Does that include raising the white flag in such an elegant fashion?
Posted on 01/19/2007 8:02:12 AM PST by Jean S
We fully expect people to get pretty hot under the collar about hot-button social issues like abortion, gay marriage and affirmative action.
It’s not even surprising when people on one side of the debate try to shut up people on the other side. The gay lobby is particularly likely to do this, as cases in Canada, in the U.K., in U.S. schools of Social Work, and indeed from the Gay/Straight Alliance right here at Marquette.
But what about an issue like supposed “global warming?” That’s an arcane scientific issue, right? People should be tolerant of differing views, right?
Apparently not.
Case One: Punish Meteorologists Who Question Global Warming
From The Independent:
A leading climatologist on the Weather Channel in the United States has caused a squall in the industry by arguing that any weather forecaster who dares publicly to question the notion that global warming is a manmade phenomenon should be stripped of their professional certification.The problem is that whether hurricanes rotate clockwise (in the northern hemisphere) is not a controversial political issue, while global warming is.
The call was made by Heidi Cullen, host of a weekly global warming programme on the cable network called The Climate Code, and coincides with a stretch of severely off-kilter weather across the US this winter and moves by Democrats to draft strict new legislation to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Specifically, Ms Cullen is suggesting that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revokes the “seal of approval” that it normally extends to broadcast forecasters in the US in cases where they have expressed scepticism about man’s role in pushing up planetary temperatures.
“It’s like allowing a meteorologist to go on-air and say that hurricanes rotate clockwise and tsunamis are caused by the weather," she wrote in her internet blog. “It’s not a political statement . . . it’s just an incorrect statement.”
Ms Cullen is not alone in trying to marginalise doubters, who mostly argue that recent rises in temperatures are caused by normal cyclical weather patterns. They were described as “global warming deniers” by former vice-president Al Gore in his recent film An Inconvenient Truth.
In light of the adverse impacts still resulting from your corporations activities, we must request that ExxonMobil end any further financial assistance or other support to groups or individuals whose public advocacy has contributed to the small, but unfortunately effective, climate change denial myth. Further, we believe ExxonMobil should take additional steps to improve the public debate, and consequently the reputation of the United States. We would recommend that ExxonMobil publicly acknowledge both the reality of climate change and the role of humans in causing or exacerbating it. Second, ExxonMobil should repudiate its climate change denial campaign and make public its funding history. Finally, we believe that there would be a benefit to the United States if one of the world’s largest carbon emitters headquartered here devoted at least some of the money it has invested in climate change denial pseudo-science to global remediation efforts. We believe this would be especially important in the developing world, where the disastrous effects of global climate change are likely to have their most immediate and calamitous impacts.Coming from members of Congress, such a demand has to be considered a threat of adverse political action.
The Senators aren’t dumb enough to risk an ethics inquiry by threatening specific consequences if Mr. Tillerson declines this offer he can’t refuse. But in case the CEO doesn’t understand his company’s jeopardy, they add that “ExxonMobil and its partners in denial have manufactured controversy, sown doubt, and impeded progress with strategies all-too reminiscent of those used by the tobacco industry for so many years.” [Our emphasis.]The Journal goes on to observe:
Every dogma has its day, and we’ve lived long enough to see more than one “consensus” blown apart within a few years of “everyone knowing” it was true. In recent decades environmentalists have been wrong about almost every other apocalyptic claim they’ve made: global famine, overpopulation, natural resource exhaustion, the evils of pesticides, global cooling, and so on. Perhaps it’s useful to have a few folks outside the “consensus” asking questions before we commit several trillion dollars to any problem.Case Three: Put Global Warming Skeptics on Trial
Then there is “Grist,” an environmental webzine whose staff writer David Roberts recently proposed that global warming skeptics be put on trial like Nazi war criminals.In any moralistic crusade, a diversity of opinions is not welcome. What matters is orthodoxy, and the urge to silence heretics is intense.
“When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming . . . we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg,” Roberts wrote. Negative publicity led him to recant, but he is far from the only one invoking the Holocaust as a way to silence global warming heretics.
