Global Warming Hysteria Watch

We need to change your eating habits to save the planet warns Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

That outfit, along with the oversized Al Gore, received a nonsensical Nobel Peace Prize last year. You think I'm kidding about Al Gore? It doesn't look like he's changed his eating habits, to say nothing of his flying habits or energy consumption. He's doing as he has always done - his own thing and telling folks to do something different. Gore is nothing more than an oversized preening gasbag.

Now, we've got some UN flack telling everyone to change our eating habits all while the elites get to continue doing as they have always done - jetsetting around the world and paying lip service to the idea of changing their habits all while engaging in the same behaviors they always have.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which last year earned a joint share of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that people should then go on to reduce their meat consumption even further.

His comments are the most controversial advice yet provided by the panel on how individuals can help tackle global warning.

Pachauri, who was re-elected the panel's chairman for a second six-year term last week, said diet change was important because of the huge greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental problems - including habitat destruction - associated with rearing cattle and other animals. It was relatively easy to change eating habits compared to changing means of transport, he said.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation has estimated that meat production accounts for nearly a fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. These are generated during the production of animal feeds, for example, while ruminants, particularly cows, emit methane, which is 23 times more effective as a global warming agent than carbon dioxide. The agency has also warned that meat consumption is set to double by the middle of the century.

'In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity,' said Pachauri. 'Give up meat for one day [a week] initially, and decrease it from there,' said the Indian economist, who is a vegetarian.

I don't see the UN commissary taking meat off the menu anytime soon, to say nothing of going vegetarian or vegan. Pachauri is at least talking from someone who is vegetarian, so the hypocrisy reeks somewhat less.

But, the UN's global warming hysterics want everyone to change their eating habits.

Once again, we see what global warming hysteria is about. It's not about the climate changing - it is constantly changing and the reasons for the change are many, but the key factor has and always will be the sun. There are many greenhouse gases, but none is more powerful than water vapor. Carbon dioxide, the stuff we exhale normally and plants intake to produce oxygen, is another, but it is a fraction of a percent of the gases that comprise the atmosphere. Methane could be recaptured and used as an energy source, which is a concept being explored in the US and elsewhere.

Global warming hysteria is about control. These elites want to control every aspect of life, down to what you can or should eat. It has nothing to do with the climate. That's just a convenient excuse to grab power. That's what the carbon cap and trade schemes are about.

And what it also means is that they want to reduce the lifestyles in the West to those found in the Third World. Since we consume more meat, more energy, and more of everything (all while living longer and healthier), that has to change to save the environment.

Sorry, but the best way to save the environment is to increase the per capita incomes throughout the world, not shrink the West's. This isn't some zero-sum game, but one where everyone can benefit. Wealth results in the ability for individuals and nations to safeguard the environment and make better choices.

It's important to save habitat, but let's look at what the elites have suggested - they called for the use of biofuels to reduce carbon emissions and reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The result of that disastrous policy? Higher food and higher energy costs. Destruction of habitat on an even bigger scale. The solution proffered was worse than the problem.

So, if you want to give up meat because you think you'll improve your own life, go right ahead - that's your choice. You want to stop driving? That too is your choice.

But if these UN flacks and global warming hysterics have their way, it would no longer be a choice. It would be demanded.

In 2009, the IPCC will hold its meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. Thousands of scientists, diplomats, and bureaucrats will travel from around the world to attend this confab. If these people were truly serious about global warming and climate change, you'd think they could meet by teleconferencing? Why travel thousands of miles by plane, which pumps far more emissions into the air than an average person does in a year.

The IPCC has held meetings all over the globe in 2008. I'd love to have a passport stamped with some of these destinations: Saint Agustine,Trinidad & Tobago, Helsinki, Finland, Germany, and Switzerland. In 2007, the IPCC jetted off to Bangkok, Paris, Canada, Belgium, and The Netherlands.

They've also met in Bali, Ghana, and every other corner of the globe. You should see the menu served at these meetings too. Very cosmopolitan.