Friday, May 16, 2008

Global warming talk: Is it mostly “hot air?”

Pajamas Media’s Mike McNally says it is [excerpts] - - -

The past few months have not been good to the still-infant discipline of climate change alarmism — that strange amalgam of pseudo-science, crystal ball gazing, and mass hysteria that was formerly known as global warming alarmism until it became apparent a few years back that the globe had in fact stopped warming, and the alarmists decided that the term “climate change” was a more effective way of describing what the rest of us call “weather.” (emphasis added)

For around a decade now — since around the time, coincidentally, that the warming stopped — the alarmists have had things pretty much their own way, dominating the debate with ever more dramatic predictions of impending doom as man-made CO2 emissions heat up the planet, and managing for the best part to keep a lid on dissent, thanks to an unlikely, and decidedly unholy, alliance of organizations and individuals with a vested interest in upping the fear factor.

This alliance includes politicians who see climate change as a new way of persuading citizens to give them more power; corporations who play on our concern and guilt to sell us anything from eco-friendly washing powder to flex-fuel SUVs; scientists keen to get their hands on a share of the $5 billion handed out by governments and NGOs each year for climate change research; and the legions of bureaucrats employed to draw up regulations and run the globe-trotting climate conference circus.

Then there’s the lavishly funded environmental lobby; socialists who see climate change as their last, best hope of undermining free-market democracies and cutting the United States down to size; and a media which understands that “World Ends Tomorrow” stories get more viewers than “Everything Likely to Be Just Fine” stories, and whose members tend to side with the leftist, anti-American crowd….

Comments:

Many “eco-friendly” global warming “leaders” have their own interests to advance. They don't understand complex data, but they're sure they understand what they call "science."

McNally makes the case for why we should question, if not outright reject, what on careful inspection appear to be the “hot air” claims of global warming alarmist.

I hope you give his article a read here.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am in Portland, Oregon.
I noted one rather under publicized fact:

“Mount St. Helens sports one of the few glaciers in the world that appears to be growing, an especially notable development during a time of increasing concern over global climate changes.”
----------
Don’t tell Algore, it probably is “An Inconvenient Truth”
he would choose to ignore!

Anonymous said...

I was quite disappointed, but not surprised, when McCain jumped aboard the Gore Express the other day. There certainly is climate change, no serious person disputes this fact. What is disputed is the assertion that the change is caused by carbon emissions and is completely man-made. The recently reported climate changes on the planet Mars is very similar to what we have seen on Earth--did little green men on Mars cause its climate change? The Al Gore chicken littles have created a modern myth. Too bad McCain has taken the bait.
Tarheel Hawkeye

Anonymous said...

Here’s a good one:

‘Gorebal Warming'

Anonymous said...

John -

Thanks for the posting. Some facts. The entire warming in the last century has been 1 degree. Given the variability of temperature, year to year and decade to decade, that cannot be distinguished from noise. Another fact is that since 1998 (and possibly 1995) there has been no global warming, and alas, one of the global warming climatologists foresees another ten years of cooling before warming starts again. Then, just 33 years ago, both Time and Newsweek ran columns on the coming ice age, and do you know what was the cause? You might have guessed it: the carbon buildup. Then finally, does anyone know why Greenland has that name? In the middle ages, there were forest and farms there. Today, it's an iceberg. So what are we worried about?

The most likely explanation for global warming are variations in the sun's intensity.

Jack in Silver Spring

PS to TH Thank you for kind words in an earlier comment, and I am disappointed in McCain, but then think of the alternative.