respond to the “climate emergency” plaguing Cambridge. Once the Congress settles on its recommendations, they will submitted to the City Council. “This emergency is created by the growth of local greenhouse gas emissions despite the urgent warnings of climate scientists that substantial reductions are needed in order to reduce the risk of disastrous changes to our climate,” the Climate Congress reported in proposals issued on Jan. 23. “This proposal is made in the belief that an effective local response is, if anything, made more urgent by so far inadequate global agreements and federal policies for emissions reductions. It is made in the belief that our City should lead by example.”‘
Whatever Cambridge does will have zero impact on any purported warming. Or to put it another way, it is just a way to make people with nothing better to do feel important. Even more to the point, these hollow gestures will allow the warming crowd to control how other people live. From the current Cambridge Climate Conference proposal (my emphasis):
Create a Climate Emergency Response Board (CERB)...2. Purpose: The CERB is charged with promoting, coordinating, and monitoring response to the climate emergency by all sectors of Cambridge, including individuals, households, voluntary membership organizations, businesses, institutions, property owners, and the city government through reduction of local greenhouse gas emissions and other means.
How about minding your own business, instead?
Meanwhile, Dallas just experienced a record snowfall and Rome is also being pounded. I know, it’s just “weather,” but go figure.
February 12th, 2010 | 1:18 pm
“Whatever Cambridge does will have zero impact on any purported warming.”
that attitude is free licence for individuals to do nothing – “trading my hummer for a prius will have zero impact on any purported air quality problems” etc.
this blog is loony “purported”
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 12th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
Individuals should be free, Joe. And we certainly don’t need local “committees” telling us what to do.
February 12th, 2010 | 3:58 pm
Great minds think alike.
February 12th, 2010 | 4:24 pm
“Individuals should be free, Joe.”
Of course our freedoms are limited, mostly based on the impact on our neighbors’ rights. And your transportation choices may indeed infringe on my breathing rights, or leaded gasoline would still be widespread. Were you ever in a major city when leaded gas was in use, Wes?
If these sort of measures are enacted and effective, it will be via voluntary cooperation. You really think the “Green Police” are going to be making arrests? The net effect will be cleaner air and less foreign petroleum consumed. Now THAT would be freedom.
And btw, for you and everybody else who keeps saying “It’s cold and snowing so there’s no global warming!” The term is “climate change.” The concern is a loss of stability in the climate, which would be truly catastrophic for our species. Record weather conditions of any kind tend to support that hypothesis.* Why you think you can point at record snowfalls, floods, heat, and drought and use it to support a hypothesis that the climate is NOT changing is beyond me.
* But not PROVE it. Nothing’s proven. It’s weather, it’s kinda hard to predict. So don’t call me “hysterical.”
February 12th, 2010 | 4:35 pm
These literal nuts are not to be laughed aside. They are an indication of something much, much worse in society.
The environmental movement itself was begun by leftitst idiots who were laughed off as ridiculous. Yet the leftist rage was gently blown to a flame than a fire by conventional academics.
The real danger is, as always: compromise of healthy, rational ideas.
The silent majority, commen sense people are simply letting America be taken over by their “fifth columnist” atitude of pacifism and tolerance. Silence is now becoming consent.
February 12th, 2010 | 4:52 pm
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by 2BlueStarMom: RT @CO2HOG: SHS: Global Warming Hysteria: Cambridge (MA) Goes Loony http://bit.ly/d7fvwJ #tcot…
February 12th, 2010 | 5:28 pm
No No No!!! Please everyone, we must keep up the fight to save the planet.
We progressives must utilize this perceived crisis as a launching point to gather the people of the world together so we can rid the planet of all things bad so we can live in peace and love for each other finally.
Even if Al Gore and the editors of the major print wipes are charged with treason for this WMD enviro false war, we must keep insisting on pushing the threat of death by CO2 to our children in the name of peace and love.
Keep up the dogma that makes Climate Change equaling pollution so as the fear level is maintained, otherwise the evil neocons will destroy all things good and the planet itself.
