Irrational Green Exuberance

National Review Online ^ | April 22, 2008 | the Editors

[Delacon]

The last few years have witnessed an Internet-stock bubble and a real-estate bubble. Could we be approaching the bursting point of the climate-change bubble?

The intensity of the current climate crusade, Al Gore’s $300 million ad campaign, and Time’s fifth panicky global-warming cover in three years (“Be Worried, Be Very Worried” read the 2006 cover) are all good contrary indicators suggesting that the hysteria is reaching its terminal stage. Like mortgage-backed securities dealers, the climate campaigners are in a panic because the public isn’t buying what they’re selling. The latest annual Gallup survey on the environment shows that only 37 percent of Americans say they worry “a great deal” about global warming, down from 41 percent last year, about the same level as a decade ago. Americans put global warming way down on their list of major environmental concerns, behind air and water pollution, toxic waste, and the loss of open space.

The League of Conservation Voters is apoplectic that the TV anchors aren’t asking more climate-change questions in the presidential primary debates — and, if global warming is indeed the gravest threat in the history of mankind, they do have a point. Perhaps the blasé performance of the media on this matter is telling us something.

Thirty-five years ago, political scientist Anthony Downs discerned what he called the “issue-attention cycle,” a five-stage process during which the public and the media grow alarmed over an issue, agitate for action, generate reams of scary headlines, and then begin to draw back as they gradually recognize that the problem has been exaggerated and they get a good look at the price tag for sweeping action.

While Downs thought that the issue-attention cycle for the environment would last longer than for most issues, global warming is starting to follow the same familiar pattern as the “population bomb” and the “we’re-running-out-of-everything” scares of the 1970s. The planet’s coldest winter in 30 years has cooled the fever of climate panic. And while one cool year does not a trend make, a few more cool years and there will be a crisis in climate alarmism. Meanwhile, the gung-ho Europeans are looking for a way to retreat gracefully from their fulsome rhetoric as the real price of cutting emissions becomes apparent. U.N. officials now concede that prospects look grim for a successor treaty to Kyoto.

It may be about to burst, but the climate bubble is still sufficiently robust that the U.S. appears determined to enact the climate policy equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley — an emissions-trading scheme that will deliver high costs while achieving only modest reductions. Meanwhile, concerns about soaring food prices and groundwater depletion are making people think twice about ethanol, though Washington marches on with its array of subsidies and mandates.

One of these days, the editors of Time and other publications are going to grow bored of producing yet another “green” issue and tired of writing editorials demanding “action now,” just as the media grew exhausted by the population explosion, AIDS, urban sprawl, homelessness, and other former front-burner stories. No doubt another terrifying novelty will be discovered (the threat of Earth’s magnetic field weakening perhaps?) because it is the nature of the media and activist groups to find some new panic to ride. But the current green mania may be reaching a weary, used-up phase that signals a turning point.

Once the climate bubble finally deflates, we can stop tilting at windmills and get back to solving environmental problems through economic growth and market-driven innovation rather than dirigiste dictates from Washington and the U.N.

[Delacon]

One can only hope and faster please.

[Delacon]

ping

[goldstategop]

The problem is on economics and the environment, John McCain has signaled a dirigiste bent. I'm not about to opt for a lukewarm liberal over the real one.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[steelyourfaith]

 

Beam me to Planet Gore !

[L98Fiero]

When every freaking TV commercial that comes on touts their product or service as “green” or “eco-friendly” the movement has just devolved into a marketing campaign to guilt folks out of extra money. It’s the new “low-carb”.

[sarasota]

I picked up an airport copy of Vogue magazine’s latest issue only to learn that “spring keeps coming earlier due to global warming”. Where? I’ve heard nothing but reports of late spring...???

[avacado]

Gore: "Errrrr... global warming? Oh yeah... we need to do something about it... but I am sort of fattened up with cash right now and into ditzy chicks... get a Prius and quit bothering me already."

Diaz: "We need to buy carbon credits because like ice is like a rock but it can melt... Like double duh!!"

[sarasota]

There was a small movement in the 60’s based on Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. But with the 24/7 media hype, this one will probably last a lot longer. The company I work for recently started recycling because our clients presume to take this under consideration when selecting a supplier. Next we’re going to have to have a “Green Team”.

[Horusra]

Isn’t that the truth. I hate the tv as it is, but I can’t take the “green” everything media marketing blitz lately.

[RetiredArmy]

The stinking Discovery Channel and its others are doing their utmost best to push the global hoax!! The carbon footprint crap last week, and the History and other Discovery networks are pushing programs about doom and gloom and we are all going to die like the poor dinosaurs. It never ends. I love the History (Hitler) Channel, and also some of the Discovery shows, but I turn it off when the global warming hoax crap comes on.

[Dr.Deth]

League of Conservation Voters

A difference of two small letters, and a whole lot of stupid.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I normally don't like to poke fun at the way people look but I've rarely seen someone look more completely like there's absolutely nobodybufreakinhome than she does, in that pic.

Good Lord.

[ZX12R]

Hey, you can look into her eyes and see the back of her head.

[Eurale]

I’ll go “green” when:

- John Travolta trades in his 707 for a J-3 Cub;

- All of the nansions in Hollywood, the Kennedy compound and Aspin are bulldozed and replaced with shotgun houses;

- AlGore ditches the Gulfstream II and flies commercial; and,

- Babs and Alec Baldwin really move to France.

[Prokopton]

There was a small movement in the 60’s based on Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. But with the 24/7 media hype, this one will probably last a lot longer.

