Among the most shopworn and tired of aphorisms, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” quote is credited variously to Sant Bernard of Clairvaux around 1150, to Karl Marx among others, and a song by that title was penned by Chris Rea and released in 1989. A babe in the woods (and green zealots) might assume the le Accords ‘d Paris are well intentioned. To some they may be, to others, they are the pavers in the road leading to Hell.

Whatever the case, deconstructing various nations actions relating to these Accords reveals a circular, hellish list of incontrovertible truths and realities that doom these accords to the dustbin of history. They will join The League of Nations, Nixon’s wage-price controls and Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential run in ignominy.

The Accords were termed a “breakthrough” in 2015 when 194 entities concurred that:

— All nations substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit global temperature increases in this century to 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase further to 1.5 degrees.

— Countries commitments reviewed every five years.

— Provide financing to developing countries to mitigate climate change impact, strengthen resilience and enhance abilities to adapt to climate impacts.

The United Nations states that it is a legally binding international treaty entered into force on November 4, 2016. The European Union plus 194 nations have joined the Paris Agreement.

The paving begins…

The United States was in this “treaty” during the Obama years, out during the Trump years, in again with the Biden Administration and likely will be out again if/when a Republican enters the White House. The revolving door will keep spinning as the U.S. Senate, charged with ratifying all treaties, has not and will not ratify Paris. Its “entry into force” is a fantasy as there is nary an enforcement mechanism.

The UN goal of reducing emissions globally embraces widely differing mandates for individual nations. One group of nations can be categorized as theoretical participants; — see Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Cuba and a handful of marginal rogue states. Mandates to the rogues will be given lip service, perhaps even plaudits for their “cooperation and buy-in.” Developing/emerging nations (translation — impoverished nations) in line for remediation payments will lament their solvent brethren’s climate inattention and failures while lining up at the trough for handouts.

Case in point: John Kerry the globetrotting envoy in charge of U.S. domestic scolding and international begging, returned from China with the sordid results from his meetings — “It will take more work.” Mr. Kerry declares with a straight, albeit long, face. It’s shorthand for what anyone with a pulse already knew…China will not sacrifice economic development at home nor slacken their Belt and Road pressures abroad — period.

China and its axis of kindred malevolent states ain’t playing beanbag. The plan is for dominance pure and simple. Murder? Sure. Espionage? Certainly! War? if necessary. Repression? of course. Against this grim backdrop, green dreamers and Paris cheerleaders seem to believe good examples and climate summits will win the day.

When this discussion was conceived, the original intent wsa to detail the many policies of the Biden Administration that work at cross-purposes and result in stalemate. Instead, after reams of editorials, op-eds and think pieces, here are capsules of those misguided policies.

Rare Earth minerals

China and others have vast supplies of minerals needed for microchips and batteries –lithium and many others. Western Interests, especially the U.S. have restricted or imposed outright bans on mining these necessities (see the recent removal of lands near the Grand Canyon). Tribal interests, water rights and legal wrangling hamstring domestic development. China’s yes/no to exports of rare earth metals have cornered the U.S. forcing bad choices — mollifying China to get the minerals while attempting to exhibit strength on Taiwan and fentanyl pouring across our southern non-border. Such negotiations and agreements are shaded by an implicit deception or outright lies in any of our hat-in hand negotiations (actually pleadings) with Chairman Xi,

“Organic” Fuels

We choose to eliminate the term “fossil” fuels and replace it with an accurate label. Oil, natural gas, coal are products of decay of once abundant carbon-based living entities. While the term fossil fuel is widely attributed to John D. Rockefeller, it is first found in a 1759 translation of “The Chemical Works of Caspar Neumann.” China and its aligned partners buy and sell these products among themselves, disregarding international sanctions. Proceeds are used to fund Russia’s incursion into Ukraine and Iran’s thuggery both inside and outside its borders. As for the U.S. and its allies, drilling and development are discouraged, public lands are put off limits, pipelines cancelled and subsidies provided to unproven/speculative green ventures. The lone exception was the approval of the Willow oil project on Alaska’s North Slope, though it was scaled back before approval.

Public Safety Spurned in Pipeline Cancellation

Keystone Pipeline, nearly completed, was cancelled on day one of Biden’s presidency. The fallout from that decision is the subject of an earlier essay here. Train wrecks in North Dakota, Pennsylvania and Lac Megantic, Quebec and resulting loss of life, plus countless truck accidents and spills are the result of the safest transport — pipelines — being rejected.

The crude moves from Canada to the Gulf Coast, make no mistake. It’s by truck and rail, endangering thousands of U.S. citizens in the name of “the environment.”

