A warning from the East

From The Brussels Journal:

A quote from Vaclav Klaus, President of the Czech Republic, in the Czech daily Hospodářské Noviny, 8 February 2007 (translation Lubos Motl)

Global warming is a myth and every serious person and scientist says so. It is not fair to refer to the U.N. panel. IPCC is not a scientific institution: it’s a political body, a sort of non-government organization of green flavor. It’s neither a forum of neutral scientists nor a balanced group of scientists. These people are politicized scientists who arrive there with a one-sided opinion and a one-sided assignment. Also, it’s an undignified slapstick that people don’t wait for the full report in May 2007 but instead respond, in such a serious way, to the summary for policymakers where all the “but’s” are scratched, removed, and replaced by oversimplified theses.

[...] It is not quite exactly divided to the left-wingers and right-wingers. Nevertheless it’s obvious that environmentalism is a new incarnation of modern leftism. [...] [W]e know that there exists a huge correlation between the care we give to the environment on one side and the wealth and technological prowess on the other side. It’s clear that the poorer the society is, the more brutally it behaves with respect to Nature, and vice versa.

It’s also true that there exist social systems that are damaging Nature - by eliminating private ownership and similar things - much more than the freer societies. These tendencies become important in the long run. They unambiguously imply that today, on February 8th, 2007, Nature is protected uncomparably more than on February 8th ten years ago or fifty years ago or one hundred years ago.

Here is more proof that Eastern Europe will become what Western Europe once was, an partner in the fight against tyranny and a partner in economic prosperity.

Apparently there is nothing that can teach a people wisdom quite as well as several decades under the Soviet bootheel. Having seen leftism taken to its inevitable conclusion they want no part of it.

Take careful note of the fact that a man who grew to adulthood in a totalitarian socialist "worker's paradise" and had a lifetime to learn to recognize their justifications for oppression catches a familiar scent in the global warming apparatchiks.