Craig Rucker
They came for your car, your light bulb, your dishwasher and washing machine, your toilet, your electricity, your airline flight and so much more. Now you can add your burger and steak to their list of what they want to legislate, regulate or confiscate out of your existence. YOUR existence. Not theirs.
The global warming agenda is the gift that keeps on giving for everyone who wants to control what you do. Dangerous manmade climate change justifies all manner of meddling, in the name of saving the planet. And like the mafia, UN cops want a piece of the action whenever money and power are on the line.
Anti-meat crusaders have been pushing hard in recent months to use climate change to achieve their goal of forcing you into an all plant-based diet. This year their rhetoric became a big part of the dialogue at UN 25th Conference of the Parties (COP-25) on climate change, in Madrid.
They’ve introduced a new buzzword you’ll be hearing a lot of, “peak meat” – as in “peak oil,” or something that we’re going to run out of really soon … not because we’re actually going to run out, but because government policies will make it off limits and drive it into oblivion. As CFACT’s team learned – as usual – it’s do as I say, not as I do.
So ban meat, it is, especially beef. But what do you suppose was the big seller for anyone looking for lunch at the UN climate conference? Burger King! Delicious all-meat American burgers, with not a single one of Burger King’s latest meatless Whoppers in sight.
CFACT met with climate delegates as they lined up for juicy burgers and shot a fun video investigation that you’ll enjoy almost as much as a juicy red steak. Our team of reporters included “Benny the Bull,” who was none too amused at UN hypocrites feasting on his friends at the COP. You can watch Benny in action here.
Harrison Ford, who is a pilot in real life as well as in Star Wars, keeps a fleet of private aircraft for his personal amusement. Ford bragged not long ago that he’s “so passionate about flying” that he would often hop in one of his planes and “fly up the coast for a cheeseburger.”
It’s got to be fun to be an idle, rich movie star living off residuals, and thinking nothing of spending hefty sums of cash on aviation gas just to get a burger, or fly to more distant destinations.
So when Ford showed up at the UN COP, CFACT’s Marc Morano asked him about his cheeseburger flights – and Ford countered that he’s “now a vegetarian.” That’s nice. But we’d still like to know how Ford got to Madrid for COP-25, where he and his UN friends lecture and hector us lesser mortals about how we should live “more sustainably.” We’ll wager our family cars and humble appliances that the Hollywood star continues to live a high-carbon, high-consumption, luxury lifestyle that would keep scores of Americans or entire African villages in lighting and refrigeration for years.
Oh well. It’s for us little people to tighten our belts. Our high-flying climate masters need their perks if they are to have the energy and fully functioning brain cells to decide how the rest of us should live.
CFACT’s investigation into UN burger hypocrisy made a splash in the media and was picked up by Fox News, The Washington Times and more.
In the end, though, COP-25 delegates were far more successful at scoring a burger than in advancing the Paris Climate Accord. In fact, left-wing protesters became so incensed when the climate talks stalled that over 200 of them, including the kids from Greta Thunberg’s “Fridays for Future” staged a protest where they banged on pots and chanted outside the main plenary session. UN security guards tossed them all out of the COP. (At least it wasn’t us CFACT folks getting tossed out this time).
Our burger scoop and the rest of our action-rich agenda were all officially submitted to and permitted by our UN minders, who get to decide whose educational programs and antics are allowed, and whose get banned. Recall that last year, the UN permitted hecklers to disrupt the official US climate delegation’s presentation – while those of us who tried to object to the rude hecklers were told we would be thrown out if we said another word.
Why is the UN having a hard time advancing the global warming ball? One name – Donald J. Trump and his plans to pull America out of the Paris Climate Accord. It’s no fun making plans to spend $100 billion per year on Green Climate Fund anything-but-fossil-fuels projects when you can’t leach off the world’s biggest economy.
The European bloc did announce plans for 28 nations to go “carbon neutral” by mid-century. But it had planned to announce this “big news” before COP-25 started. During the COP, its delegates sheepishly had to admit that Poland refused to go along.
Polish coal is cheap, plentiful and reliable. And the last thing the Poles want is to be dependent on Russian energy. They’ve met the Russians before. They also aren’t too keen on adopting Germany’s anti-coal and gas policies. They’ve got experience with that country too and have seen how its policies are hammering Germany’s automotive and other energy-intensive industries and jobs. The Poles are smart.
COP-25 followed the usual script and went into overtime, the double overtime, because there was so much dithering and bickering during the regulation period.
In the end, the UN announced “big victories,” which are nothing of the sort. In fact, aside from waxing poetic about its agreement on a “gender action plan” (whatever that is), they had little more to announce than plans for yet another big COP event next year.
Among themselves and under their collective breath, they were also hoping COP-26 won’t have to be rescheduled to another city at the last minute, when the first venue suddenly erupts in violent protests against energy policies imposed in the name of preventing “catastrophic manmade climate change.” It was mighty embarrassing for the UN when that happened in Chile a few weeks before COP-25.
Ultimately, COP 25 was an embarrassing failure for the United Nations, and a blessing for everyone who isn’t lining up at the crony UN-corporatist-activist-scientist trough for more mandates and subsidies. In the end, the UN couldn’t even advance its expanded “rule book” or agree to a newfangled “international carbon market” for buying and selling carbon indulgences, so that folks like Harrison Ford can claim they bought “carbon offsets” for their flights and big companies can do their own “greeenwashing.”
If UN Secretary General (and former President of the Socialist International) António Guterres was “disappointed” that “the international community” lacks sufficient ambition “to tackle the climate crisis,” the rest of humanity should be grateful we still have fossil fuels to support our jobs and living standards.
What’s actually going on at this year’s UN climate talks is a wait-and-see game geared toward next November’s US elections. After watching Britain give the Tory party its biggest victory since Margaret Thatcher amid the Madrid talks, and observing moves now afoot to pull Britain out of the EU once and for all, the UN crowd can see that government by global bureaucracy is under threat.
The UN is plenty scared. That’s a nice thought going into this festive holiday season.
Source: Craig Rucker
Craig Rucker is executive director of the Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (www.CFACT.org)
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal.
Get Citizensjournal.us Headlines free SUBSCRIPTION. Keep us publishing – DONATE