Environmental writer Mark Lynas, for example, puts dissent on climate change “in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial -- except that this time the Holocaust is yet to come, and we still have time to avoid it. Those who try to ensure we don’t will one day have to answer for their crimes.” This totalitarian view is taking root everywhere, making skepticism on climate change taboo and subjecting anyone reckless enough to question the global-warming dogma to mockery and demonization. Former vice president Al Gore lumps “global warming deniers,” some of whom are eminent scientists, with the “15 percent of the population (who) believe the moon landing was actually staged in a movie lot in Arizona” and those who “still believe the earth is flat.”
Global warming will work itself out. If it is going to happen the way its supporters profess it will happen, but if it is wrong, then we will know in twenty years. I remember in the 1970's, it was global cooling and the oceans will dry up and everybody will die by 2010 if environmental laws are not passed to control air pollution. Nothing has happen. Same will happen to global warming. If conservatives are smart, keep you mouth shut, record the dire predictions on video and play it back when global warming does not pan out. People in general are ignorant (except for sports and entertainment), but they are not totally stupid. I say grounds for lawsuits if detractors were beaten up or physically hurt by global warmists. These video tapes will work wonders at a trial. Any smart conservative law students out there who may want to sow the seeds for future wealth?????
It is a testiment to the political and covetous agenda pushing "global warming" as opposed to anything to do with the environment.
If environmentalists were serious about reducing CO2, they'd support a massive nuke power plant construction plan.
They wouldn't have kids, either.
"If environmentalists were serious about reducing CO2, they'd support a massive nuke power plant construction plan."
True. And as much as I hate to say it.... if France can do it... certainly we can.
Exactly. They've really got us between a rock and a hard place. They've linked people and activities they don't like to changes in the weather, and they're getting the general populace to buy it. It's really a modern-day witch/jew hunt, and they're starting to identify those that need to be "cleansed". I suspect it'll start with fire bombings and progress from there. You know the drill.
The good news is: The sky is not falling and the earth isn't melting.
The bad news is: A majority of Americans believe it is.
From headlines around the world, there seems to be but one consensus. The ice caps are melting, the earth is warming and it's all Bush's, er our fault. It's settled science and you're an ignorant, un-progressive conservative if you think otherwise.
Everything from Katrina to pimples is now blamed on global warming. If everyone believes it, it must be so. Using this logic, since over 90% of Americans believe in God, this must mean God exists.
Quick...tell me the first thing that pops into your mind when you read this recent headline:
"Japan Hit By 16" Tidal Surge"
Wow. On first glance, this is NEWS. My mind automatically linked it to other sensational stories dealing with supposed 'global warming.'
Hold on... 16 Inches? Being a former surfer, I easily imagined a 16" surge..wave, whatever. It's comparable to the effect of burping in the bath tub. Even taking into consideration that men and women measure by different rulers. This is news???
The point being, anything, everything, having to do with climate is now linked to global warming. One forms an immediate assumption that a 16" tidal surge is somehow a unique and dangerous phenomenon. A daily, weekly, monthly, yearly drip, drip, drip of misleading links between ordinary events and calamitous climate change is bound to affect all but the brain dead. Oops, I take that back. It also affects many brain dead people I know.
It's not as if one needs a doctorate in science to question this supposed 'crisis.' There is ample evidence that a giant hoax is being perpetrated. I'll get to the 'why' later. The larger question is: If 'global warming' is indeed a hoax, why do so many Americans believe it is a looming, dangerous crisis? Why are Americans willing to go along with an estimated $7,000 tax bite per family to fight this 'crisis'? (You're starting to get warm.)
To answer that question, lets go back to 1994. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a formal (app. 25 pound) report. This UN committee is the self-anointed leading arbiter in matters of 'climate change.' (Despite its' vested interest...) In any case, at the very bottom of this report, tucked away on the last page, was this paragraph: "There is no scientific data conclusively proving man is responsible for this warming."
A summary of the report was then generated for the media. After all, one can't expect journalists to slug through hundreds of pages of dry....whatever. In what I'm sure was an oversight, the crucial paragraph was not included in the media synopsis. What WAS included were 'probable' scenarios wherein man is now the culprit when the weather changes. Scuse me, white American men are the culprits. The 16 billion people who lack access to electricity and burn our precious forests for food and heat are magically given a pass.
Pretty soon, the media has a vested interest in global warming. Who wants to print a retraction of this magnitude? Besides, a good crisis is red meat for the media. Real or imagined.
