Blue Planet in Green Shackles

Vaclav Klaus has a new book and has challenged Al Gore to debate the science of global warming.

Washington - Czech President Vaclav Klaus said Tuesday he is ready to debate Al Gore about global warming, as he presented the English version of his latest book that argues environmentalism poses a threat to basic human freedoms. "I many times tried to talk to have a public exchange of views with him, and he's not too much willing to make such a conversation," Klaus said. "So I'm ready to do it."

[...]

Klaus, an economist, said he opposed the "climate alarmism" perpetuated by environmentalism trying to impose their ideals, comparing it to the decades of communist rule he experienced growing up in Soviet-dominated Czechoslovakia.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Goracle to enter the debate. He won't - because he would surely lose and he knows it.

It's been said that the global warming alarmists resemble a pseudo-religion with all the trappings: a struggle for salvation (of the planet), a doomsday scenario, a belief system based on faith (not science) and a high priest in the form of the Goracle Himself.

Klaus has made this analogy to communism before and he knows of what he speaks, having grown up under totalitarian rule. Communism failed both ideologically and as a form of government. Says Klaus:

"In the past, it was in the name of the Marxists or of the proletariat - this time, in the name of the planet,"

Despite the best efforts of the lefties, socialism hasn't succeeded in western democracies. But environmentalism has become the new rallying cry for those who would like to impose state control on every aspect of our lives.

Klaus' new book is Blue Planet in Green Shackles - What Is Endangered: Climate or Freedom? Here are some notes from his presentation in Washington:

To make my position and my message clear, I should probably revoke my personal experience. My today’s thinking is substantially influenced by the fact that I spent most of my life under the communist regime which ignored and brutally violated human freedom and wanted to command not only the people but also the nature. To command “wind and rain” is one of the famous slogans I remember since my childhood. This experience taught me that freedom and rational dealing with the environment are indivisible. It formed my relatively very sharp views on the fragility and vulnerability of free society and gave me a special sensitivity to all kinds of factors which may endanger it.

I do not, however, live in the past and do not see the future threats to free society coming from the old and old-fashioned communist ideology. The name of the new danger will undoubtedly be different, but its substance will be very similar. There will be the same attractive, to a great extent pathetic and at first sight quasi-noble idea that transcends the individual in the name of something above him, (of something greater than his poor self), supplemented by enormous self-confidence on the side of those who stand behind it. Like their predecessors, they will be certain that they have the right to sacrifice man and his freedom to make their idea reality. In the past it was in the name of the masses (or of the Proletariat), this time in the name of the Planet. Structurally, it is very similar.

That's worth reading.

I can't find a link where the book can be purchased yet. Let me know in the comments if you know it.

Update: here's a link to Klaus' book from Barnes & Noble.