Yes, Global Warming Is Hoo-Hah

An email from a nail-bitten Global Warming True Believer challenged me to explain why I don’t believe in the inevitable terrors of Global Warming. This person wondered how, since I am not a scientist, I am not a sophisticate and I am – gasp – a rightwingnutjob, could I possibly speak credibly on the issue and why don’t I believe people like Al Gore and Bill Clinton – after all, they’ve never lied to me before, like that lying liar, Dubya.

Well, if you’re looking for degrees in Earth Science, then I can’t speak credibly on Global Warming. Then again, Al Gore has no degree in Earth Science, either, and he seems to have plenty of credibility on this issue for some, so many being a scientist is not necessary…maybe you just have to have a brain and the ability to breathe in and out.

Quite aside from the fact that I rarely if ever give credence to an “issue” once the press goes orthodox on it (I remember too many headlines growing up – The New Celibacy! The New Thriftiness! The Coming Ice Age! – to take mass-movements seriously) I have three reasons in particular why I do not buy into the warming hysteria.

1) As Fausta wrote only yesterday, there is no consensus on global warming. You can find scientists who say yea and nay. (I suspect, you can probably find more politicians than scientists saying yea.) As with opinion polls, you can find data to support any theory you want to – which is why 3o years ago, there was all that staggering, scary data about the coming Ice Age. I read parts of Bjorn Lomborg’s The Skeptical Environmentalist and found him persuasive, but what I found even more persuasive was the fact that he (a respected scientist) and former media-darling Michael Crichton (author of State of Fear, which dared to take on the enviro orthodoxy) were both dissed and dismissed by their former worshippers, because they took the politically incorrect stand. If a movement has no room for disagreement, it is generally a fragile movement built on a shaky foundation – one that will not allow the stomped foot of dissent. Such a movement is not credible. And yes, I feel the same way about some of the conservative “movements” with which I disagree. The truth is, out of 100 scientists, only 19 will tell you Global Warming is real, which is why Oprah needs to discuss it with Leonardo DiCaprio – that’s what you do when all you have is an idea you want to promote – you market it.

2) I possess recent memory and it serves me well. My recent memory can look back at a summer ten years ago wherein the horrific heat was finally broken with an 8 day deluge that had mothers everywhere beating their kids because they couldn’t take another day of indoors shenanigans.

That’s too recent, you say? We were already in the clutches of Global Warming ten years ago, but didn’t know it? Okay, 15 years ago, I recall Mount Pinatubo erupting and spewing so much ash into the atmosphere that much of the world enjoyed a wonderfully mild summer …which means that you can’t look at THAT particular year and say, “see, the earth is getting warmer…” because the cool temps of that summer were an anamoly caused by a natural earth science phenomenon…there are lots and lots of natural phenomena, btw – the earth is always cooling and heating, but I digress. I can remember back to the 1970’s when I lived in a different state, and my father received newspaperclips from a friend reporting on the sweltering summer heat of NYC, which was killing people. Thirty years ago not far enough back for you? Auntie Lily recalls people passing out and staggering around with heat stroke in August, 75 years ago. Of course, they wore more clothing, then, but it was hot out. Whenever you hear an affable TV weather guy say “the hottest day since 104 years ago when we reached (whatever) degrees,” you have to take a second to realize that – ummmm…104 years ago we had hot weather, then cool…then hot again.

3) My third and most emphatic reason for disbelieving all the Global Warming hoo-hah is a simple one that lots of true believers probably won’t understand. If the people promoting the hysteria on warming were serious – if the issue were a real one and not simply a political tool, then the hyper-concerned folks would be welcoming and heralding thoughtful environmental programs and helpful policies from any-and-all quarters, even – gasp – from the right. Even – gaspgasp – from George W. Bush. (You know, the guy who frees oppressed women and is cursed at by the feminists, the guy who keeps an eco-friendly ranch and is restoring the destroyed wetlands of Iraq and is hated by the enviros.)

You probably don’t know what I am talking about. You probably have no idea that President Bush has been working with China, India, Japan, South Korea and Australia on a creative – not Kyoto – environmental policy.

…the agreement comprises countries that account for 45% of the world’s population and about half the world’s economic output and greenhouse gas emissions, mainly carbon dioxide, implicated in raising surface temperatures. More Asian countries may soon join the pact.

Fourth and most important, it takes a pro-growth approach to combating the possibility of global warming in the century ahead. The new Beyond Kyoto agreement focuses on innovative technology as the antidote, not only to carbon-dioxide emissions but also to dirty air and economic deprivation. The very first statement in the pact is: “Development and poverty eradication are urgent and overriding goals internationally.”
[…]
The Beyond Kyoto pact, by contrast, seeks to “address energy, climate change and air pollution issues within a paradigm of economic development.” Specifically, the deal will concentrate on the technology that will help China and India, especially, to increase the efficiency of their energy use. Currently, these countries produce twice as many emissions as the US for each unit of GDP.

A major focus will be clean-coal technology. The US is the Saudi Arabia of coal, with the world’s largest supply, and China and Australia are also large producers and users. The deal also seeks more alternatives to fossil fuels with both low emissions and high efficiency – not just nuclear, wind, even biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Yes, I know – you don’t know about it and you don’t want to know about it, because you have way too much invested in other narratives. But the fact remains that if Al Gore or Bill Clinton or whoever else is ringing the sky-is-falling alarm bells were serious about Global Warming…if they really, actually believed that it was real, that it was, as Clinton says, “the most urgent issue of our time, more urgent than terrorism…” then rather than ignore this program, they’d have applauded this effort between co-operating nations.

Instead, the story got sniffed at with disdain, was pronounced some sort of political manuever and then strangled to death from a lack of oxygen. Certain quarters are very good at suffocating stories that don’t fit memes.

So, you know…if the big boys of Global Warming aren’t really taking the issue seriously…if they find it so unserious as to allow the issue to be used as a political wedge or a rabble-rousing sound-bite, and that’s all…well, then I don’t have to take it seriously, either.

The Global Warming Hysteria Movement, complete with Media overhype, is not real. The proof is in the politics of it. It is a means to an end. To what end, I’m not sure.

Flopping Aces has a really good example of what I’m talking about – note the media spin by the AP – it’s pretty outrageous.

Blue Crab Boulevard writes that the AP’s dishonest spin is so egregious, in fact, that even the US Senate has noticed and objected.

Siggy points to a report that reads “To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.”

That’s because as Fausta writes again today, in more detail, there is no consensus on Global Warming.

Gateway Pundit notes it, too. I’m wondering why we should believe a press that will blow off one president’s request not to give up national security secrets while all-too-obediently working to give credence to pretty much anything a former president says it should.

Superfun Power Hour is also disgusted by the AP’s absurd attempt to make 19% sound like 100.

Kobayashi Maru has a good post with thoughtful commentary by his readers.

Big Lizards get the final word, and deservedly so.

UPDATE: Siggy sends these links for some interesting reading:

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/cause.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/Greenhouse/

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Proxies_Glance.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Warming_Look.htm

http://www.junkscience.com/MSU_Temps/Climate_quick_pick.htm