Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 04/13/2008 8:57:23 AM PDT by shrinkermd
As we pump out greenhouse gases, most of the discussion focuses on direct consequences like rising seas or aggravated hurricanes. But the indirect social and political impact in poor countries may be even more far-reaching, including upheavals and civil wars — and even more witches hacked to death with machetes.
In rural Tanzania, murders of elderly women accused of witchcraft are a very common form of homicide. And when Tanzania suffers unusual rainfall — either drought or flooding — witch-killings double, according to research by Edward Miguel, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley.
“In bad years, the killings explode,” Professor Miguel said. He believes that if climate change causes more drought years in Tanzania, the result will be more elderly women executed there and in other poor countries that still commonly attack supposed witches.
There is evidence that European witch-burnings in past centuries may also have resulted from climate variations and the resulting crop failures, economic distress and search for scapegoats. Emily Oster, a University of Chicago economist, tracked witchcraft trials and weather in Western Europe between 1520 and 1770 and found a close correlation: colder weather led to more crackdowns on witches.
In particular, Europe’s “little ice age” led to a sharp cooling in the late 1500s, and that corresponds to a renewal in witchcraft trials after a long lull. And there’s also micro-evidence: in one area, a brutally cold May in 1626 led outraged peasants to call for punishment of witches thought responsible. Some scholars have also argued that the Salem witch trials occurred after a particularly cold winter and economically difficult period.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Is he serious? Yup!
Does Pinch pay him real money? Yup!
Is the paper in circulatory collapse? Yup!
Other than foisting a particular point of view does the NYT have any real function? Nope!
I hope Al Gore is able to sleep at night.
Kristoff should read todays news. Climate Change HYSTERIA is already killing people. Al Gore’s crusade and the ethanol boom he has fueled are casuing food riots around the globe. So we should act now to save the planet from the fraud of Global Warming?
Kristof shows no sense of irony does he? In the past they burned witches when the climate changed, now we roast oil company execs by congressional committee.
Staging the Crucible there wouldn’t help. There WERE witches in the Crucible too. One of the points being made was that it shouldn’t be a crime JUST to be a Communist/Witch. Also you shouldn’t use the testimony of a witch on the stand to convict another baseball player of using Human Growth Hormone, or something like that...
Now Islamic supremacist terrorists burn Halliburton/Brown & Root employees and hang them from bridges.
Yet the media shrugs.
They want food riots. They also want urban riots. They want revolution.
The “smart growth” boom isn't about saving gas, it is about maximizing population density and getting more $$$ out of the same land. Pack them in like rats.
Meanwhile the same $3,000,000 mansions have a couple acres of land between them and their neighbor. And THAT is my mayor who is insisting that the rest of us live like Soviets or Venezuelans one on top of the other.
Ted Turner? Is that you?
Bush lied, Witches died!
Oh, the Humanity!.......
Ooh EE, ooh ah ah, ting tang, walla walla bing bang....ooh eee, ohh ah ah, ting tang walla bang bang!
My friend the witch doctor he told me what to do....my friend the witch doctor he told me what to say...I know you’ll throw money when I say this to you...
...and even more witches hacked to death with machetes...
In other news...machete wielding supporters of Mr. Odinga, cousin of senator Obama, continue to tear apart Kenya. Since Mr. Odinga signed his memorandum of understanding promising that Kenya will become a “Fully Muslim Country” and Senator Obama has given him “His Unconditional support”, Odinga’s supporters have used their machetes to hack the opposition.
..On the local scene...rumors continue to plague the Obama campaign that senator Obama is an islamofacist in sheeps clothing.....inquiring minds want to know why would such rumors continue...
You know, I understand where Kristoff is coming from. I love those end-of-the-world movies, starting from the days in my boyhood when giant grasshoppers invaded Chicago to the current crop of killer viruses wiping out humanity and replacing us with crazed zombies.
There must be something in the little boy inside me which enjoys the fantasy of potential mayhem and bloodshed, especially if I’m one of the survivors. We used to play war when I was a child out in the backyard woods, but just as often we played a game called “Monster” in which one of us lumbered about on a killing spree and caught our fellow friends, often to fake cries of horror, and, more often, giggling.
Kristoff and the other climate change fearmongers - I mean, global warming fearmongers - are indulging themselves in that fantasy of a world gone mad, with malicious forces and monstrous events. In fact, the coolest part of “An Inconvenient Truth” was the graphic showing the water flooding major cities - the same way that the best special effect in “The Day After Tomorrow” was the giant wave bearing down on New York City.
I don’t have an explanation, other than the observation that a lot of us like to indulge in the end-of-the-world fantasy. Yesterday it was called soylent green; today, it’s rising sea levels, endless droughts, and even witches getting killed in Tanzania. Tomorrow... Grey goo? Thermonuclear chaos in near-Earth space? Bioengineered mutants getting loose? Chances are I’ll be seeing the results in a film on the SciFi channel, though.
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