Within hours of entering the Oval Office, Mr. Biden put pen to paper and satisfied a major political debt to the left-wing of his party by returning the United States to the Paris Climate Accords. Why this was a foolish (and predictable) action, and why it must be undone.
I will say this for President Biden; he is consistent.
My perennial issue with Mr. Biden has always been foreign policy. As a senator he had an uncanny, nay, nearly supernatural ability, to be on the wrong side of any diplomatic issue, or to embrace the correct position at the wrong time. I will leave my readers to do their own homework on his record in this respect, since it is now immaterial, as he has already been elected president. What is material however, is the rapidity with which (true to form) he has blundered into another foreign policy wasp's nest, the Paris Climate Accord.
The confetti was still in President Biden's hair when NPR (National Public Radio) reported at 5:42 PM (updated at 5:45 PM) on January 20, 2021, that Biden Moves To Have U.S. Rejoin Climate Accord as if this were the Emancipation Proclamation 2.0. What was the hurry? That was a rhetorical question by the way, the hurry was well-known beforehand since Mr. Biden ran on this tidbit of nonsense.
So here we are, exactly two week's later, and what pray tell should happen? This morning we reported on The Socratic Daily Wire in The Socratic Review (Daily Edition for 03 FEB 2021) a story from France 24 entitled: Paris court finds French state guilty in landmark lawsuit over climate inaction. I will allow that to sink in for a moment. A French court, found the French state, guilty in a lawsuit, inspired by an international treaty.
In our 20 JAN 2021 Socratic Original entitled: Our Governmental Teeter-Totter: Why "unity" is neither tenable nor desirable, The Socratic Review set-out its editorial parameters for judging this administration over the next four-years; a selection from that piece:
Disadvantageous Treaties: I will not support you in committing (or recommitting) the United States to any treaty or accord which erodes our national sovereignty, retards our self-sufficiency, or diminishes our national interests or prerogatives.
So as I say, here we are two-weeks later, recommitted to an international treaty where a national court is assessing damages, culpability (and by extension) liability, using the parameters of an international agreement as justification. And we didn't just jump back on this the bandwagon, we leapt on it with joy, pomp and smug self-satisfaction.
In fairness, the French court awarded a symbolic fine of one EURO, but this is not the point; the point is a judiciary has fined a sovereign government for negligence in controlling the climate. This would be like the Supreme Court of the United States hearing a case (and awarding damages) against the U.S. Department of Transportation for diesel bus fumes in Topeka. And that is a very dangerous precedent indeed. It is also a very telling precedent, in that it underscores what the real objective of all this is at the root, and that is, money.
Almost every nation involved in this fiasco has come up short on its goals as delineated in the agreement, a point forewarned in a November 14, 2019 article by Fermin Koop in ZME Science entitled: Almost all countries are failing their Paris Agreement contributions.
As one can see in the above map, the best performers are on the rim of Africa. Really? What possible help can a narrow coastal plain wedged between an immense dessert and the Mediterranean Sea be for the welfare of humankind? Meanwhile, the great (and collectively bankrupt) social democracies are all in the same mediocre position; high in virtue, but low in results.
Into this morass Mr. Biden is leading us like the fatted calf we always seem to end up being. One can almost hear drops of European saliva hitting the bottoms of their collective tin cups as they prepare to beg for more like the lost urchins they are. But there is no more folks; the fatted calf is wan, anemic, and on the verge of its own collapse. After decades of paying for European defense, European infrastructure, and, to a certain (passive) extent, Europe's much vaunted national healthcare systems, another draw on the account is not going to sit well with the American people, of which Mr. Biden and his party should recall, they are trying to unite (their words not mine) not divide. Whatever virtue Mr. Biden and his party are trying to signal, it is woefully wrong for the tone and temperament of the times.
But Mr. Biden will not understand this until it's too late, because Mr. Biden never understands anything until it's too late (see the aforementioned senate record). Nations normally enter into treaties for a strategic advantage; this is a long standing maxim of diplomacy and statecraft. I certainly understand why all the pretty orange countries on the map signed up for the Paris Accords: free money for getting themselves out of the carbon hole they have been in for generations, is one sizable advantage. Not burning carbon mind you, but buying it. Fuel is very expensive in Europe, and very necessary on a very cold continent. The same holds true for Canada. Getting free capital to become fuel self-sufficient is a mighty good motivation for joining if you happen to be one of the orange countries. The bigger question for Mr. Biden should be, "what is in it for we the people of the United States?"
I will leave individuals to search their individual consciences for that answer, because, "saving the planet" is such an obtuse, emotional abstraction, it can be neither quantified nor qualified; nor even discussed in any logical context. That said, how is the United States and its citizens going to profit in cold, hard, cash from participating in the Paris Climate Accord? Here the virtuous rubber hits the road with a skid. We do not. Plenty do mind you, many. But for us, our only tangible benefit is more practice in writing more checks, from an already overdrawn checking account.
Were that the worst of it it would be bad enough; but like a Leonard Wibberley novel gone even more awry, what happens when the Republic of Grand Poo-bah decides to sue the United States for not meeting its climate goals. It's going to be an international slip and fall bonanza where the United States is the tony department store and the social democracies are the off-price retailers. Where do you think the international ambulance chasers are going to head? France? Morocco? Brazil? I didn't think so.
So President Biden, thank you for this well-reasoned policy decision made within your first thirty-five seconds in office and already catastrophic in its long-range implications for your country and its citizens; and in accomplishing all this within a mere two-week's time. As I say, I have to admire your incredible consistency and unswerving dedication to following you heart wherever that may lead you. Heaven help us.
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