For the past couple of weeks, world governmental environmental leaders and self-appointed civil society environmental activists have descended on Copenhagen, Denmark like a biblical plague of locusts to attempt to reach an agreement on reducing carbon emissions and thwarting global climate change.  Most accounts indicate these deliberations are floundering amidst unrealistic expectations and the profound differences between developed and less developed economies on how best to address this issue.  Major world leaders such as Barack Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown are now on their way to Copenhagen to grease the wheel of conference deliberations and provide their secular anointing to  this "messianic mission" to rid the world of climate change.

It is both amusing and hypocritical to see these self-appointed environmental guardians descend on Copenhagen like ambulance chasing lawyers denouncing our alleged conspicuous consumption and environmental degradation.  Some news reports have indicated that the Danish limousine industry was unable to cope with the demand for its services from conference attendees and that wholesale importing of gas guzzling limousines had to be procured from Germany,  the Netherlands, and France in order to transport world leaders, environmental policy groupies, and celebrities who proclaim to be "concerned" about the environment as they jet set to the latest Hollywood cause du jour.  Adding to the festival circus atmosphere, has been the drama queen antics of the Group of 77 nations (an organization of less developed countries) who are reprising their antics of the late 1970s by demanding that the wealthier countries and the taxpayers of those countries (that's us folks) authorize massive transfers of wealth to their countries so they can cope with the consequences of climate change allegedly caused by our allegedly excessively materialistic lifestyles.

Climate change is a complicated matter that defies easy categorization.  A lot of it occurs due to naturally occurring climatic events which cannot be altered by human regulatory, scientific, or environmental policy.  Some climate change is human caused, but the world's leading economies, including the U.S., have made concerted efforts over the past few decades to reduce their pollution and have achieved significant breakthroughs in pollution reduction.  Growing industrializing economies such as China and India are probably responsible for most human caused climate change and you have to factor in the corrupt and incompetent economic development policies pursued by many of the world's dictatorial regimes in their efforts to achieve national economic development and personal enrichment.  It's especially amusing to hear countries like Nigeria and Venezuela complain about climate change when they and many other critics of western countries environmental policies have significant oil or natural reserves which they are seeking to develop with the financial and technological assistance of western and Chinese companies.  It's also amusing hearing ignorant socialist gasbags like Bolivian "President" Evo Morales say climate change is caused by capitalism's alleged evils and by Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe, whose policies have grievously damaged his country's significant agricultural resources, denounce developed countries and demand reparations from these countries and their taxpayers.

What's especially  infuriating is that the proposed "solutions" to climate change such as cap and trade and various carbon emission reductions are sure to cause considerable economic hardship for average citizens the world over by drastically increasing their transportation and home heating and cooling costs at a time of global economic recession.  There is a devoted cadre of international environmental activists seeking to impose a new form of economic colonialism on citizens not genuflecting to their secularist religion of climate change environmental activism.  These activists, many of whom are national or international environmental policymakers, brazenly seek to subvert national sovereignty and personal choice to impose a global one size fits all environmental solution on the world regardless of whether it is scientifically sound or benefits personal and national economic development.  If these individuals are successful, it would be a dangerous capitulation to a pernicious movement that seeks to exert political and economic control over individuals who have not voted for such policies and cannot remove those individuals from their policymaking positions.  Fortunately, the intellectual credibility of many of these extortion artists has been grievously damaged by the recent revelations that significant "calculations" about global warming are rigged and fraudulent based on leaked emails from a climate change research center at England's East Anglia University.

We should follow the advice of prominent Danish climate change skeptic Bjorn Lomberg and seek to address climate change by developing more affordable and energy efficient technologies.  One way to begin is by increasing our use of nuclear power which is actually the most environmentally friendly energy technology available.  We should explore developing affordable technologies that power cars through methods other than fossil fuels while allowing cars to sustain speeds of up to 65-70 miles per hour and go up 400-500 miles at a trip without having to refuel or recharge.  We need to respect the national sovereignty of individual countries and quit trying to monomanically impose a global one size fits all solution to this matter.  With over 200 countries in the world, there is the potential to achieve solutions that reflect political, economic, scientific, and technological realities in these countries, are economically affordable for citizens of these countries, and actually result in improved environmental conditions in these countries.  Such prudent policies and policymaking can keep transportation costs affordable for those of us who might  like to travel to Copenhagen or other international locales and not have to be lectured at by self-appointed environmental extortionist caudillos who seek to impede our ability to travel and engage in normal economic activities.