THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VIII, Issue # 115, July 2, 2006
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
ARE YOU BORED WITH GLOBAL WARMING?
By Alan Caruba
POLITICAL ENVIRONMENTALISM & GLOBAL WARMING PROPAGANDA: THE FAULTY FOUNDATION OF GLOBAL
WARMING THEORY, WHICH ENVIRONMENTALISTS SEEK TO PROVE & PUBLICIZE, IN PURSUIT OF THEIR RADICAL POLITICAL
AGENDA -- THE FLAWED RESEARCH METHODS USED BY IDEOLOGICAL ECOLOGISTS & OTHER CHARLATANS IN THE SERVICE
OF RADICAL ACTIVIST POLITICS
FULL STORY:
Are you bored with hearing about global warming all the time? Me, too. The din of asinine predictions, warnings, and claims
that global warming is real, i.e., a rapid increase in the overall temperature of the Earth, always seems to occur just as Summer
arrives when — surprise — it gets warmer.
It must have been a slow news day on June 23, 2006, because my daily newspaper ran the following headline at the very top
of the front page: “Global Warming Is Real, Scientists Warn.” Since the 1980s, environmentalists have been telling us that
the next Ice Age — due any day now — has been cancelled and, instead, the Earth will suffer sizzling temperatures that will
make it uninhabitable.
Then, on June 25, 2006, Parade, the Sunday newspaper insert, arrived with a cover article, “How Climate Change
Affects You Right Now” and the photo of a man dabbing his sweaty brow with his tie. Everything, including poison ivy, was
attributed to the dreaded, but fictitious, global warming.
The latest occasion for the claim of current global warming was yet another report by yet another panel -- this time, a panel
convened by the National Academy of Sciences. The panel/s twelve "incredibly distinguished members" concluded that “the
planet warmed more rapidly over the past 25 years than at any other period in the past 400 years.” Pay no attention to the
fact that actual temperature records only go back 200 years.
Indeed, the panel members “were asked to summarize temperature records going back 2,000 years and were urged to pinpoint
any areas of uncertainty.” Let’s see, that leaves about 1,800 years of uncertainty based on what scientists call “proxy”
evidence. This is data teased out of ice cores, tree rings, and anything else scientists can think to measure.
Any discussion of the role of the Sun is always ignored by these reports, but I assure you that the Sun has a lot to do with
the temperature of the Earth.
What the "distinguished members" of the panel managed to ignore was a 350-year “Little Ice Age” from 1500 to 1850. After
that period, the Earth warmed up about one degree Fahrenheit until about 1950 and, since then, there has been no conclusive
evidence of any significant eminent or longterm warming. That is to say, there has been no unusual warming, because, in the
Summer, the Earth gets warmer. Ever since the last big Ice Age, with the usual fluctuations, the Earth’s temperature has been
warmer, and we should all be very thankful for that.
Conversely, in the Winter, it gets colder, and for some reason, we do not get distinguished panels issuing “scientific” reports
on any warming or predictions of an imminent Ice Age. The Earth is actually closer to the sun, though tilted away sufficiently
so its rays do not provide as much heat.
Indeed, global warming has become such a boring topic that ABC News, desperate to keep the hoax alive, has actually
asked viewers to email “interesting examples” of how their lives have been “directly affected by global warming?” This is what
passes for science in the newsrooms of America.
In May, 2006, a coalition of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group, the Sierra Club of New Jersey, and the New Jersey
Audubon Club warned of “a 2-to-4 foot rise in the level of the Atlantic Ocean, due to the melting of the polar ice caps … that
would put 1 percent to 3 percent of the Garden State under water and leave 6 percent to 9 percent vulnerable to chronic
flooding.” Moreover, “37 species of wildlife would be either greatly reduced in numbers or gone from the state.”
This kind of nonsense is repeated state by state and the claims are changed, depending on the local climate conditions. Out
West, the claims feature wildfires, which occur every single year. In the East and Southeast, where states are subject to
hurricanes, global warming gets attached to that annually reoccurring natural phenomenon.
Meanwhile, the polar ice caps are not melting. Indeed, these ice packs are growing.
Inevitably, we get to the true agenda of these kinds of environmental scare campaigns. For example, the New Jersey coalition
made it clear that our lifestyles have to be changed by “dramatically reducing energy consumption in homes, businesses and
schools; shifting to clean renewable sources of energy generation; making cars go further on a gallon of gasoline; ensuring
that people drive less and use mass transit more; and making the energy industry pay for every pound of global warming
pollution they emit, with that money invested in solutions.” You only need solutions when you have a real problem.
The latest distinguished panel report is largely contingent on a much disputed and discredited mathematical computer model
that was first published in 1998 by a climatologist, Michael Mann, of the University of Virginia. It provided “a hockey stick”
scenario in which the Earth dramatically heated up in the Twentieth Century, providing a curve on a diagram that resembled a
hockey stick.
If the “Little Ice Age” was a nuisance for Mann, you can imagine the bother of the subsequent “Medieval Warming Period.”
As Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science, points out, Mann was convinced and determined
to prove that “The Twentieth Century was going to be the warmest, regardless of the data.” Suffice it to say, Mann’s hockey
stick has drawn a lot of criticism, such as that of Canadian economist, Ross McKitrick, who, in 2003, published an article
stating that Mann had “used flawed methods that yield meaningless results.”
Global warming is the current version of the famed Piltdown Man, whose skull was found in England in 1909, proving to many
of the distinguished scientists back then that modern man began his journey in the British Isles and not somewhere like Africa.
The skull was a total fraud, but a lot of scientists of the time were convinced it was the real thing and the media had a field day
with the story.
All of which brings me back to the utter boredom induced whenever some government panel, some newspaper or television
program, or Al Gore’s new movie reminds us that “Global warming is real, scientists say.”
Note: For a hilarious list of all the things attributed to global warming, visit
www.numberwatch.co.uk/warmlist.htm.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Policy Issues Relating to Energy, Environment,
& Natural Resources
Alan Caruba is a veteran business and science writer, a Public Relations Counselor, and Founder of the National Anxiety Center, a
clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns. Caruba writes a weekly commentary, "Warning Signs," posted
on the Internet website of the National Anxiety Center, which is located at
www.anxietycenter.com.
© Alan Caruba 2006
Published with Permission of Alan Caruba
ACaruba@AOL.Com
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