Humanity Can't Survive Any More Guardian Columns

Apparently we're all going to die, at least according to global warmist Oliver Tickell. The only thing that puzzles me is whether the global warmists see that as a good thing, or a bad thing. After all, humans are evil, consuming, capitalists who repeatedly rape Mother Earth, right? Anyway, here are some snippets from comrade Tickell's hysterical piece in today's Guardian.

"We need to get prepared for four degrees of global warming, Bob Watson told the Guardian last week. At first sight this looks like wise counsel from the climate science adviser to Defra. But the idea that we could adapt to a 4C rise is absurd and dangerous. Global Warming on this scale would be a catastrophe that would mean, in the immortal words that Chief Seattle probably never spoke, "the end of living and the beginning of survival" for humankind. Or perhaps the beginning of our extinction."

Hmm, well that seems very well thought out and reasoned. A 4C rise in the global temperature would indeed change the face of the earth, and humankind may have to radically adapt, if we can at all (I always like to bet on humanity). But is there any evidence that this is absolutely going to happen? There are many possibilities that would be disastrous to humanity, but we don't feel the need to destroy our economic prosperity without evidence. A bloodthirsty race of ant men with a taste for human infants could suddenly burst up from the Earth in central Asia and destroy most of the human race. Fortunately, geologists have yet to find evidence of giant ant tunnel labyrinths beneath Asia, but it could happen! We need to take action now! The human race can't survive in influx of 10 trillion murderous ant men! We'd be talking extinction!

Tickell goes on:

"To see how far this process could go, look 55.5m years to the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when a global temperature increase of 6C coincided with the release of about 5,000 gigatonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, both as CO2 and as methane from bogs and seabed sediments. Lush subtropical forests grew in polar regions, and sea levels rose to 100m higher than today. It appears that an initial warming pulse triggered other warming processes. Many scientists warn that this historical event may be analogous to the present: the warming caused by human emissions could propel us towards a similar hothouse Earth."

How did mankind increase the global temperature 6C 55.5 million years ago? The Earth doesn't warm and cool naturally. Humans are responsible. And surely humans could have stopped the Earth from warming 6C, we have that kind of power. We can control weather and climate. We don't have to wait for Al Gore's dream of falling into a vat of toxic waste and gaining Captain Planet-esque powers to come true. Tickell's got a plan to stop the warming this time, unlike those selfish humans of 55.5 million years ago:

"The answer? Scrap national allocations and place a single global cap on greenhouse gas emissions, applied "upstream" – for instance, at the oil refinery, coal-washing station and cement factory. Sell permits up to that cap in a global auction, and use the proceeds to finance solutions to climate change – accelerating the use of renewable energy, raising energy efficiency, protecting forests, promoting climate-friendly farming, and researching geoengineering technologies. And commit hundreds of billions of dollars per year to finance adaptation to climate change, especially in poor countries."

Interestingly, Mr. Tickell doesn't say who will enforce this "global cap on greenhouse gas emissions". How are we going to keep sovereign nations in line? Maybe we could make them a little less sovereign? I think I see where Mr. Tickell is going here. Let's have the UN regulate global emissions like you know they're dying to do. We'll give them sweeping new powers to fight global capitalism and move one step closer to a socialist one world government. Hooray! I'm sure in a hundred years, when we're all serfs on a UN commune, there will be no bitter feelings when the next ice age hits.