This mentality started justifying the non-reporting of dissenting views. Prime example: Who among you is aware of a petition signed by 15,000 scientists refuting the IPCC report? For that matter, how many of you have heard any dissenting views on this issue that weren't roundly ridiculed by the so-called experts? I rest my case.
Keep in mind, all the predictions you hear are based on the worst case scenario. A scenario that is defined by punching a set of variables into a computer and seeing what comes out. GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) Just last month, the U.N. said "Ooops. We were off in our predictions by 50%. Sorry."
This is the 'science' on which we are being asked to radically alter our way of life. From ditching our SUV's to coughing up hefty tax increases to imposing onerous costly regulations on businesses. All under the guise of environmental stewardship.
Let's jump to the 'Why' of this issue. What's in it for who? As in 'who benefits?' if we all believe global warming is indeed a crisis. Well, when a 'crisis' is announced, just like a state of emergency, all sorts of extra money becomes available. Gobs and gobs of it.
If the crisis can be sustained, why, then we need to study it. It doesn't take a genius to realize that the flow of money is dependent on the perceived problem getting worse. Heck, Jesse Jackson figured that out years ago.
A whole industry has now been spawned that is totally dependent on creating and sustaining this wholly natural phenomenon. Grants flow to those who conform. Those who question the prevailing mantra are cut off. 'Follow the money' has never been so apt.
Millions of dollars are being made in the trading of 'carbon emissions' . The politically connected traders have got the best of both worlds. They can make a huge profit on air while at the same time, patting themselves on the back and gaining moral brownie points for being 'environmentally conscious'. Some deal.
It would be a mistake, however, to believe this whole non-crisis is fueled by money and greed. Nope. Money is merely the carrot used to keep the donkey trudging along. The carrot is being offered by the ideologues. The secular progressives who are using global warming as a way to further their agenda. Consider:
In a classic case of the cure being worse than the disease, the proposed solutions for this non-problem eerily echo the stated goals of socialists and Marxists i.e.; population control, redistribution of wealth and more government control. Coincidence? Maybe, unless one remembers way back to 1970. Then, the crisis du jour was Global Cooling. Oddly enough, the proposed solutions for both cooling and warming are the same.
Whitaker Chambers once said: "The most important choice a man will ever make is when he chooses God or man." The secular progressives, having been quite successful at banning God from the public square, can now count on an army of 'relative, post modernists' (translation: liberals) to further their 'global warming' cause with something akin to religious fervor. Belief in 'Mother Earth' has replaced belief in God.
Human nature being what it is, it's only natural for man to yearn to believe in something higher than himself. It's one of our most powerful urges and also the one most open to manipulation.
Hence the ease of recruiting millions of Americans into fighting this bogus environmental jihad.
The global warming issue does not lend itself to easily digested sound bytes. The science is complicated and the outcomes are a matter of interpretation. In this era of spin over substance, many well meaning Americans are persuaded by whoever packages the issue in the most understandable form. Even if it is misleading and untrue. Like Al Gore. Heck, Scotland just made his film mandatory. Such is the desire to validate and perpetuate this supposed 'crisis'.
The earth is indeed warming. Last century, temperatures increased an average of one degree. (This warming all happened before 1940, by the way.) There has been absolutely no evidence to suggest this warming is anything other than the normal climate fluctuations we've had for thousands of years. And there, for sure, is no science proving man is responsible.
The more perplexing issue is why so many Americans will now fire off a heated rebuttal to this article instead of going to Snopes.com and checking the veracity of Gore's film. At worst, this proves they are what Stalin termed 'useful idiots'. At best, it proves they are intellectually lazy. Either way, they will continue to fight to the death for an agenda they have been spoon fed, which they never question. Sound familiar?
This would be a lot funnier, if they weren't serious.
I would love to believe that. I always tell my students about the dire predictions of the end of civilization or the end of the world that I've heard in my 50 years here on Earth. However...
We've been recording the misdeed, missteps, and absolute screw-ups of communism for almost 100 years now, and still there are people out there who believe. Right now there's a guy in Venezuela who's about to repeat the process for the creation of the new socialist man, and most of the media here in the United States is treating him as either a buffoon or a hero. Simply recording the statements of fools from the past hasn't helped there.
