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By Cliff Kincaid | November 28, 2007
In other words, you are not yet worked up into enough of a panic.
In its new Human Development Report calling for another $86 billion in aid to the rest of the world, supposedly to fight the effects of climate change, the United Nations acts distressed that people in “rich” countries like the U.S. don’t take the theory of man-made global warming more seriously. Its answer—and this is actually spelled out in the report—is that too much “editorial balance” in the media has prevented “informed debate” about the need for “urgent action” in the form of higher taxes on energy.
The U.N. report complains that, according to one poll, roughly four in ten Americans believe that human activity is responsible for global warming, but just as many believe it is a natural phenomenon. This is not acceptable to the global elite.
The U.N. is calling for more propaganda from the media, in order to push the American people toward acceptance of the alarmist view and higher energy taxes and the increased foreign aid that would result. It just so happens this would also result in more money flowing into the coffers of the U.N. at a time when the world body has already been found guilty of exaggerating the AIDS problem to generate more funds for itself.
In order to provide the “new and additional” foreign aid, the report calls for exploring a range of “innovative financing options.” This is U.N.-speak for global taxes. Indeed, the report openly calls for carbon taxes and aviation taxes. It proposes a “Climate Change Mitigation Facility” to mobilize the $25 – $50 billion “needed annually” for developing countries.
Not surprisingly, the report hails Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” film but says nothing about the numerous errors in it. Yet, “For all the progress that has been achieved,” the report declares, “the battle for public hearts and minds is not yet won.” Put another way, it says that “…the current state of public opinion does not provide a secure foundation for urgent action.”
In other words, you are not yet worked up into enough of a panic.
You, Mr. and Mrs. America, helped pay for this. The Human Development Report is a product of the U.N. Development Program. The U.S. is the largest contributor to this U.N. agency, providing more than $100 million annually.
This U.N. report has one of the most devious rationales for censorship that you will ever see. In a section of the report (page 67) about “The Role of the Media,” the U.N. informs us that “The media have a critical role to play in informing and changing public opinion.” It goes on to lament that “one study” in the U.S. on coverage of climate change “found that the balance norm resulted in over half of articles in the country’s most prestigious newspapers between 1990 and 2002 giving equal weight to the findings of the IPCC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] and of the climate science community, and the views of the climate skeptics—many of them funded by vested interest groups. Continued confusion in public opinion is one consequence.”
The U.N. is saying, in effect, that the American people haven’t been indoctrinated enough, and that the media have to provide even more one-sided coverage.
“Editorial balance is a laudable and essential objective in any free press,” the report goes on to say. “But balance between what? If there is a strong and overwhelming ‘majority’ view among the world’s top scientists dealing with climate change, citizens have a right to expect to be informed about that view. Of course, they also have a right to be informed about minority views that do not reflect a scientific consensus. However, informed judgment is not helped when editorial selection treats the two views as equivalent.”
Notice how the contrary view is being marginalized as unscientific, uninformed and the product of the special interest groups. But nobody is supposed to question the wisdom of those on the U.N. side of the issue.
This reminded me of when Socialist Senator Bernie Sanders gave a speech at the leftist National Conference on Media Reform and faulted the media for covering two sides of the global warming debate “when there is no debate in the scientific community.” Ironically, in the same speech, Sanders claimed conservatives were 99 percent in control of talk radio and that it was time “to open the question of the fairness doctrine again” to restrict what they say and how they say it. Clearly, the purpose in a “Fairness Doctrine” is not to offer different points of view but to silence viewpoints liberals regard as unsound or unpopular.
The U.N.’s Human Development Report is an example of this mindset at the international level. It’s a scandal that we are being forced to pay for it.
In various tables in the report, countries are judged on how many of the “major international environmental treaties” and “major international human rights instruments” they have signed and ratified. Here, again, the U.S. comes up short. The U.S. has failed to ratify the U.N. Law of the Sea Treaty, as well as treaties on women’s rights, children’s rights, and others. The Sea Treaty could come up for a Senate vote at any time.
The goal was spelled out in the 1994 edition of the Human Development Report, which included an essay by Jan Tinbergen calling for a strengthening of the United Nations system. Ultimately, he said, “What is needed is a World Government.”
Our major media can be expected to follow the advice of the Human Development Report and further propagandize the American people on global warming and other issues. That effort will complement the campaign to bring back the “Fairness Doctrine” and silence conservative and dissenting voices in the media. Our new book, The Death of Talk Radio?, addresses this threat.
It is time to recognize that our freedom and sovereignty are under all-out attack. The least we can and should do is to stop subsidizing our enemies. That means defunding the United Nations and defeating the Law of the Sea Treaty.
Cliff Kincaid is the Editor of the AIM Report and can be reached at cliff.kincaid@aim.org