PrintFebruary 21, 2010
Time to Turn Up the Heat on the Warmists
At one time, some would call them "deniers." The more generous called them "skeptics." But now, increasingly, it appears that they can be called something else: sane. Yes, the climate has certainly changed.
Even in the mainstream media, the less liberal organs are waking up. There is now a never-ending barrage of articles on the climate scam, with The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post firing some recent salvos. And these inconvenient truths are just adding to a case against the Climateers that has become dizzying.
Really, those issuing Chicken Little warnings had a tough sell from the get-go. We're told that our world has seen at least five major ice ages, but then again, I've also heard four. It has experienced numerous minor ones, although I'm not sure if anyone knows precisely how many. In fact, we hear that the pattern is to have 100,000-year glacial periods followed by 12,000-year interglacials, with 1,500-year cycles of warming and cooling embedded within them. We're told that during part of the Cryogenian Period -- otherwise known as "Snowball Earth" -- the world was completely blanketed with snow and ice, and that during another period, glaciers were almost or completely gone. Furthermore, we're informed that during the latter, there was still, believe it or not, dry land and creatures to tread upon it.
But the creature called man has the capacity to worry, and worry he does. He worried about global cooling in the 1970s and then later about global warming. Then it became "climate change." He worried about causing rising seas, even though we know that the ocean around Florida was once three hundred feet lower and at another time a hundred feet higher. He worried that CO2 -- a naturally occurring gas necessary for life and conducive to plant growth (which is why botanists pump it into greenhouses) -- would spell our end. Never mind how it's said that CO2-level changes follow temperature changes, not the reverse. A hypothesis needed its data.
Then, oh, boy, did we hear about that data. First there was Climategate, with e-mails showing that "scientists" had schemed to suppress inconvenient truths and had refused to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. Then came the admission that the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was dead wrong about Himalayan ice melt. And other shoes have dropped as well. Remember the IPCC warning that climate change could cause the loss of 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest? It was based on a report by an advocacy group, the World Wildlife Fund, that misrepresented a study. Then we learned of other notable IPCC sources as well, such as a student's master's dissertation and a sporting magazine.
Next, notorious University of East Anglia head and central Climategate figure Phil Jones may not yet be starting to sing truly, but he is at least singing a different tune. He now admits that the Medieval Warm Period might have been toastier than today, meaning that current temperatures "would not be unprecedented." To those of us who vaguely remember stories about dinosaurs and Mesozoic CO2 levels five to ten times today's and temperatures 11 to 22 degrees greater, this isn't exactly earth-shattering. Jones also admits that there has been no "statistically significant" warming since 1995, something that, when asserted mere months ago, got one branded a flat-earther. In addition, he now says that the Gorelesque view that "the debate is over" is "not my view." Interestingly, though, he never made this known until he was caught green-handed.
Then we heard how the 6,000 weather stations that collected temperature data had mysteriously been reduced to 1,500, and that those eliminated just happened to be in cooler regions. As for examples of those used, journalist Wesley Pruden writes, "Several were located near air-conditioning units and on waste-treatment plants; one was next to a waste incinerator. Still another was built at Rome's international airport and catches the hot exhaust of taxiing jetliners." That's almost as bad as positioning one in front of Al Gore's mouth.
But, hey, while the Chicken Little Climateers had a tough sell, they had the Government-Media-Academia-Entertainment Axis on their side and a tight little theory. If it got warmer, it was man's fault. If it got cooler, it was man's fault. If it got warmer in places it was cooler and cooler in places it was warmer, it was man's fault. If the weather became more volatile, it was man's fault. The only thing that could have disproven their theory was if the weather stayed precisely the same henceforth, anywhere and everywhere. Of course, this actually would be unprecedented.
The Climateers, however, can change as quickly as what they claim to care about. For example, robbed of settled-science sleight-of-hand, MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel now states, "We do not have the luxury of waiting for scientific certainty [before acting]."
Ah, that's the ticket. Before, we had to do something because of certainty; now we have to do something because of uncertainty.
Well, my head is spinning. Trying to process all these twists and turns, my mind has become a hodgepodge of information resembling Phil Jones' office.
Yet amidst this exposition of fact and exposure of fiction, one point never changes: We have been had. And one question remains: Will justice be done?
Let us be clear on the gravity of the Climateers' crime: They have used billions of our tax money to fund fraudulent science. And why?
For the purposes of promoting policies that would steal billions more.
And what happens now? Do they just get to say "oops" and slink away?
Unfortunately, this prospect is better than what may actually happen, as the Climateers may very well be able to wait out the current storm. Take Phil Jones, for instance. Although little more than a criminal with a science degree, he is avoiding a criminal investigation because it's too late under the law to prosecute. Moreover, he has not been fired from his position as head of the University of East Anglia's Climatic Sciences Unit; he has merely stepped aside temporarily. And while recent revelations that he was contemplating suicide may evoke sympathy in some, cry me a rising ocean. If you're a good man with the courage of your convictions, you don't think about ending it all upon meeting opposition; as Kipling said, you rather "trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make allowance for their doubting too." No, Jones is better explained by Sir Walter Scott and something about a "tangled web." His is the depression of a man who has been living a lie, and now, as some slings and arrows come his way, doesn't even have the might born of being right to sustain him. Yet, if I may offer some unsolicited counsel, suicide is no solution, Dr. Jones. The answer is to become a better man, come clean, and make amends.
Then there is the deafeningly silent Al Gore, who, just as Punxsutawney Phil did after seeing his shadow Feb. 2, seems to have scurried into a hole. Will he, like the reluctant rodent, emerge again when the climate changes? Will he rise again along with the mercury as the weather warms and memories fade?
Along with many other hucksters such as IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri, these men make Bernie Madoff look like a piker. And what recourse do we, the victims, have? Well, here are a few suggestions.
First, we need to adopt an aggressive stance. We should cast from office any politician who facilitated the climate-change fraud. Next, we need to press for criminal investigations into and charges against Climateers whenever possible. And when such a remedy isn't possible, we should resort to civil-court action when feasible.
Lastly, just as Senator Ben Nelson was driven from a pizza shop by angry patrons after finagling the cornhusker kickback, the Climateers should be treated as pariahs and not allowed a moment's rest. Some may say this is out of bounds, but scorn and ostracism are powerful corrective forces. Besides, if the law cannot hold these elites to account, then the peasants with pitchforks must step into the breach.
Of course, the Climateers don't really fear this, as they take the peasants for serfs. Let's just hope they're as wrong about this as they are about their science.
