The bottom line is this: The current amount of consumption – no matter how unevenly distributed globally – is what the AGW-believers say is “unsustainable.” If AGW is true, it would cause everyone in the 1st world to live how the most “eco-friendly” (the poor) live today, and that would allegedly reduce the level of consumption to something “sustainable” for everyone everywhere. We could keep the population levels we have now, but everyone would be consuming at a “sustainable” level (ie: everyone would be piss poor).

But that scenario can never happen. It can’t be both ways. No matter what it is that causes the 1st world to live like the 2nd and 3rd worlds (AGW turning out to be true or government regulations preempting what is believed to be true), the latter two are going to experience severe population drops. Most of their populations exist precisely because they indirectly benefit from the 1st world’s excess (ie: beyond subsistence) production (and the excess consumption which incentivizes that production). The first worlders are going to end up living like the rest do today, but the rest are going to die. Flat out. So the very people the AGW-believers are trying to “sustain” – to protect from the “greed-induced” pollution of the 1st worlders – are going to die unless that pollution is allowed to continue.

Destroying the whole topic doesn’t get any simpler than that. It’s not “much ado about nothing” simply because the science isn’t true. It’s because the entire thing is a desire for an effect without it’s cause (6 billion people existing without industry), and a proposal to do something that’s going to do something that’s thought to be going to happen anyways (they want to take away what they warn nature is going to take away anyways).

The only time I’d sacrifice freedom is to forestall an imminent, inexorable threat like an asteroid collision. At that point, here’s my money, grind up my car, whatever, just figure something out.

Notwithstanding the Anglia incident, there is enough better data out there to convince me that AGW may well be occurring on some scale. However, as one of the bloggers on this site (I forget which) noted, that doesn’t mean the solution is for government to impose increasingly costly and onerous controls into the lives of citizens with AGW as the excuse of the day. The private sector and scientific community will find the best ways to adapt, though it may not occur until the eleventh hour.

Maybe AGWers don’t hold that industry-destroying regulations would be equally as destructive as the (alleged) natural response to no regulations, but it would be. Which one was implemeneted would make a difference to who and what was destroyed, but overall the amount of destruction would be equal.

But that’s exactly the point: they can’t escape the fact that in order for them to continue to exist as AGWers (either in academia, the media, government, etc), something, somewhere, has to be destroyed. They’d just prefer that it be rich people’s property, rather than poor people’s lives because ignorant poor people are more likely going to support them.

AGW theorists may rebut that the alleged harmful effects of AGW need to be mitigated against now “while there’s still time.” They would argue that if the probability of environmental disaster is high, then that governments should step in and coerce producers into reducing emission levels since, it seems, producers are unwilling to do this themselves. If water levels are going to rise to hazardous levels eventually, they say, why not begin the emissions reduction process now with government controls rather than wait until the flooding manifests itself.
Of course, this argument is persuasive *if* its true that the probability of AGW-related destruction is indeed high. This is what is contested by skeptics. AGWers say government controls are a necessary response to the impending doom of AGW. Discredit AGW, and the government intervention becomes completely unnecesary, even counterproductive. AGWers don’t hold that government response would be equivalent to the natural response. They say it makes a difference who responds with what. They see government as a tool for an early, responsible approach because government reductions are mandatory.

AGW-theory proponents claim that current levels of economic activity are “unsustainable.” “Unsustainable” means that environmental changes will destroy people and property. If true, the solution (using government, instead of a backlash from nature, to decrease economic activity levels) will achieve the same result. What difference does it make who/what does it? None. Why, then, would someone advocate for government action to reduce economic activity levels? Political power.

But the only one’s buying this “trick” are the leftists themselves, who mentally “hide the decline” of the credibility of their arguments.

“How much of this involves scientific debate and how much involves politics? I’m still convinced that the best way to discredit AGW theorists is by deconstructing their arguments and disproving their conclusions. It definitely *seems* like AGW is nonsense but I can’t *know* its nonsense unless its properly falsified. Vested interests certainly stink but they themselves don’t allow one to conclude that AGW theorists are con-artists (not that this was implied). How broad are the implications of the Climategate scandal? Surely they don’t indict all significant AGW theorists. In the end, we should make the maximum amount of logically permissible concessions and take the AGW arguments at their strongest, so when they’re refuted, the refutation is conclusive.”

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2007/mar/14/scienceofclimatechange.climatechange