Talk to a liberal about global warming and he will tell you that man is responsible for the current change in climate and that if we don’t stop it now, doomsday is just around the corner. If you suggest that he may be mistaken, he will tell you that the issue is too serious to wait for clarification because if we fail to act we will have murdered the planet. These have been the primary arguments for over a decade and we are still here.
That global warming has become the hot “green” issue is not surprising. What is surprising is that so many governmental leaders have misplaced their critical thinking on this topic in favor of fervor and nifty buzzwords such as “carbon footprint.” With this new surge in interest comes Doctor Evil, pardon me, Al Gore spouting the current liberal dogma and releasing a movie that is more science fiction than science fact. The movie, An Inconvenient Truth, has led people to panic and thereby fall neatly into line with liberal politicians. Further, the media is gearing up for a massive campaign against the citizenry in order to convince them of impending doom. For example, the recent Vanity Fair magazine cover stating that global warming is a greater threat to our national security than terrorism was clearly designed to frighten the public. According to the cover, the magazine apparently expects numerous cities to be under water as a result of melting polar ice.
The problem with this statement is that it is simply not true. While ice at the North Pole has been receding, ice packs are thickening in the Antarctic, a fact never mentioned in An Inconvenient Truth. It is also interesting to note that while Mr. Gore drones on about the casualties from the heat, he never speaks about the potential lives saved from freezing to death in a harsh winter which vastly outnumber the deaths attributed to heat fatalities. Such an occurrence would be a boon if the current warming trend continues.
Adding fuel to the fire, the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conference, released a report that said the scientific community is ninety percent sure that mankind is at fault due to his use of fossil fuels. What damning scientific evidence was presented to establish this claim? None, it was a consensus opinion. Let us examine that last sentence with a critical mind, shall we?
The word consensus is defined as a majority of opinion or general agreement or concord. The word opinion is defined as a belief or judgment that rests on grounds insufficient to produce complete certainty or a personal view, attitude, or appraisal. While a fact is defined as something that actually exists; reality; truth, in other words there is no room for an opinion (all definitions from Dictionary.Com). So what does all of that mean? That the IPCC is hedging its bets and covering their hind ends.
The ninety percent certainty is also a strong number until it is examined in context. Suppose that you are going to take a trip to Hawaii. Would you consider trusting your safety to Global Warming Airlines if nine out of ten planes made it to their destination, but the tenth crashed killing all on board? Essentially, that is a ninety percent safety record. You see, you never know if you are on that tenth flight, but Dr. Evil, excuse me, Al Gore wants you to chance it to save the Earth from a hellish existence.
While I have heard the mountain of arguments for man’s use of fossil fuels being the root cause of the “crisis”, I am also aware that there were previous climate warming events in the past. During the medieval period the world experienced a similar warming trend. Additionally, 480,000 years ago we also had a warming period similar to the one we are currently experiencing. During both periods no fossil fuels were used and science has yet to fully explain how they occurred. The truth is that all of the arguments concerning the responsibility of man for the current climate change are pure sophistry.
The charge that the current scientific arguments are sophistry is a serious one, but it is not unfounded. The left has lied to the public before concerning environmental issues in order to build prestige and to gain governmental influence. The case against DDT is one of the most reprehensible, in that millions of Africans have died because Rachel Carson maligned DDT and the ecology nut jobs were hungry for a cause. Although they initially lost their case to ban DDT, the fear they generated in the general public was enough to obtain the ban on appeal. They are currently repeating this process with global warming in an effort to build critical mass in order to win the day again.
If the fact that liberals will lie to get their way were not enough, the cost of interfering with global climate change is staggering and who is going to get stuck with the bill? You. If the liberals get their way you will have to fund the trillions of extra dollars in order to reverse something that is not your fault. But wait! There’s more! We have no idea what tampering with the global climate system will mean for future generations. If we accidentally screw up the climate we could create a situation ten times worse than the one we have now. Funny that Al Gore never mentions that in his movie either.
As if the situation were not bad enough, the darkest chapter of the global warming crises is currently being written. While the left kicked and screamed against McCarthyism, they are now lining up on the meteorologists, climatologists, and other professionals who have spoken out in order to revive it for their own use. Talk has ranged from stripping these scientists of their credentials, terminating their employment, and jailing them under global warming denier laws similar to the Holocaust denier laws in Europe. While I suspect that they will not achieve their aims on all fronts, the fact that they wish to do these things to silence their opposition is indicative of the character of the left.
Regardless, if we are to avoid a similar fate with global warming as we had with DDT, we must combat the message of the left with the truth. Man’s responsibility for global warming is nothing more than smoke and mirrors in the fevered mind of the left.
Posts
