Democracy Is Too Important to be Left to the People

UPDATE: below

More climate-change fascism from David Shearman, Emeritus Professor of Medicine and Hon. Visiting Fellow, Department of Geography and Environmental Sciences, University of Adelaide, in a January 17th Op-Ed on OnlineOpinion:

Liberal democracy is sweet and addictive and indeed in the most extreme case, the USA, unbridled individual liberty overwhelms many of the collective needs of the citizens. The subject is almost sacrosanct and those who indulge in criticism are labeled as Marxists, socialists, fundamentalists and worse. These labels are used because alternatives to democracy cannot be perceived! Support for Western democracy is messianic as proselytised by a President leading a flawed democracy.

There must be open minds to look critically at liberal democracy. Reform must involve the adoption of structures to act quickly regardless of some perceived liberties. . .

We are going to have to look how authoritarian decisions based on consensus science can be implemented to contain greenhouse emissions.

Remember my critique of the chimera of science settling policy? Well, Dr. Shearman co-authored a book called "The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy"; the publisher's page includes this doozy: "the authors conclude that an authoritarian form of government is necessary, but this will be governance by experts and not by those who seek power." And responding to critics of his Op-Ed, Shearman explains:

I cannot counter the climate change deniers. Denial is a form of defence to major issues that we cannot cope with. Some of us react that way when we get cancer. Climate change scepticism like any form of questioning the evidence is helpful but the evidence must be presented with the source so we can all look at the facts from which the conclusions are drawn. . .

There are times what decisions have to be made with more urgency than this. We all surrender liberties everyday in the interests of our own heath and safety and that of the community. Let us have some suggestions as to how we proceed. We don’t have to support Mr Mugabe to be able to use some authoritarian decision making processes when necessary.

Dr. Sanity correctly observes:

For most of the 20th century these fascists have sought to escape responsibility for the consequences of their utopian fantasies. The world is littered with the corpses and awash in the tears of the people who they have "helped". Fantasy environmentalism is only the most recent strategies they have adopted as they attempt reassert their socialist ideology under the guise of "saving the planet", while they chain all of humanity. . .

You begin to see how much in common these neo-marxist, fascist 'elites' have with the imams of radical Islam. Both suffer from an unquenchable desire for power over others. Either submit to their authority, or else....

MORE:

MaxedOutMama in comments: "Frequently the experts are just wrong, but another factor is that societies and economies are complex balances that may well be too complex for experts to evaluate." Agreed.

M_O_M also cites two articles from Science magazine on the effects of diverting US cropland to subsidized biofuels; the abstract of one reads:

Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. Using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.

M_O_M asks: "Will this policy urged by the 'experts' be revoked? I would guess not." Again, agreed.

(via Conservative Grapevine, Jonah Goldberg via Prometheus)