Hurricane Melissa, which has just devastated large chunks of Jamaica and Cuba, may be seen as an unwanted overture to the United Nations' next Climate Change Conference, to be held between November 10 and 21.
To be held in the Brazilian city of Belém, the event known as COP30 is expected to be attended by over 190 nations, more than 300 NGOs and tens of thousands of "eco-warriors" from across the globe. The Brazilian organizers hope that the gathering will correct mistakes made in the notorious Paris Accords and following conferences, most recently held in the United Arab Emirates and Azerbaijan.
Yet, without being the party-pooper, one cannot ignore facts that might derail this latest version of global-warming jamboree.
The first fact is that Brazil's President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva is trying to use the occasion for another bout of waving the red apron at his bête noire, Jair Bolsonaro. Lula blames Bolsonaro for allegedly destroying chunks of the Amazon in the name of economic growth.
Despite the fact that nibbling at the magic forest has continued at an even faster pace under Lula, the crowd of do-gooders coming to Belém will be pleased because it reflects their own conviction that without stopping growth, or even going into what they call "negative growth", coping with climate change won't be possible.
That position means accepting a distinct drop in living standards in the 60 to 70 countries with medium or high personal incomes and a freezing of it in the remaining medium-to-poor nations.
The ideological approach to the issue is rooted in lingering anti-capitalist sentiments that have survived the fall of the USSR and the triumph of state capitalism in the People's Republic of China. Many orphans of Marx and Stalin have redefined themselves as "greens" or, labeled "watermelons" i.e. green outside and red inside.
The leader of France's "greens," Madame Marine Tondelier, who has just declared her candidacy for the next presidential election in 2027, insists that only the neo-Marxist program of the New Popular Front of hardline leftist parties could save the planet.
That kind of partisanship has affected other "green" parties across Europe and the Americas, with the result that almost all have seen their electoral base shrink, at times significantly.
The Belém event will be presented with several documents, one presenting five, and the other 11, "priorities". Both recipes mix some motherhood and apple-pie themes such as human rights, women's empowerment, and social equality, with issues such as energy transition from fossil fuels, protection of biodiversity and management of water resources.
Only one theme, resented as "adaptation to climate change" hints at the important fact that the eco-warriors, or eco-maniacs as critics call them, believe that global warming is irreversible and that the best humanity can do is to limit the damage it is bound to do and adapt to life in a warmer global climate.
One problem in all this is that the theory of global warming is based on assumptions that cannot be tested scientifically beyond a degree of probability. Hurricane Melissa, for example, was one of 15 such outbursts of nature in the Caribbean since the 1860s, when records of such events began by the then British Empire.
The earth has passed through at least five major events that destroyed existing ecosystems. True, human activity has caused tragedies such as the disappearance of the Aral Sea in Central Asia, Urmia Lake in Iran, and desertification in large chunks of Asia and Africa. But blaming disruptions in ecosystems solely on human activity ignores the fact that human activity must also be credited for saving many ecosystems and making large chunks of the globe fit for human, animal and plant life.
Many "green" gurus, all of them from better-off nations, adopt the theological position that regards man as a tenant and not an owner of the earth, implicitly buying into the original sin concept that could be atoned only by accepting the poorer material life. For them, the earth belongs to all beings classified as living or partly living, from the coral reefs, coronaviruses, insects and whales to Taylor Swift.
They forget that much of the planet is made of what they consider non-living, such as jungles, forests, woodlands, rivers, lakes, seas, mountains and, yes, villages, suburbs, towns and cities.
Their ideal is a nature left alone to do as it pleases, with man either clapping or trembling in fear.
Of all those classified as living or partly living, only man is capable of self-sacrifice, adaptation and positive action in the service of planet saving.
Eco-warriors who sabotage or stop the building of a new badly-needed road or airport and the closing of mines and factories, thus destroying numerous jobs, ignore the paradox of our lives: living on a no-tomorrow basis while presuming that there will be a tomorrow.
The gurus resent civilization, which, as Gilgamesh noted, is the fruit of man's action on nature. Again, as Gilgamesh noted, without man's intervention even the mighty Humbaba is doomed.
Whether Greta Thunberg, the T-shirt mascot of "greenism" likes it or not, the planet cannot be saved without its legitimate owner, man. Greta, of course, would assume that by "man" we mean "white, male, capitalist and American" the very imaginary object of her hatred.
If the cause of saving the planet is to be taken seriously, we must make it less political, more scientific, less anti-capitalist, less anti-American and more pro-growth.
Previous COP events ended with acrimonious exchanges, self-indulgent discourses, slogan-mongering and dishonest deals. That was why they didn't fly. This time, maybe, Belém will help them do so.
Amir Taheri was the executive editor-in-chief of the daily Kayhan in Iran from 1972 to 1979. He has worked at or written for innumerable publications, published eleven books, and has been a columnist for Asharq Al-Awsat since 1987.
Gatestone Institute would like to thank the author for his kind permission to reprint this article in slightly different form from Asharq Al-Awsat. He graciously serves as Chairman of Gatestone Europe.
