Global warming fools

Normally I’d rather not discuss religion publicly, since it leads to hot heads not given to reason and logic. But today I’ll break that rule to weigh in on global warming, with no more than sober reflection as my credentials.

For me there is a symbolic chief fool at either end of this argument, bookends. On the left, my chief fool is that renowned scientist Al Gore, a choice that nearly makes itself. On the right my chief fool is Rush Limbaugh, whose radio program I listen to occasionally despite spotty disagreements.

Rush’s fool status begs explanation. Some years ago when the global warming alarmists were just getting their footing, long before they changed the moniker to “climate change” just in case warming switched to cooling, Rush recorded a phone conversation with Charleton Heston, one of my favorite conservatives.

Mr. Heston demonstrated his, and Rush’s, stand on global warming by reading this excerpt from the prologue of Michael Crichton’s book, “Jurassic Park,” adding the weight of his dramatic voice to the words:

“You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half billion years old. There’s been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away — all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval.

“Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years.

“Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a 100,000 years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again.

It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. ...”

Actually, I think Crichton’s prologue is nicely and credibly stated. But Rush has often replayed this to prove his point that man is too insignificant to cause lasting harm to the planet, which is foolish for three reasons.

First, the excerpt is from a work of fiction, however credibly written; second, the excerpt recognizes the human race may very well obliterate itself; and, third, anyone who has taken a close look at heavily polluted rivers, gazed at clear-cut forests in the American northwest, never mind the Amazon, been disgusted by the blight of strip-mining, tried to breathe the stank air in Beijing or Shanghai or any other industrialized Chinese city, or has given any thought to the insanity of our excessive waste piled in buried landfills or towed in garbage scows for dumping in our oceans, surely must know in their heart that we are not good stewards of our planet.

So Rush earns the fool label right along with Al, who made an alarmist global warming movie based on a series of exaggerations to prove his pre-determined point.

But what if Al were right when he raises the alarm that melting polar caps might cause the oceans to rise enough to slowly eat the coastline of Florida, for example? After all, there have been a number of periods of radical change in global temperatures and the advance and retreat of great ice sheets over the millennia.

The most recent ice age is believed to have ended about 11,000 years ago. More recently, less severe climate changes have been the “Medieval Warming Period” from about 900 to 1300 AD and the “Little Ice Age” that made human life more difficult in some regions from about the 16th to 19th century, during which one could walk on New York’s frozen harbor all the way from Manhattan to Staten Island.

Speaking of ice ages and the retreat of ice sheets, one of the results in North America is the Great Lakes, the largest fresh water deposit on the planet, left by retreating glaciers. According to geologists the Great Lakes are a transitory feature, destined to change and likely to disappear as the earth builds and wears away mountains, as rivers find new courses, as even continents collide and take new shape.

How is it, then, that Al Gore knows the current state of Florida’s coastal levels are just right, representing earth’s best balance? With all the forces that have been swinging earth’s temperature to and fro for eons, how is it that Al knows this time a warming trend is caused by human carbon emissions?

I smelled a rat a long time ago. Governments and our news media tell us there is consensus among scientists on global warming, and this crisis compels said governments to confiscate billions or trillions from our industries to slow down carbon emissions.

Meanwhile, our ability to affect global temperatures are estimated in the range of one tenth of one degree. What the hell are we doing? How much comfort should we take from consensus?

There was consensus in the days of Columbus that the earth was flat. The geocentric science was firmly settled in 1610 when Galileo went public with his heliocentric view that the earth revolved around the sun. Galileo was reported to the Roman Inquisition, which could have brutally killed him for his views as they did so many others, but chose instead only to denounce his views, which by the way were correct.

Current inquisitions over the religion of global warming are more gentle. The only price people like me pay is to be ridiculed, to be called a “denier,” a term that seems contrived to motivate pliable people on the fence, moving the herd in the desired direction.

For scientists who don’t toe the party line, the price nowadays is only damaged reputations and careers, since burning at the stake is no longer allowed for those who do not believe.

But most scientists do believe, it seems — nearly all, if you listen to journalists, who seem remarkably in lockstep and reluctant to apply the objectivity or curiosity or skepticism of their forebears.

Of course a lot of scientists depend on government paychecks or grants or contracts or other means of support, like universities that should but do not value independent thought.

I wonder if those scientists smelled the unmistakable aroma of expectation from their benefactors that surely they must have concluded the earth is warming and that it is caused by mankind this time, and that the solution requires a massive transfer of wealth from those who have it to those who do not. Maybe that’s how consensus is made.

Last week global warming consensus had a setback with the revelation of emails among scientists leading the charge, revealing that they fudged the numbers to conceal the absence of warming over the last decade, have been “adjusting” the data all along, destroyed the original source data and took underhanded action to punish scientists who disagreed with their consensus.

Maybe you didn’t hear this news since ABC, NBC and CBS spent lots of TV time on Tiger Woods’ personal problems but could find no time to report this serious bump in the global warming stampede.

How inconvenient for Al Gore. But the scientists and the politician-believers and their minions are not deterred, continuing forward with the plan to put governments in charge of squeezing money out of businesses so that wealthy countries like the U.S. can transfer mountains of money to less wealthy countries, to help them combat evil carbon emissions.

I wonder how much the facts really matter. I wonder if the wealth transfer is the real goal.

But of course, unlike Al Gore, I’m not a real scientist, and unlike Rush Limbaugh, despite the hype, I see some virtue in heightened popular concern about Mother Earth, perhaps nudging humanity toward a more earth-friendly industrial outlook.

A heightened ecological conscience in our industrial planning wouldn’t be a bad thing, even though the current version seems to be a form of hysteria. Governments bullying our industries, however, and pulling off even more wealth transfer, would be a disaster, however cleverly disguised in legislation called “Cap and Trade.”

I don’t know if the earth is warming or not. But I do know Al Gore and Rush Limbaugh are global warming fools. The biggest fools of all, though, are you and me, if we let this consensus claptrap succeed.

[Terry Garlock (tgarlock@mindspring.com) lives in Peachtree City.]

Two questions..

Submitted by S. Lindsey on Wed, 12/09/2009 - 2:02pm.

I have always wanted a AGW alarmist to answer and they never do is:

Has "Global Warming" EVER happened before and did Man cause it?

and

Who says the Earth is at a perfect temp now? Wouldn't warmer temps and higher CO2 levels extend the growing seasons and make world Hunger less prevalent?

The Alarmist always acts as if "Global Warming" just started to occur with the Industrialization of Mankind. Somehow the 4% of total CO2 man is supposed to contribute somehow tips the balance of the Environment and we are all doomed unless we revert back to the 1800s.

The 2nd question is never considered. It does not fit the political agenda. GW is bad.. Man caused it, specifically Americans, so pay up..

They would destroy our Economy for what? Russia, China and India.. 3 of the worst polluters of REAL pollution have already said they WILL NOT BE BOUND BY ANY AGREEMENT THAT HURTS THEIR ECONOMY.. But we will.. We will destroy ourselves so Obama can remake America into a Socialized 3rd world entity.

Universal Health Care

Cap and Trade

Are all just tools being used to bring down America so they can "FUNDERMENTALLY TRANSFORM AMERICA" into their vision of the New World.

"A little matter will move a party

but it must be something great that moves a nation.

~Thomas Paine"

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