CHR investigates ‘carbon majors’ by using more fossil fuels

The Philippines’ Commission on Human Rights (CHR) has accepted the petition by Greenpeace and other environmental groups in mid-2016 and it has launched the “National Public Inquiry on the Impact of Climate Change on the Human Rights of Filipino People and the Responsibility of the Carbon Majors Therefor, If Any.”
Most of the climate investigations were done in their Quezon City office but some were also done in the provinces and abroad.
On Aug. 30, 2018, I sent a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to the CHR, asking among others the following information:

• Amount of public resources spent and to be spent on each investigation and hearings abroad.

• Funding, how much: (1) Paris meeting in December 2015; (2) Sept. 24-28, 2018 in New York City; (3) Nov. 5-9, 2018, London School of Economics.

On Sept. 13, 2018, CHR Commissioner Roberto Eugenio “Totsie” Cadiz, Chairman of the National Inquiry on Climate Change (NICC), replied to my FOI request, saying that, regarding funding, “(1) Paris trip was partially funded by the Business and Human Rights Resource Center (BHRRC)…. costs to CHR Regular Fund for the various meetings amounted to P124,396.80. (2) NYC trip September 2018 will be funded by the European Union through its GoJust facility… The budget allocated by GoJust for this activity is P523,600.00. (3) London trip November 2018, CHR is still looking at potential donor agencies.”
Commissioner Totsie Cadiz is a friend. In 2017 I went to his office and over coffee and cookies, we talked about this thing and I verbally expressed my dismay why the CHR would investigate companies for their phony “crimes” of causing less rain and more rain, less flood and more flood, less storms and more storms, less cold and more cold. Totsie asked me to send a written position paper. In their letter last September, he reiterated the invitation for me to participate in CHR’s inquiry.
On Oct. 29, 2018, I sent Commissioner Cadiz a formal position paper, seven pages, and argued that “I think the Commission has demeaned the main purpose of its creation, that it focus on civil and political rights.”
I attached charts, numbers, news reports, photos and other facts showing that climate change is natural and cyclical. Nature-made, not man-made.

a. 4.5 billion years, warming-cooling cycle and CO2 levels.

b. 500 million years of unrelatedness between atmospheric CO2 and temperature.

c. 420,000 years, Vostok ice cores, temperature and CO2 level.

d. 2,000 years temperature reconstruction for N. Hemisphere.

The CHR has fallen into the trap set by Greenpeace and other environmental groups of using lots of scare-alarm-Frankenstein tactics about the “man-made” climate change. Among these tactics are the following:
A. “Last chance to save the planet” warnings.
From 1992 to 2018, there are almost yearly news reports on this. Below are five examples.

1. “FEATURE: Last chance to save the planet?,” New Scientist, May 30, 1992.

2. “A Global Warming Treaty’s Last Chance,” TIME, July 16, 2001.

3. “Climate talks ‘last chance’ to avoid catastrophe,” NZ Herald, Dec. 2, 2007.

4. “Climate change: Paris ‘last chance’ for action,” BBC, April 22, 2015.

5. “Global Warming and Climate Instability: One Last Chance to Save Ourselves,” Global Research, March 12, 2018.

B. Predicting climate apocalypse, all failures.

1. “Arctic summers ice-free ‘by 2013,’” BBC, Dec. 12, 2007.

2. “NASA Climate Scientist Says ‘We’re Toast,’” CBS News, June 24, 2008.

3. “Gore: Polar ice cap may disappear by summer 2014,” USA Today, Dec. 14, 2009.

C. Exaggerated warming predictions by computer models.

The UN IPCC climate models have produced on average about 2x more warming compared to actual rates in global surface temperature and deep ocean.
HYPOCRISY OF THE ANTI-FOSSIL FUELS LOBBY
People who lambast fossil fuels use lots of fossil fuels via frequent jet-setting and global travels. The double talk can be avoided if they use solar planes, or wind-powered giant kites, or witchcraft-powered brooms but they don’t. Three examples here.
1. Greenpeace. It has launched several polyster airships with big bold slogan, “Say No to Fossil Fuels” — when those airships use propane, a fossil fuel. In addition, Greenpeace people have frequent global travels to sustain campaigns in their 26 global offices covering all seven continents except Antarctica.
2. United Nations. The UN Conference of Parties (COP) annual and global meetings attract on average some 30,000 people: from national and local governments, multilaterals, media, NGOs. COP 1 in 1995 Germany, COP 2 in 1996 Switzerland, COP 3 in 1997 Kyoto Protocol Japan, 1998 Argentina, 1999 Germany, 2000 Netherlands, 2001 Morocco, 2002 India, 2003 Italy, 2004 Argentina, 2005 Canada, 2006 Kenya, 2007 Indonesia, 2008 Poland, 2009 Denmark, 2010 Mexico, 2011 South Africa, 2012 Qatar, 2013 Poland, 2014 Peru, 2015 France, 2016 Morocco, 2017 Germany, 2018 Poland.
On Nov. 30, 2015, New York Daily News report “Paris climate change conference creates its own massive carbon footprint”, it noted that “A whopping 300,000 tons of carbon dioxide will be churned out during the two-week climate change summit in Paris… an estimated 50,000 people, including media and world leaders, gather to discuss ways to wean the world off fossil fuels…”
3. CHR. As mentioned above, they have made the following jet-setting travels: (a) December 2015 in Paris, (b) Sept. 27-28, 2018 in NYC, (c) Nov. 7-9, 2018 in London. Then (d) 3^rd week of January 2019, The Hague, Netherlands.
The CHR is wasting its time, wasting taxpayers’ money by hearing such phony claims while exhibiting the double talk on high fossil fuel use and carbon emissions. There are thousands of cases of Filipino people whose civil and political rights have been violated by the past and current administrations, tens of thousands of human lives unjustly ended by the continuing dirty “drugs war.” CHR personnel and other resources should focus there.
 
Bienvenido S. Oplas, Jr. is the president of Minimal Government Thinkers.
minimalgovernment@gmail.com