Pipelines from North Dakota eastward, from Alberta crossing through Michigan to Windsor, Ont. and the Mountain Valley pipeline for West Virginia have all been stalled and threatened with cancellation at various times. The Appalachian’s Marcellus and Utica shales supply roughly a third of U.S. gas consumption. The vast majority of Northeast heating supplies come from imports of fuel oil due to the dearth of pipeline capacity.

National Electric Grid

An already wobbly grid is mandated to serve tens of thousands of electric-powered vehicles despite threats of rolling blackouts and brownouts due to uncooperative weather (it’s not climate change, it’s weather). To boot, the grid is vulnerable to attack from green zealots and foreign sabotage. Storage and transport of power generated by wind and solar are problematic as rights-of-way and transmission facilities are needed from these previously non-generating areas. The land mass occupied by “green” facilities and the damage to flora and fauna are merely inconveniences to be glossed over.

The Scorecard

Rare Earth mineral scarcity — China dependent

Constriction of domestic organic fuel production and supply

Unstable domestic electric grid

Breathtaking expenditures on unproven technologies

Giveaways to undeveloped nations

Increased physical danger and economic uncertainty for U.S. citizens

All this in the name of Paris Climate Accord compliance and fighting global warming

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The Oxymoron of “Settled Science”

Proclamations of settled science relating to climate change, organic fuels, and only 10 years left to save the planet are the stock in trade of alarmists. Science and its certifiable practitioners of all stripes quietly concur that settled science does not exist. There is “accepted science” which has been tested and peer reviewed. Subsequent breakthroughs and theories to contest that accepted science appear, are proven or disproven and scientific pursuits continue.

There is a sizable sector of the scientific community that is skeptical of measures to alter climate, some dispute man’s role in climate variations.

Dr. Steven Koonin, author, Unsettled, former undersecretary for Science, Department of Energy, The Obama Administration:

“It’s clear that media, politicians and often the assessment reports themselves blatantly misrepresent what the science says about climate and catastrophes. Those failures indict the scientists who write and too-casually review the reports, the reporters who uncritically repeat them, the editors who allow this to happen, the activists and their organizations who fan the fires of alarm, and the experts whose public silence endorses the deception. The constant repetition of these and many other climate fallacies turns them into accepted “truths.” Steven Koonin, 2021, “Unsettled” , Page 183.

Dr. G.M. Vasey, Ph.D, Geology, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK

“The woke mind virus affects people it infects by making them ‘believe’ as opposed to question, no matter how silly or preposterous the statement. Belief is not science. Belief is not settled science either. It is an opinion or a dogma and is based in religious concepts. The idea that there is a climate crisis is such a belief. There are a group of scientists who promote this hypothesis but there are many, many more who push alternative theories. Yes – it is JUST a theory. You know it is narrative and dogma when you see data selectively used to defend the hypothesis or other data being ignored altogether. An example of this was provided by woke new outlet Reuters very recently who pushed an article talking about heat-related deaths in a location in India while ignoring the facts that India is having the coldest summer on record. Selective presentation of facts is not science, it is propaganda and narrative. Dogma.”

Dr. Clifford Mass, Professor — Atmospheric Science, University of Washington

“The recent intense New York smoke event is a good illustration of the underlying origins of many extreme environmental and weather events. The atmosphere is a chaotic system, dominated by random natural variability. Such variability is like a game of cards — rarely, by the luck of the draw one is dealt a full house or a straight flush. Climate change’s effects on weather are relatively small compared to random variations inherent in a hugely complex system.” The Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2023

Bjorn Lomborg, President, Copenhagen Consensus, Visiting Fellow, Hoover Institution — Stanford University

“The global discussion about climate change has become quite hysterical. Some 60 percent of people living in the rich world think it is likely to bring an end to humanity. Climate change is a real and man-made phenomenon, and it will have negative impacts overall. That’s a fact and it is one we hear a lot. The ‘catastrophic narrative,’ however, is drowning out many other relevant facts about climate change — for example, that 98 percent fewer people are dying today from climate related disasters than did a century ago, and that net-zero policies are eye-wateringly costly.”

Such reasoned discourse has been subsumed by the prattling from the world’s Greta Thunbergs (“How Dare You (video, You Tube) September 23, 2019, headlines in daily fishwraps — “We can still avert climate disaster”, The Baltimore Sun Editorial Board, March 27, 2023, “World on ‘thin ice’ as UN climate report gives warning,” Associated Press, March 21, 2023, et al.

Paving the road to hell is a task involving millions — man hours, dollars and innocent victims of governments headlong rush to do something, anything. The Paris Accords are the vehicle to travel this road. The sooner this road is abandoned and the sooner the vehicle is disabled, the sooner Dante’s Inferno is just a book and not a looming life experience.