Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Global Warbling

Recent weeks have brought a media barrage of alarm about global warming.  This coordinated campaign has attacked from all directions.  First, “60 Minutes” presented James Hansen, the NASA scientist purportedly censored by Bush who hasn’t had much difficulty getting his chicken-little message out despite the alleged political pressures.  This Executive branch employee received a grant of $250,000 from a Teresa Heinz-Kerry foundation not long before he endorsed John Kerry for President in the week prior to the 2004 election.

Next came Time Magazine’s featured fear-mongering issue entitled “Be Worried – Be Very Worried” warning us of the inevitable approaching global warming apocalypse.  Those of you with a memory may recall that Time also warned us of the approaching Ice Age back in 1974.  The dire warnings they present are eerily similar in wording then and now, only differing in “degree.”  

Then came the Ad Council, in concert with the Natural Resources Foundation, warning us of our responsibility to prevent global warming for our children.  These ads are strikingly similar to 1964 Democrat political commercials warning the public not to vote for Barry Goldwater with a mushroom cloud looming in the background.

Finally, the coup de grace is a film by Al Gore called “An Inconvenient Truth” warning us that we’re near the tipping point of incontrovertible climate change.  This animated spectacular, featuring Homer Simpson as Al Gore, provides lucid instructions of what is required to prevent climatic Armageddon.  (Sorry – just kidding!)  

Similar themes redound in all of these fantastical assaults.  Inevitably, we hear that the science is settled, ALL serious scientists agree, and the teeny, tiny minority of scientists who dare to oppose are all in the pay of Big Oil and Coal – end of story.  “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!”

The alarmists are chagrined that their efforts to engage the public over the past 20 years have come to naught.  Their new rationale de jour is that the media has been unduly balanced in “allowing” those skeptical of human-caused global warming to be heard.  Their new approach is that these dissenting voices should be silenced, ironically at the same time as they decry the supposed censoring by the Bush administration.  Talk about cognitive dissonance!

Please understand that despite the repeated claims of the certainty of human-induced climate change, no empirical evidence from observation has been presented.  Everything served up to us as “science” is nothing more than the virtual world of computer models.  The scary results projected by these computer models are less than the precision of the measuring instruments.  This means the projected result is smaller than the stated margin of error.  For instance, when alarmists threaten that temperatures could rise 2 degrees over the next 50 years, the 3 degree margin of error means we have an equal chance of seeing a 1 degree cooling!  So much for their claimed certainty!

These charlatans want you to believe that fractionally reducing the 3% human contribution to annual CO2 volumes can create a stable climate.  Truly, these people are the anacondas of snake oil salesmen.