Just a Couple of Things on Climate Change

The NY Sun: Global Warming Turns Ugly.

When the left is out to smear an opponent, any brand of tar will do. Consider Vice President Gore's mantra, which has been picked up by much of the press, that global warming skeptics are "deniers" — as in Holocaust deniers. You might expect that liberals would be leery of attempts to liken an opponent to the nuts who deny that Hitler murdered 6 million Jews. "Are you now or have you ever been a denier?" But no, the moral paragons of Beverly Hills appear set to deliver an Oscar to Mr. Gore for his bravery in telling supposedly inconvenient truths.

Mr. Gore has been caught at this sort of thing before. In 1994, Ted Koppel disclosed on "Nightline" that Mr. Gore had called to suggest he investigate various global warming skeptics for their ties to the coal industry and other interests. Mr. Koppel said he had refused. He went on to chastise Mr. Gore publicly for "resorting to political means to achieve what should ultimately be resolved on a purely scientific basis."

Just so. But Mr. Gore and others still seem unable to restrain their bile. The Washington Post recently quoted Mr. Gore as referring to a prominent Republican senator as a "denier." All of which makes one wonder: Do these people have as much confidence as they pretend to have in their theories about why the globe may be heating up? (emphasis mine)

That, to me, is the whole point. If the facts substantiate your case, why not stand upon them? If your theories are so danged bulletproof, why not welcome discussion and debate on the subject? Why make statements like “the debate is over,” when clearly, it is not? Why ask why…

Related: Scenes from the Climate Inquisition. Excerpt:

But the climate inquisition may prompt a backlash. One straw in the wind was the bracing statement made by Mike Hulme, director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and one of Britain's leading climate scientists. "I have found myself increasingly chastised by climate change campaigners when my public statements and lectures on climate change have not satisfied their thirst for environmental drama and exaggerated rhetoric," Hulme told the BBC in November. "It seems that it is we, the professional climate scientists, who are now the skeptics. How the wheel turns. . . . Why is it not just campaigners, but politicians and scientists, too, who are openly confusing the language of fear, terror, and disaster with the observable physical reality of climate change, actively ignoring the careful hedging which surrounds science's predictions? . . . To state that climate change will be 'catastrophic' hides a cascade of value-laden assumptions which do not emerge from empirical or theoretical science."

The backlash is indeed developing. This is a good thing, unless you happen to be an apocalyptic evangelizer like Algore. More, not less, debate is needed… especially when you have politicians like Nancy Pelosi saying “government would have to impose a mandatory cap to reduce greenhouse emissions by 50%, a move that would bring government ever more deeply into the heart of the economy.”* And that, folks, is the essence of the debate. Not whether or not climate change is happening (I believe it is, FWIW), but why it's happening, and what to do about it, if anything. Mandatory emissions caps, assorted carbon tax proposals and emissions trading schemes are all potential economic catastrophes, especially when the government Democratic party is involved.

(*: from that NY Sun editorial, above)

Today’s Pic: Not being one to abandon a trend in its early stages, here’s another pic from the cross-country trip SN1 & Family and I took during July 2000. Granddaughters Anastasia and Amanda took some time away from the grown-ups as we were enjoying adult refreshments in a very nice little outdoor café somewhere in Upstate NY, near Lake George.

Update 02/12/2007, 1438 hrs: dc, in the comments:

I am sick up and fed with the Left trying to redistribute wealth, again. Via "Carbon Credits".

Algore won't give up his opulent lifestyle, and neither will Ms. Pelosi. Soooo, neither will I. Besides, if, indeed, this global warming B.S. is real, then all of the planet will warm up and food and plant growth will take off. Think of it... the rain forests will burst to life, expanding at an explosive rate! The added CO2 will encourage plants with the photosynthesis thing, causing fresh new oxygen.

And red wine will be cultivated again, in the UK.

Oh, and that charlatan Algore will still be criss-crossing the planet in his ozone wrecking jet. Tilting at yet another windmill. I notice he is getting a little "fluffy".

Of course, none of the above will happen. Except the criss crossing jets.

I wish that Al and Nancy would go live with some REAL third world types. You know, the folks who have to burn Yak Dung to cook food and heat their Yurts. Maybe after a couple of years, they would change their attitudes, and start planning some more dams and Nuclear Power plants.

After all, if it's good enough for us, I say it's good enough for Yak Herders!

I just had to bring this up front, coz dc says it better and with more humor than I. Hey dc, want a job? Or an avocation?