PrintDecember 22, 2009
Other Consequences of Climategate
The consequences of "Climategate" are lost opportunity costs that should have been directed at real global pollution problems. The hothouse atmosphere at East Anglia from cooking the books on a huge fraud has significant consequences that will play out over time. "Global Warming" shamans have sent the world on the fool's errand of looking for man-made carbon footprints while very real environmental problems have fallen by the wayside.
On a micro-level, some involved in this scientific fraud will have their reputations destroyed. Along the way, nasty invectives will be leveled, which will make for fun reading. I specifically found it interesting to read Nobel Laureate Al Gore lie to defend the liars. His statement was a total fabrication when he said scientific e-mails were ten years old. The latest one was sent just months ago.
One can just imagine the sense of loss felt by environmental activists who were planning on making billions protecting the world from greenhouse gases. The real threat is not pollution as defined by the simple act of breathing and emitting CO2, but the pollution of industrial waste pumped into the atmosphere at specific locations and also dumped into streams, rivers, and oceans. It is a proven scientific fact that chemical toxins directly impact groundwater.
While the East Anglia con artists were looking skyward, the real problem was symbolically right under their feet.
One of my most beloved possessions is a personal letter from President Bush '41 thanking me for my role as an Assistant Secretary, Department of Veterans Affairs, in making "progress toward settling the complex questions about the environmental hazards of warfare." The questions the VA had been dealing with on my watch were about Agent Orange and "Gulf War Illness." Both are very real and very deadly.
Of the 2,709,918 Vietnam veterans that served in Southeast Asia, around 800,000 are still alive. Almost 59,000 were killed in action, and around another 100,000 were severely disabled. Claims have been made about Vietnam vets having higher suicide rates, more substance abuse problems, and higher incidences of homelessness. Regardless, the number of soldiers from the war alive today is evidence that Vietnam vets paid a high price for their service. Many soldiers were killed by Agent Orange -- not climate change from a carbon footprint.
The National Academy of Science and the VA link exposure to Agent Orange to such horrible diseases as Hodgkin's disease, leukemia, and prostate cancer. Another real tragedy is that the sons and daughters of Vietnam vets have a higher incidence of spina bifda. That determination was the first time the US has linked adult exposure to toxic chemicals to birth defects. A lot of Vietnam veterans were killed before their time by Agent Orange -- not climate change and a carbon footprint. Also, the world should not forget that Vietnamese families are also paying a high price for ongoing exposure to Agent Orange in their groundwater.
For our next generation of veterans, one cause of the growing problem of "Gulf War Illness" is exposure to Iraq chemical munitions inside bunkers that were blown up in Desert Storm. Even today, some residual chemical munitions (yes, WMDs) have been found. However, on an ever-bigger "environmental hazards of warfare" front, there is really grim news.
Serving in the DoD, I was responsible in 2003 for visiting the Iraq Port of Umm Qasr. Before my visit, I hosted at the Pentagon a senior representative of the U.N. Development Program (UNDP). The man, a highly educated French engineer, warned me about the cancer-causing, toxic nature of the Persian Gulf.
His well-made point was that because of evaporation, for twenty-three hours of each day, water flows into the gulf -- and only for one hour a day does it flush itself. Essentially, the gulf is a man-made devil's brew of every nasty chemical in the world, from chemical munitions used in the Iran-Iraq war (and also by Saddam against his own people) to rocket motors and warheads and bunker oil in sunken ships to simple raw open sewers. Gulf water can kill you.
When I visited Umm Qasr, the locals quipped, "Turn on the water and see what we are having for dinner." It was that disgusting.
The costs of war in that part of the world, according to my UNDP visitor, are now horrendous, including extremely high cancer rates for children. He even claimed that if they can afford it, poor fisherman burn their catch rather than feed it to their families.
We should immediately stop trying to blame mankind for the complex ebb and flow of the earth's climate since creation. There are real life-and-death issues that are specifically geographically located. With investigation and intelligent mitigation efforts, a concentrated scientific focus could make a profoundly positive impact on humanity.
