Czech President & Climate Denier Vaclav Klaus To Preside Over EU In 2009
by John Laumer, Philadelphia 
on 12. 4.08
Vaclav Klaus. Image credit:Wikipedia
Just when we thought there was a chance for a rationalist US Administration to mesh with the Climate-action oriented EU and with an increasingly open-minded China...
[Vaclav] Klaus has called man-made global warming a myth and questioned sanity of Al Gore, the former US vice-president who received the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize for turning a spotlight on climate change...From his vantage point in Prague's Hradcany castle, Klaus could be involved in negotiating a new set of EU climate laws while the Czech Republic chairs the EU in the first half of 2009.Via:Duetche Welle, Czech President: EU's Outspoken Global Warming Doubter.
What brings Mr. Klaus to his view on climate science?
The Czech Republic was estimated to emit 62% of it's C02 from coal burning in 2002. Definitely not as coal dependent as Poland...see our recent post Extreme Coal - Poland's 96% Dependency Could Be World Record for details.
Allegiance to the present US Administration view on climate perhaps? What makes this seem somewhat unlikely is that:
Aside from controversies and protests, expansion of wind energy in the Czech Republic brings millions of euro in profits to domestic companies and new jobs for hundreds of Czechs...And what more, experts see this trend continuing in the future.Via:Czech News, Going with the wind. Czechs export to Russia, China
Perhaps there is a wish not to depend further on Russian-supplied oil or natural gas?
However, WIkipedia outlines another possible motive: he leans to the free market Utopian view, if judged by the company kept.
He has published articles in the libertarian free-market Cato Journal. On May 28, 2008, Klaus gave the keynote address at an annual dinner hosted by the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a free market advocacy group in Washington, D.C., and received its Julian L. Simon Memorial Award...The state-influenced Russian oil company Lukoil is paying to translate, publish and promote Klaus' book on climate change.
It may well be up to the US alone to take a leadership role on climate action, not relying very much on the EU for direct support.
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Czech National Library Controversy Continues.
Wood House Sits Lightly On Landscape
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Claus is not a climate denier ... he does not deny there is a climate. He just doesn't go for the manmade global warming religion hysteria. He is a rationalist.
Stop the pollution, stop the dependence on fossil fuels and fuels from nasty countries. Ride a bike. Enough energy comes to us from one day's worth of sunlight to power the whole world for years.
Low oil prices are good ... it means people are using less of it. Hopefully oil and coal wil be the 'alternative' energies and solar and wind and nukes will be the mainstay.
vsk
Wow Vsk, it is great to see that you think people who have PHDs and Masters in a wide range of scientific fields are followers of a religion. You are smoking the same stuff as your Klaus. People like you and him remind me of the church thinking that the earth was flat when even the clasical Greeks know it was round.
And Mark, to stay in line with your tone, perhaps you should allow people more air to breathe:
http://www.citizenlink.org/CLtopstories/A000006737.cfm
http://www.knowprose.com/node/17680
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/commentaries_essays/global_warming_bring_it_on.html
(ps-I have these links bookmarked, because I appreciate every possible aspect of global warming theories(yes, theories!). We're not nearly as smart as we think. Even 80 years ago people promoted radioactive toothpaste, 40 years ago doctors promoted cigarettes and at one point, as you already mentioned, we thought the world was flat and prosecuted the non-believers. Take a minute and think for yourself if the whole human-induced GHG thing just might not be as true as we'd all like to think and consider the alternatives. It's in our nature to want to know answers to difficult questions!)
Immense kudos to Al Gore for bringing the issue of sustainability (or rather the lack of it) to the masses. No doubt he has played a great role here, but it's been mentioned on many occasions that a lot of his info on human GHG's cant be backed up or is simply deceiving, so nobody should really
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inconvenient_Truth#Criticism
I don't think anybody here is denying global warming is happening, I think we're pointing out that its causes might be because of way weirder things than man-made emissions and pollution.
Peace!
One thing is to be critical another it to campaign against taking action. We have had too many "scientists" funded by companies like Exxon and Chevron to find any merit in the argument that GW is not man made.
Should we waste time debating it or should we take action to reduce its effects?
If we act and spend millions and are wrong the worst is that some money is wasted. But if we don't act and we are wrong how will we tell our children that we sat on our hands because we couldn't agree, and many of the people feeding one side of the argument were oil companies.
Thesis, Antithesis .... Synthesis.
I give a hoot, I don't pollute.
Carbon trading and the like will just be another tax on society benefiting only the corrupt.
Just use less. Companies will be forced to make less. Although we are all preaching to the choir here. The message has to go Out There.
My name is vsk and I'm a human induced climate change denier.
(from the crowd) Hi VSK !
Science will eventually prove all. Geek... is right.
vsk
Klaus is tumour of czech politics. He desperately want to be as well-known as Vaclav Havel was, but he knows he could achieve this goal only by shocking ideas and opinions. He's pope of his own church.
Luckily, Klaus will only lead for the first 6 months of 2009. After that, when it really matters, Sweden will chair the EU in the second half of 2009. Actually, next year could get really fun!