Peace and love to all and we curse the evil neocons or anyone who has an opposing view.
God is on our side.
February 12th, 2010 | 8:06 pm
re: Ted Harlson
Oh noes!! America is being taken over by … by … by TOLERANCE! Everybody run!!
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
February 12th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
Where’s the tolerance in tyrannical local global warming committees? OH! I get it.
February 13th, 2010 | 12:18 am
Padraig – it’s interesting how the global warming advocates have changed their terminology to ‘climate change’. Some of these people were proponents of global cooling not too long ago, so to use ‘climate change’ is really coveinent to push their agenda.
February 13th, 2010 | 10:15 am
Dawning, it’s also more accurate and descriptive. The problem is lack of climate stability. The earth’s surface maintains an extremely small temperature range compared to other planets due to a large number of complicated factors, some of which humans MAY be influencing. What happens to us if instead of a normal temperature range of say, 0 to 100 fahrenheit, we start experiencing -50 to 150? That is still a very narrow range in planetary terms.
And btw, here is something really worth getting hysterical about:
http://fortworthology.com/2010/02/12/rahr-brewery-roof-collapses-from-snow/
Now if that’s not an omen, I don’t know what is. ;)
February 13th, 2010 | 10:37 am
The report I read said that the committee was recommending “meatless Mondays”. It had to be Mondays, of course…if they had slipped and made it Fridays, then they’d be accused of trying to make laws for religious reasons…!
February 13th, 2010 | 10:49 am
“Environmentalism” (in all of its sundry disguises) is totalitarian to the core, as this group is showing and, I believe, padraig hints at. Their great cause “externalities”. IF they can try to demonstrate that something “infringes” upon another persons “rights”, then of course they need to regulate, control, & dictate its usage. The Cambridge Climate Congress is the logical conclusion of this belief. I remember back in my environmentalist days that I was regularly lambasted because I wasn’t a vegan & wasn’t trying to convert people to vegetarianism. IF I really cared about the environment, then I wouldn’t want anyone eating meat due to x, y, & z negative effects on the planet.
It is simply totalitarianism in the name of the greater good. Unfortunately, it is predicated on impossible calculations.
February 13th, 2010 | 2:22 pm
Why don’t they do meatless Fridays…the Catholic Church has been doing it for hundreds of years?
February 13th, 2010 | 10:14 pm
Keith D: ‘“Environmentalism” (in all of its sundry disguises) is totalitarian to the core, as this group is showing and, I believe, padraig hints at.’
Well, I must be really frickin’ subtle, because I have no idea what you think I was hinting at.
You can drop the “totalitarian” bit anytime. People will always try to impose their will on you. Deal with it. If you don’t want to go along, don’t, but don’t whine about being oppressed. You didn’t go vegan, did you?
I try to deal with issues one by one (animal rights NO, embryonic stem cell research YES, climate change caused by humans MAYBE) and it’s amazing how many lefties think I’m a Republican and how many neo-cons think I’m president of the frickin’ Sierra Club.
February 14th, 2010 | 4:06 am
Padraig:
We think you and the apologists for global warming/cooling whatever are a laff riot – a fatuously fabulous (fabulously fatuous?) example of the muddled middle. If the Copenhagen shakedown had happened, that “Congress” wouldn’t be at all funny.
February 14th, 2010 | 9:02 pm
Thank you BHG. I get a big laugh out of all the folks at either extreme, right or left, and your absolute certainty in all matters. Although it’s usually the “have to laugh or pull my hair out” kind of laugh.
February 15th, 2010 | 10:13 pm
Sounds like an interesting experiment in Cambridge.
For all the posters complaining about lack of choice, think about all the real choices you have. Do you have a choice about how healthy the animals are that supply your meat? Do you have a choice whether to drive to work? Do you have the choice of shouldering the burden of an increasingly obese and sickly population?
Whether or not you agree with these changes in Cambridge, this is a good time to think about what choices most communities in the US really offer their citizens.
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