The climate change agenda has become the latest way for foreign countries to loot the United States for billions of dollars. Supposedly climate change caused by carbon emissions in developed countries is bringing about natural disasters in poorer countries, such as floods and droughts, but these have been occurring since long before the use of oil.
COP29, which was the 29th annual climate conference of the United Nations, wrapped up in Azerbaijan with a shocking resentment by recipients of a mammoth new $300 billion annual handout promised to them by Western nations by 2035. This far exceeds prior pledges, but the ungrateful recipients of this handout are howling in protest that it is not enough for them.
Last year then-Climate Czar John Kerry said we would not agree to pay climate reparations, but he’s left office and the Biden Administration just told the world that we would pay billions of dollars. Playing semantics, liberals say that when these payments are voluntary then it is called a “loss and damage fund,” while if the obligation is mandatory it is called “reparations.”
If voluntary, President Trump can decline to pay them. After all, India is ranked as the worst overall polluter in the world while it also has trade barriers impeding American-made farm products, and we certainly should not pay those who refuse our goods.
The New York Times complains about the “Climate Change” that is coming to the White House on this issue, as Trump has pledged to withdraw the United States from liberal foreign agreements like the Paris Agreement. “Drill, baby, drill” is Trump’s exhortation to his nominee for the Department of Interior, Doug Burgum, to open up vast federal lands to the extraction of oil.
Under Burgum’s leadership and that of his predecessors as governor of North Dakota, it has become the second-largest oil producer in the United States after Texas. This has brought prosperity, many well-paying jobs, and population growth to the barren land that lacks the natural beauty and warm weather of California.
Colder-than-usual temperatures will grip the northern United States beginning on Thanksgiving and worsening into next week. The expected low temperature for the traditional NFL Thanksgiving Green Bay Packers game is a frigid 20 degrees Fahrenheit, possibly with snow.
This is bad news for the star Hawaiian quarterback of the Miami Dolphins, who is 0-7 in cold games. Despite the predictions of Al Gore and other liberals of devastating global warming that was going to ruin the world, cold weather continues to be a bigger problem than warm weather.
Recall how Biden and Harris offered only $750 for each household ravaged by Hurricane Helene, which is barely enough to pay for a month’s grocery and fuel expenses. Just as when we end up on the hook for most of the handouts promised by NATO officials, Democrats will have us paying victims of hurricanes in every country except our own.
Azerbaijan’s president, Ilham Aliyev, candidly called oil and gas a “gift from God.” China, which is the biggest carbon emitter on our planet, is still defined by the U.N. as merely a “developing” country that thereby has no obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions or contribute payments to poor countries.
Military emissions continue to be exempt from the reporting, despite that many bombs, fighter planes, tanks, aircraft carriers, and more than a half-million military buildings are among the biggest emitters. The environmentalists who clamor for cutbacks are silent on harm caused by the Russia-Ukraine war.
In retaliation for Biden approving the use by Ukraine of launching American missiles into Russia, Putin has responded by firing its new hypersonic “Oreshnik” missile that travels too fast to intercept. These fly at 8,000 miles per hour and can travel up to 3,400 miles, easily reaching all of Europe and even our West Coast for enormous explosions.
A far greater risk to climate change is posed by the increasing likelihood of World War III breaking out. On Monday, speaking at an event for the European Policy Centre think tank, Dutch Admiral and NATO Military Committee Chair Rob Bauer warned businesses around the world to bring their production back home so that they are not beholden to foreign governments.
Bauer declared as quoted in the New York Post, “Businesses need to be prepared for a wartime scenario and adjust their production and distribution lines accordingly. Because while it may be the military who wins battles, it’s the economies that win wars.”
But wait, doesn’t this advice go against the globalist mantra that pushed the United States to send manufacturing jobs offshore in recent decades? If world war breaks out, China and Mexico could order a halt to their manufacturing of cell phones, automobiles, and other products for American consumers, crippling our economy.
John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) and lead the continuing Phyllis Schlafly Eagles organizations with writing and policy work.