PrintMay 20, 2009
Cooling off on Warming
As the left marches on toward "solving" the alleged problem of global warming, the public is continuing to move in another direction.
For a poll-driven administration this is irrational behavior, showing that ideology trumps even its natural instincts.
Fox News reports that 69 % of people believe global warming "exists." Presumably, that means they believe the Earth's climate is growing warmer.
This is reported as "most people" believe it.
But there is much more to the story.
Two years ago 82 percent believed the planet was getting warmer.
Given the alarmists' assurance that the scientific question is settled, even that seems small.
Yet, it is getting smaller even as the media propaganda increases.
Moreover, the figure is far from being a justification for the draconian approach the alarmists propose.
The Earth has been warming and cooling in cycles for billions of years. Humans have taken worldwide temperature readings and recorded them for about 150 years, a small fraction of the time.
Furthermore, the recording began at a time when a long period of cooling (called the Little Ice Age) was ending. What would be surprising about it warming slightly?
But the issue of whether warming is occurring is only the first of four steps that rational people would go through before accepting massive government intervention, as explained here.
As the poll also shows, in a question that got relatively little attention, only 54 percent of the 69 percent -- or 37 percent -- believe warming is caused solely by "people's behavior."
Honest headlines should read: "Nearly two-thirds of Americans don't believe the government is justified in trying to stop global warming."
Even that might be a stretch, as the proposed efforts - despite their enormous cost - by the alarmists' own projections would not "stop" global warming. They would have virtually no effect on the warming trend that the alarmists claim (despite the fact there has been no warming for the past decade) is taking place.
