Every so often an event occurs on the world stage that has the potential to affect the course of history. One such event could be the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference commencing December 7, 2009, when the elite members of political royalty and environmental activism will descend upon Copenhagen, Denmark.

At its root, the motivation driving many of these people and others who willingly associate themselves with the “climate change” agenda is the emotion of fear. They fear some human-caused catastrophe comparable to Armageddon, a picture quite literally portrayed for them in the cartoon film “An Inconvenient Truth,” by that over-inflated advocate of the environmentalist agenda, former United States Vice President Al Gore .

The underlying morality spurring the fear is that of the altruist-collectivist axis characterized by the notion that the group, be it based on ethnicity, nationality, the world community, or some other parameter has some sort of weight of authority that cannot be advanced by the individual thinking human being. This view ignores all the while the inescapable fact that all great discoveries, inventions, and human progress are the result of individual effort and not that of some imagined collective.

There is a certain lust for power or status that accompanies group “thinking,” a sense of belonging or elitism, unearned though it may be. So it is no surprise that many environmentalists in desperation will use such tactics as suppressing information that contradicts their position or simply attempting to discredit the source. The most atrocious I can recall was the statement by writer David Roberts that sceptics of the theory of man-made global warming should be treated as war criminals and face “some sort of climate Nuremberg”.

So what are the routine methods used typically by “activists”? Well, they protest, often loudly shouting out their claims as though the level of noise will somehow lend more credibility to them. The more “peaceful” among them, such as those recently occupying a government Minister’s office in Calgary, Alberta, engage in what one reporter described as “genteel civil disobedience”. The particular threat made by this group in its uniquely “genteel” manner was that they would not leave the Minister’s office until he agreed to commit Canada to a specific standard for reduction of carbon emissions. This is how the “genteel” attempt to accomplish their objectives.

In addition to violent or genteel protests and threats of destruction or “occupation” of equipment there are political tactics that go beyond a mere “sit-in” at some politician’s office. Thugs like these seem to grasp implicitly the advantage of exercising political force to achieve ends. Pressure is applied through advocacy to influence governmental policies that will turn in favour of the celebrated cause of the moment.

When such a group gains sufficient political clout it may employ additional politically inspired tactics such as propaganda, silencing opposition, or suppressing information (censorship) which may contradict its claims. If such tactics seem hostile to civilization it is no accident, as all such attempts to force a particular view on others are in fact politically tyrannical and philosophically primitive. Whether the action is by military strike or government decree, the fundamental intent is the same—to impose on another your particular view of things.

So what would be the morally proper method of advocating a particular view and convincing others that anthropomorphic climate change is an imminent threat to civilization and that governmental action is required to stop it?

Well, you might start with the methods of science: observation and experimentation. If you’re building predictive computer models you might check and recheck the validity of your underlying assumptions in building the models. Then you would make the scientific explanation as clear as possible so that it could be communicated well enough so that some politically challenged journalist could understand it and perhaps write an unbiased article for his readers. Your objective should be to shine as much daylight on the issue as is required to communicate its validity. It is a sign of your own superior knowledge of a subject if you can communicate it clearly to another human being—a lay person—without resorting to an unscientific crutch such as a “consensus of opinion”. To date, a consensus is all that has evolved among politically favoured scientists working for something called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), financed by the preeminent institution of political bias: the United Nations.

Failure to achieve clarity will get you what you’ve got now. A scandal, widely ignored by the mainstream media this week, has been revealed in which prominent scientists associated with the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia (UEA) who control the content of IPCC reports have attempted exactly what activists with political agendas try to do. They have been propagandizing through their political position while attempting to suppress information that contradicts their position and attempting to silence or discredit the climate change “sceptics,” as they’ve come to be called.

Instead of discrediting them and collapsing the entire house of cards of the theory of man-made climate change, built from a politically stacked deck, the meetings in Copenhagen will go on as planned. The scale of fraud and self-delusion is enormous. Actions based on it will impact on the entire world and on every individual left in it. It is as though the majority of world leaders have their heads firmly stuck somewhere devoid of cleansing daylight.

The non-elite are however becoming dimly aware that something evil is afoot. Those normal human beings who can understand clear facts and logical argument are not accepting wholesale any longer the “consensus of opinion” of discredited scientists. They are beginning to understand that there are far more scientists, far more qualified ones, by the way, who are edging into the sceptics’ camp.

If they hear, thanks to the internet, about the dishonesty revealed among the scientists at the UEA they may also wonder why it is that environmentalists like David Suzuki are rarely criticized for being financially supported by government while an opposing view expressed by for example, The Friends of Science, is criticized because it allegedly is supported by oil and gas companies. (Alleged by David Suzuki that is.)

There is a more fundamental moral issue at stake in all of this. The individual soul that exists in most of us does not allow us to wilfully bow to some self-professed elite, the twenty-first century equivalent of the tribal Witch Doctor of primitive cultures. These elite do not possess some magical power or knowledge which is only accessible to them.

The average man is also armed with reason and logic. He must work to exercise it and resist yielding to fear and other emotions. He must avoid being whipped into a frenzy by a media concerned more about its short-term survival through sensational reporting—or by ignoring stories altogether, as in the case of the revealing email scandal at UEA.

No man has the right to initiate force against another man. That’s why we as societies of men have instituted governments to protect us against those who would attempt to wield such force on an ongoing basis.

The Imperialists who attacked Pearl Harbour on December 7, 1941 have their intellectual descendents congregating in Copenhagen for another date which may “live in infamy,” if the world’s political leaders conspire to force their world view on us all: December 7,2009.

©Copyright 2009 Edward Podritske