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Klaus to Home

by Mark Jabo

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Perhaps we should not be surprised that someone who grew up under communism has a better grasp of freedom than many Americans.

Vaclav Klaus is the president of the Czech Republic and grew up in that country under the totalitarian government that was in power there until the Velvet Revolution in 1989.

Mr. Klaus’ recent article in the Financial Times concludes with a few “suggestions” regarding climate change.

Maybe it’s just me, but the ideas appear eminently reasonable, especially when contrasted to much of the alarmist rhetoric that characterizes the current global warming debate.

Klaus offers up the following propositions:

- Small climate changes do not demand far-reaching restrictive measures
- Any suppression of freedom and democracy should be avoided
- Instead of organising people from above, let us allow everyone to live as he wants
- Let us resist the politicisation of science and oppose the term “scientific consensus”, which is always achieved only by a loud minority, never by a silent majority
- Instead of speaking about “the environment”, let us be attentive to it in our personal behaviour
- Let us be humble but confident in the spontaneous evolution of human society. Let us trust its rationality and not try to slow it down or divert it in any direction
- Let us not scare ourselves with catastrophic forecasts, or use them to defend and promote irrational interventions in human lives.

As I’ve noted on this site before, much of what I disagree with about the climate change discussion has to do with the endgame of how political power is wielded.

Mr. Klaus phrases this more elegantly when he says, “The issue of global warming is more about social than natural sciences and more about man and his freedom than about tenths of a degree Celsius changes in average global temperature.”

Na zdraví, Mr. Klaus.

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Posted in General on June 17th, 2007

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One Response to “ Klaus to Home ”

  1. Environmental Talk » Blog Archive » Q & A on Global Warming with Vaclav Klaus Says:
    June 21st, 2007 at 1:19 pm

    [...] A few days ago we featured an article in the Financial Times by Czech President Vaclav Klaus, one of the few politicians who has not been swept up in the tsunami of climate change hysteria to “do something.” [...]

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About Environmental Talk

Environmental Talk is a blog that attempts to do the impossible . . . which is to have a reasoned and nuanced approach to the science and issues surrounding global warming. At the same time, we are not above taking the occasional potshot at the extremists and posers on both sides of the topic.

As a global warming agnostic, blogger/moderator Mark Jabo attempts to come down squarely on the side of finding humor in what is, too often, a needlessly contentious topic.

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