Mischievous conservative writer Jonah Goldberg links to a British site that keeps a list of problems caused by Global Warming.

Acne, agricultural land increase, Afghan poppies destroyed, poppies more potent, Africa devastated,  Africa in conflict, African aid threatened, African summer frost, aggressive weeds, Air France crash, air pressure changes,  airport malaria, Agulhas current, Al Qaeda and Taliban Being Helped,  Alaska reshaped, moves,  allergy season longer, alligators in the Thames, Alps melting, Amazon a desert, American dream end,  amphibians breeding earlier (or not),  anaphylactic reactions to bee stings,  ancient forests dramatically changed, animals head for the hills, animals shrink, Antarctic grass flourishes, Antarctic ice grows, Antarctic ice shrinks, Antarctic sea life at risk,   anxiety treatment, algal blooms, archaeological sites threatened, Arctic bogs melt, Arctic in bloom, Arctic ice free, Arctic ice melt faster, Arctic lakes disappear, Arctic tundra to burn, Arctic warming (not), Atlantic less salty, Atlantic more salty,   atmospheric circulation modified, attack of the killer jellyfish, avalanches reduced, avalanches increased, 

And that’s just the “A’s”.

Actually, they missed one: Did you know Global Warming causes more Cats?

The emails from a British “Global warming” research center didn’t help. Yes, they were hacked, so  newspapers that leaped to publish the Pentagon Papers won’t touch them. But when every geek can download them,  you know that the story is out there, and someone will have to say something more than “Shame on you”.

In my leisure time, I am studying history: Mainly Bronze Age civilizations (an old interest of mine dating back to college).

What is interesting is that as man evolved, it was climate change that led to a lot of changes in humans. Hunter gatherers changed to farming (which is hard work) because of the climate change; early civilizations fell due to climate related problems or to migratory peoples seeking new land due to climate change.

Even in the new world, some Native cultures fell before the Europeans arrived, again due to climate variations.

So is climate changing? Yes. And the response should be: How can we cope with these changes as they occur.

The problem is that Climate Change is now a religion, with celebrations and sins. Dogma means simplifying things so that you don’t have to think of complicated things.

So a British paper insists that organic farming will cut green house gases, but be unaware that in Asia, traditional farming methods of rice produce a lot of methane. Asia is feeding themself, while Africa, thanks to the “Green” NGO’s, has managed to stay traditional and poor. Hopefully, as China buys up African farmland and starts introducing modern farming methods, that will improve, but that’s another story altogether. You see, the “back to nature” folks think that primitive life is wonderful, but rarely see that living in poverty means not romance but a life that is short, painful, and hard.

The real problem is pollution. The western world produces a lot, but also produces pollution. The answer is to get rich enough to afford less polluting methods.

I wrote recently about chemicals from plastic bottles. Ah, but if the alternative is glass, that breaks, and causes injuries, that costs more, and when reused might spread germs if not sterilized properly, what is the risk ratio?

Another problem is corruption. If mines pollute here, all they have to do is bribe the local politician. Yet closing the mines, which is the “green” proposal, might not work: If you don’t have sophisticated mining, you end up with locals doing it themselves to try to earn a living. There also has been a lot of miner deaths in Northern Luzon from illegal locals working on their own as miners. These miners use primitive methods, and  a lot of pollution and flooding result because these small illegal mines destroy the environment.

The answer is, of course, responsibility. You allow a contract with a company that can hire locals to work, but who is willing to protect the lives and habitat of the locals. This can be done, but not in a world where NGO’s fight jobs for poor people in fear of pollution, instead of guaranteeing that the poor get jobs and a clean environment.

I have no easy solution to pollution or global warming.

What worries me is that it is being pushed so that those in power can impoverish the world wide middle class.

Yes, people in Asia, who used to be starving, are now middle class, using cellphones and computers and getting fat.

I am old enough to remember the horrors of the Korean war. Yet nowadays, we have “visit Korea” ads on TV. Who would have thought that the “frozen chosun” would now evolve to a thriving country that is actually importing immigrants to work at their factories?

In contrast, North Korea, which is living the old fashioned life, will probably have a couple hundred thousand people starve to death this winter, but the South is thriving.

But I notice that the same propaganda being spread by the priests of global warming is similar to that spread fifty years ago by the priests of the population bomb.

Ironically, when I see the waste when I visit the US, I shudder: and the sophisticated high price “solutions” there seem absurd to those of us who live simply. Get rid of refrigerators (ah, but that means food going to waste). Eat locally (in the good old days, that meant scurvy. Nowadays, it only means impoverishing farmers in South America and Africa). Walk, don’t ride (so Grandmom has to lug her shopping home, in a cart, or wait for a bus to shop).

All of this is for show, because ordinary folks will simply do what comes easier: take the car to Walmart, buy cheaper clothing from China, and eat fast foods. That way, they can use their leisure time to watch sports on TV or putter around in their garden instead of spending their evenings walking to the corner grocery store, hanging the wash outside after a full shift at work, and cooking everything from scratch to feed the kids.

So it is obvious that Utopians will have to force them to toe the line, and the easiest way to do so is to make a lot of them poor.

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Nancy Reyes is a retired physician living in the rural Philippines. She blogs at Makaipa blog.