Rachel Carlson and her Silent Spring followers have cost the lives of 30 to 60 million innocent people. The blood on their hands can never be washed away. Al Gore and the Global Warming cabal will not be content until they break this record of environmental homicide.

[Delacon]

“I’ll go “green” when:”

Or when hell freezes over.

[Bahbah]

One of these days, the editors of Time and other publications are going to grow bored of producing yet another “green” issue and tired of writing editorials demanding “action now,”

I wish I agreed with this, but I think they see themselves too close to their goals which have nothing to do with affecting the global climate.

[Delacon]

“Al Gore and the Global Warming cabal will not be content until they break this record of environmental homicide.”

Yep, the food riots due to grain shortages (harvests being diverted to biofuels) have already begun.

[oh8eleven]

The stinking Discovery Channel and its others are doing their utmost best to push the global hoax!!
There is none worse than the National Geographic Channel. Their shows present everything as accepted fact and are little more than thinly disguised propaganda.
The producers should be considered terrorists.

[Holicheese]

I have no problem with conservation. No problem with products being efficient and clean.
I do have a problem with the Government making me buy higher priced items to solve a non-existant problem.

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

I watched a show on Home and Garden TV where folks search for a new house, see three during the show, then pick one. (wait, I haven't gotten to the good part)

So this hippy couple from New Mexico wants to move to Oregon to be near the ocean, but they live a totally green life (see I told you there was a point to this), so the house has to be "green".

They look and look - the couple bitches because the appliances aren't Energy Star - the realtor says the appliances can be replaced, duh.

Finally they pick a BRAND NEW house in a new development! I roared - how fricking green is it to pass up older homes and choose one they just "destroyed" virgin land for, raped the forests for lumber, and realized afterward that there was a wetland in the back yard?

So green money was the bottom green line, apparently.

[Holicheese]

I think Free Republic should go “Super Green”. Then lets see if the DU goes “Super Duper Green”!

[L98Fiero]

“I have no problem with conservation. No problem with products being efficient and clean.”

Me either. Problem is, they just tend to repackage the same old crap and call it “green” because that is popular.

[Holicheese]

Sure, its like Super Sugar Crisp became Super Crisp because mom’s were afraid of sugar.
Making CF Bulbs the only thing you can buy at $4/ pcs. compared to a normal bulb at $0.75/pcs.

I was reading a great story about this family that was worried about the little light on their appliances and the digital clocks on all the appliances wasting energy. So they went out and spent $1000 on power strips so they could shut everything off. How many decades will it be before the energy saved equals the cost of the power strips?
Stepping over dollars to pick up nickles my dad used to call it.

[PogySailor]

This years new marketing slogan:

“It’s new and improved! Now with Green!”

[FastCoyote]

“The last few years have witnessed an Internet-stock bubble and a real-estate bubble. Could we be approaching the bursting point of the climate-change bubble?”

I think we are getting close. Two recent bits of info are pushing me to not even be agnostic on the issue 1) the last 4-5 years have leveled off, this should not be possible with increasing CO2 and 2) apparently the ocean is almost an infinite sink for CO2.

I’m just trying to figure out a way to cspitalize on the bust.

[FastCoyote]

cspitalize, or better still, capitalize.

[ReagansShinyHair]

I was recently in a Whole Foods (whole paycheck) market and saw “green” razors made of *gasp* entirely recycled plastic! I guess I was not supposed to notice that the entire razor was disposable, rather than just the head, like on the cheap razors that I buy. I just thought it was laughable to market something as “green” when throwing away the entire razor is obviously more wasteful than throwing away just the head.

[Flycatcher]

That’s a funny story. You’re a funny writer.

Parentheses can be our friends (as you’ve shown).

[IamConservative]

the last 4-5 years have leveled off, this should not be possible with increasing CO2

Didn't last years global average temperatures show that the last decade worth of "warming" was wiped out in a single year?

[SuziQ]

I’m about sick of the ‘green’ everything I see on TV these days! I don’t mind being kind to the environment; I consider that part of my own personal stewardship of God’s Creation, but enough already!

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Some people have speech impediments - I have a writing impediment - I tend to put dashes between sentences and dots at the end. I’m working on it though...oops!

[WhyisaTexasgirlinPA]

Why would greenies need a razor? ;^)

[RightWhale]

The Global Warming campaign has already degenerated to an anti-pollution campaign and since CO2 is now a pollutant they can go forever or as long as there is coal to burn.

[spacewarp]

I fear, compared to the earlier list, yours may come first.

Paul

[sarasota]

I don’t understand. Can you elaborate on lives lost?

[Prokopton]

“I don’t understand. Can you elaborate on lives lost?”

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Read.aspx?GUID=E35477CE-FA98-46BB-89AC-FE3CA68BE618

[Delacon]

And:

100 things you should know about DDT
by J. Gordon Edwards and Steven Milloy
http://www.junkscience.com/ddtfaq.htm#ref1

[Army Air Corps]

In that photo it looks like Al was experiencing a little warming himself.

[Army Air Corps]

I had a subsription to National Geographic in my youth (a Christmas present from a relative). I enjoyed it until I noticed that that started visiting various “People’s Republics” and painting them as near paradises (namely, showing photographs of nothing but smiling, happy people regardless of how miserable a socialist hellhole the country was).

[Army Air Corps]

Reminds me of this.

[GaltMeister]

Didn't last years global average temperatures show that the last decade worth of "warming" was wiped out in a single year?

Yes, and the solar cycle is still at a minimum. We may be in for more and more cooling, unless Goreon and the hippies can figure out a way to get the sun in gear pretty quick.