Are you Ready to Lose your Liberty?

“ The deluge began, seven weeks after Easter….sheets of rain spread in waves over the sodden countryside, dripping from eaves, flowing in endless rivulets down muddy country lanes.  Freshly plowed fields turned into shallow lakes…floods swept away entire villages, drowning hundreds at a time… Throughout nearly all of May, July and August the rains did not cease…”   A description of early 21^st century weather?   Hardly.  It is a description of 14^th century Europe at the beginning of the Little Ice Age (1300-1850) when the weather, according to chroniclers and forensic evidence, turned violent and deadly.  In the summer of 1315 the torrential rains and cold weather prevented thousands of hectares of cereal crops from ripening, and the fall wheat and rye crops failed utterly.  The wet soggy weather triggered the Great Famine which visited the continent for the next six years.    Other weather disasters followed.    In 1362, 25,000 people perished  in  what was called “The Great Drowning of Men” when a storm surge inundated northern European shores.  More than 100,000 people were said to have died in the same area in the great storms of 1421 and 1446.  The sea swept into northern Netherlands in the 14^th century, inundating the rich farmland and forming the vast inland sea called the Zuider Zee.  Cold, crop failures, catastrophic storms and violent and unpredictable weather during the Little Ice Age spawned wars, plague and famine.  Conversely, the 300 year long Medieval Warm Period preceding the Little Ice Age was a period of placid weather, increased crop yields and population growth.

Last week in the Caledonian Record, Deb Markowitz, Vermont’s Secretary of the Agency of Natural Resources, wrote an op ed piece with a chilling title;  “The Climate Cabinet is Ready, are You?”   She began her piece with an equally chilling quote from our governor, Peter Shumlin who stated:  "I remain baffled as to how anyone -- Democrat, Republican, Progressive -- can look at the evidence that's before our eyes, look at the scientific data and not have [climate change] be the top priority of everything that we do, not only in government, but in our own personal and private lives."
There it is hidden in plain sight:  the archetypal scare tactics of those who seek to control the citizenry:  Hysterical predictions about the future coupled with a not so subtle warning to anyone who dares to question the wisdom of the ruler, along with the final denouement:  the citizens must be regulated in “everything we do” to protect us from the predicted disaster.
Rulers used to warn of invasion or pestilence to justify imposition of martial law, onerous taxes or far-reaching restrictions on people’s freedom.  Now climate change alarmism is the perfect substitute:  it is a prediction of future events which of course cannot be measured in the present;  it is backed up by “scientists” who earn their living on predicting global warming; and it requires uber regulation of the populace.   And as the actual evidence from the historical record demonstrates, even if there is global warming, there is absolutely no credible scientific evidence to support the alarmist predictions of climate disaster. 

Markowitz follows the global doomsayer’s playbook.   She cites  her  daughter’s loss of a school day because of flooding as evidence that global warming will cause weather disasters in the future.      If that is the case, then what does the June-perfect weather we have had since early June mean?     The silliness of Markwitz’ anecdote conceals a far more serious problem for Vermonters:  our rulers are willing to use anything, no matter how insubstantial or irrelevant, to justify massive restrictions on our liberty.

Markowitz’ government plan  to prevent these alleged disasters is, of course, couched in anodyne and vague terms.  She cannot be honest about what will be required of us in order to meet her goals.   For example, she claims that “experts from colleges and universities” are  “willing partners”  with the government  to help us minions make “right choices and investments”  She says that the new climate change government cabinet’s goal is “develop and implement a climate adaptation plan for the state”  

Her only hint as to what will come for Vermonters is her claim that must reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80% below what they were 21 years ago.    She doesn’t say how, but others have.  The Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund state that in order to obtain that goal, we must reduce our present 95% reliance on petroleum to fuel our transportation to 20%.  That would dramatically change how rural Vermonters live.  If this “goal” becomes a government edict, then we will all be forced to cluster together so we can ride the ghost buses of the RCT and  forget about taking the kids on a car trip to see Grandma.    Sound far fetched?  Environmentalists in rural Texas  are already calling for “urban infill to promote density rather than suburban sprawl, which in turn supports greater use of public transit and reduced car trip miles.”

Reduction in car trip miles will not be sufficient to meet Markowitz’s goal.  The Earth Advantage Institute notes that household greenhouse gas emissions must also be curbed in order to achieve the reductions set forth by Markowitz. .  It recommends a 50% reduction in house sizes and greater use of multifamily units.

And Al Gore, the Nobel Prize winning global warming guru, suggested this week that we need to reduce the number of children we have in order to reduce global warming.

None of this can be achieved by voluntary means.  The inevitable result will first be incessant government propaganda, and when that doesn’t work, government control of, as our Governor says, “everything we do …in our own personal and private lives”.  

The despots of history would be jealous.