Lord Christopher Monckton, climate change expert, spoke out on October 14, 2009 against the Copenhagen Climate summit and the objectives of its sponsors. He has explored the draft treaty and identified areas of significant concern to nearly every American. Below is an excerpt from his speech, which you will not doubt find revealing and troubling. Join more than 3.5 million people have heard or read the presentation.

“At Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed. Your president will sign it. Most of the third world countries will sign it because they think they are going to get money out of it. Most of the left-wing regimes around the world, like the European Union, will rubber stamp it. Virtually nobody won’t sign it.

“I have read that treaty. And what it says is this. That a world government is going to be created. The word government actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity. The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the west to third world countries in satisfaction of what is called coyly a climate debt. Because we have been burning CO2 and they haven’t and we’ve been screwing up the climate. (We haven’t been screwing up the climate, but that’s the line.) The third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.

“How many think that the word election, or democracy, or vote, or ballot occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right, it doesn’t appear once. So at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement and took over Green Peace, so that my friends who founded it left within a year, because they had captured it.

“Now the apotheosis is at hand. They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He’s going to sign. He’ll sign anything. He is a Nobel Peace Laureate. Of course he’ll sign it. And the trouble is this. If that treaty is signed, your constitution says that it takes precedence over your constitution. And you can’t resile from that treaty unless you get the agreement from all the other states’ parties. Because you’ll be the biggest paying country, they’re not going to let you out.

“So, thank you America. You were the beacon of freedom for the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom, while it is still free. But in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, you president will sign your freedom, your democracy, and your prosperity away forever. And neither you, nor any subsequent government you elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back again. That is how serious it is.

“I have read the treaty. I’ve seen this stuff about government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or no. But I think it is here, here in your great nation, which I so love and I so admire, it is here that perhaps at this eleventh hour, at the fifty-ninth minute and the fifty-ninth second, you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty.

“The problem with this treaty is that there is nothing wrong with the climate, and even if there were, economically speaking there is nothing we can do about it. So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour, before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet, Longfellow.

          Sail on, O Ship of State!
          Sail on, O Union, strong and great!
          Humanity with all its fears,
          With all the hopes of future years,
          Is hanging breathless on thy fate!

——–

Lord Christopher Monckton is chief policy advisor to the Science and Public Policy Institute and former science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He spoke at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN recently on the UN Climate Change treaty scheduled to be signed in Copenhagen in December 2009.”

• Lord Monckton’s entire speech is here.
• Read a draft copy of the treaty here.
• Sign a petition opposing cap-and-trade here.

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Think back to the joys of childhood. When I do, my thoughts go to things like sweetened cereal, exploring my world on a bicycle, recess, and so many truly simple pleasures. I remember the weekly excitement when my mother would sit down with us children to dispense our allowances. My own children cannot fathom it, but I remember when a nickel a week made me feel rich. I also remember the agony of being forced to surrender a portion of my booty to the college savings box that perched high on my chest of drawers.

Despite the generosity, it seemed at times tyrannical that my parents would give with one hand and take away with the other. In her wisdom, mom explained that she didn’t have to give me an allowance, that a condition of allowance was setting some aside in a savings account, that this for my benefit, and that someday I would be glad she taught me this lessons.

As an adult, I’ve learned that there is, however, a true grownup version of “tyrannical allowance”. This occurs when the government uses its coercive power to dictate what you are allowed to do and what you must do with your personal funds, though the government did not give you the money nor has it a legal claim on those funds. We see this abuse of power on clear display in the healthcare bill the House of Representatives just passed. In that bill, Americans will be forced to own health insurance or pay a penalty. To my knowledge there is no precedent of the federal government forcing Americans to purchase a product or service.

Such an unconstitutional power grab by Washington pales by comparison to what is being considered in the name of global warming. Just consider the Cap and Trade bill that the House passed earlier this year. If this legislation becomes law, it is yet another step we take as a country toward European style environmentalism. Given the threat posed by such a course, it seems wise to consider where this path is leading us.

In the United Kingdom, a member of the House of Lords (equivalent to our Senate), is endorsing a plan that “grants” each Britain a “carbon allowance”. Don’t be confused by the language. This allowance is merely a euphemism for “restriction”. This scheme would create personal carbon accounts preloaded with a specific level of carbon credits. These accounts would restrict Brits from consuming above a certain level of carbon producing products and services. They would be required to provide their account numbers when purchasing anything that increases their own carbon footprint and credits would be subtracted from their account for making the offending purchase. More for an airline ticket and less for a ride on the electric trolley, for example. Like a bank account, when one’s account hits zero the account has to be replenished. In this plan, consumers would be forced to buy additional carbon credits to make more purchases.

Which products and services add to our carbon footprints according to self-proclaimed carbon experts?

• Airline travel
• Gasoline consumption
• Electrical power consumption
• Products which require power for their production
• Products not produced locally (their transport consumes carbon based fuel)
• Non-local fresh food
• Beef and other high-flatulence meat products

After a while a person begins to ask, what wouldn’t be on the list?

Not only would such a plan create a significant tax on businesses everywhere with a resulting dampening of the economy, but it is an all out assault on personal liberty.

Will we also follow this British plan for carbon reduction? Our nation is clearly following a radical environmental agenda. Not radical because it will help the environment, but radical because it empowers the government to use its coercive power to control nearly every aspect of our lives. Better that a benevolent government would educate and inspire us to a more environmentally friendly lifestyle than to big-brother us into misery. Let us do what we can to change the course of this path.

Take a moment today to discuss with your family and friends where you stand on this issue and what steps you each can take to ensure our nation continues to enshrine personal liberty and what role the government should play in carbon production levels.

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