The Common Enemy

Remember last year when Paul Krugman argued that it would be good to fake an alien threat to Earth to get everyone to work together and agree to high taxes?  This is hardly a new idea.  From Ernst Hass, "Common Opponent Sought... And Found?", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1968:

If the world were threatened with a military attack by men from Mars or other such creatures, I am certain that the quarreling nations of all five continents would very soon have at their disposal a common staff of generals, perhaps even a "world government," which would be responsive for all global problems.  Obviously nothing, but nothing at all, could foster an improvement in the relationship of the big powers as much as an aggressive, common opponent.

The rest of the article is a long discussion of the dangers of what was then the belief in many climatologists that a new ice age was coming:

Thus, the next ice age actually seems to be an ideal enemy for mankind.  Today's world powers, without exception, would be severely threatened by the outbreak of a new glacier period.  It might be possible to prevent the formation of the next ice age by the cooperation among huge intellectual and material strengths....

Pretty clearly, the same motivation is driving the warmists: world government, overcoming petty concerns.