We have plenty of recordings that demonstrate the truth about lowering tax rates bringing in more tax revenue to the government. Yet just the other day I was listening to NPR inform me that we needed a tax hike to make up for the "loss of revenue" from the Bush tax cuts.
There are other examples, too. Simply being quiet and recording the inane comments of others isn't sufficient. We need to be audacious in the expression of our beliefs. We need to be constantly promoting and expounding what we think. Yes, we should use those recordings as a counterpoint to our own position. When they push, we should push back. When they are extreme in their rhetoric, we need to be extreme with humor, good cheer, optimism, and a never-flagging enthusiasm. We need to appropriate the tools of the left for our own benefit - street theater, the protest, the sound bite, film propoganda, comedy.
All that's required for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. Staying quiet and just recording the event won't do the job that needs to be done.
Unfortunately the US is hanging like a loose tooth in the wind. Most of her population can argue with great knowledge about sports and yet cannot figure out what is happening in the world. The left control the colleges who graduate the junior leaders of America. These guys become teachers, entry level business leaders and politicians. Locally we are reaching critical mass. Example, in my state NJ, a great article was recently written about why our taxes keep souring. The author hit it on the head. Enough people in NJ are teachers or working for local, county and state government, that 1 in seven are government workers. They got organized into unions that vote for politicians that will give them what they want. The unions and the inner city minorities form an unstoppable alliance in an election. Worst many NJ suburban types who are the first to complain about the high taxes fall for every educational program and for the children program the NJNEA and Dems advocate. Dems will always win by 8 to 10 percentage point against a strong GOP candidate. Question always remains in my mind is how long can this fiscal bleeding last???? Is this mentality going to spread to other states as liberal northeasterners migrate to escape high taxes only to create another haven of high taxes, public union-political destructive coalitions, and ultimately drag the entire US down the tubes????
Her degree in "near eastern studies" hardly qualifies her either as "leading" or climatologist...
No we won't.
Only the very bottom of the gene pool views reality and history as personal experience, circumscribed by one's own lifespan.
The science of Climate change encompasses tens and hundreds of thousands of years.
Any attempt to draw conclusions from 20 or 200 years' experience relegated those proponents as ignorant self-important jackasses.
Period.
I might be more inclined to give credence to global warming if it wasn’t for the Kyoto accords. Seems that the U.S. was the only country to be singled out for sanctions and regulations, heavier polluters like China and India got off scott free. Kyoto wasn’t about solving global warming at all, it was about “leveling the playing field” economically for participating nations, and punishing the bad ol’ U S of A, even though roughly 25% of our oil consumption goes to producing and shipping the food for those who bite the hand that keeps their asses alive for another day….global politics as usual.
As for this weather ditz calling for a Krystallnacht against people with a contrary opinion, does she do her forecasts with a fake hitler moustache? typical of the tolerant left
For the benefit of those who are not aware how the global warming and the Kyoto Protocols were created (out of nothing), here is a little very very simple and basic political information:
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It is totalitarianism, but Lysenkoism rather than Fascism.
They wouldn't have kids, either.
They wouldn't exhale, either.
All real and honest scientists recognize that the mechanism of "global warming" is real. The only difference is in the honest part. According to the mechanism and a predicted change in CO2 concentration from today's 330ppmv to 550ppmv in 2060, the Earth's surface temp would rise 1oC, or about 1.8oF. The Earth's average temp is 18oC now. So, it's a small effect even by 2060.
As far as the weather and meteorologists goes. It's only the increase in energy that's important and that's only about 0.34% by 2060. That's a tiny effect. That is the increase in energy available to fuel any and all weather events. The energy will go to all events equally, not some here and there to cause devastating consequences. Any particular event will have an average energy of 0.34% more available to it, then it has today. That's insignificant. IOWs the warming mech has an insignificant role to play in the weather.
The warmists are simply leftists playing a con with these weather stories to susceptible ignorant folks that are likely to buy into the propaganda. What the warmists are after is control over the energy supply. The only way to effectively freeze the temp increase to somewhere around where it is now is to use nukes and the warmists aren't warming up to that real solution, so it's rather obvious they have more onerous plans in the works. That includes no plan at all, just the destroying the free world, setting up hell on Earth, while rocking back and forth, waiving their hands and singing Kumbaya.
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