Posted on 02/25/2005 4:05:19 PM PST by PeaceBeWithYou
THIS week there was a wailing and a gnashing of teeth as the Kyoto Protocol came into effect without Australia's co-operation. Greenpeace's stunt at Warragamba Dam reflected the contempt for the facts we have come to associate with it.The dam is half empty and activists broke in and put a sign on the bare earth that read: THIS IS WHAT CLIMATE CHANGE LOOKS LIKE.
This is nonsense. Climate change these days means global warming: there is some evidence the earth has warmed about 0.6C in the past century.
So Greenpeace is saying warmer countries must have less rainfall than cooler ones. There is no scientific reason for this.
And even if you don't understand the science, all you have to do is compare a country like New Guinea – very hot and rainy – with Australia.
In fact, there's no evidence of increased droughts, floods, or any other extreme weather over the past century. I know this doesn't stop environmentalists blaming global warming whenever there's a storm, but according to William Kininmonth, who was in charge of Australia's National Climate Centre until 1998, it's the truth.
It's depressing that no public figure criticised Greenpeace's claim. You can understand why some might not want to.
History will regard Bob Carr's failure to build infrastructure like new dams as a defining feature of his government. Maybe he sees climate change as a useful diversion.
This week he said: "Climate change is the biggest issue facing the world."
Kim Beazley said global warming is as bad as global poverty, and his environment spokesman Anthony Albanese said it is the greatest threat to the health of our planet.
What – as bad as starvation and malnutrition affecting millions in the Third World? As bad as AIDS in Africa?
Statements such as these are recklessly irresponsible. They divert our attention from problems we could solve, such as hunger, to ones we can't.
The truth is we have no control over global warming, and in any case it's not a problem at all.
The myth holds that carbon dioxide in the upper atmosphere is increasing, due mainly to industrial activities, and this traps heat lower down, with the result that temperatures on the earth's surface rise.
The first problem with this is that the extra carbon dioxide we create is so minuscule in comparison with the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere it's highly unlikely it could create this effect. Variations in the amount of heat the sun generates are a far more likely cause.
The second problem is that temperatures have not risen along with industrialisation over the past 200 years. In the 1970s, for instance, environmentalists said we faced a global cooling.
Another major problem is that a small rise in temperature could be a good thing, whatever the cause. It could increase agricultural productivity and reduce energy requirements (for heating) in many places. The myth of manmade global warming thrives because it fits the interests of so many people, such as Green groups in search of crises to attract new members (no crisis, no cash) and politicians looking for excuses. We can now speak of a global warming industry.
Professor Garth Paltridge is an atmospheric scientist who headed the Institute of Antarctic and Southern Ocean Studies at the University of Tasmania for many years.
He says most developed countries have institutionalised their greenhouse activity within government agencies devoted specifically to mitigation of global warming. Their budgets are enormous.
It is not likely that the public servants who staff them will be receptive to doubts about their reason for existence.
Nor are the research institutions concerned with global warming likely to bite the hands that feed them.
As to the claim that there is a consensus on global warming among climate scientists, Paltridge is dismissive. He says: That belief is simply not true.
Remarks to the Commonwealth Club
Michael CrichtonI studied anthropology in college, and one of the things I learned was that certain human social structures always reappear. They can't be eliminated from society. One of those structures is religion. Today it is said we live in a secular society in which many people---the best people, the most enlightened people---do not believe in any religion. But I think that you cannot eliminate religion from the psyche of mankind. If you suppress it in one form, it merely re-emerges in another form. You can not believe in God, but you still have to believe in something that gives meaning to your life, and shapes your sense of the world. Such a belief is religious.
Today, one of the most powerful religions in the Western World is environmentalism. Environmentalism seems to be the religion of choice for urban atheists. Why do I say it's a religion? Well, just look at the beliefs. If you look carefully, you see that environmentalism is in fact a perfect 21st century remapping of traditional Judeo-Christian beliefs and myths.
There's an initial Eden, a paradise, a state of grace and unity with nature, there's a fall from grace into a state of pollution as a result of eating from the tree of knowledge, and as a result of our actions there is a judgment day coming for us all. We are all energy sinners, doomed to die, unless we seek salvation, which is now called sustainability. Sustainability is salvation in the church of the environment. Just as organic food is its communion, that pesticide-free wafer that the right people with the right beliefs, imbibe.
Eden, the fall of man, the loss of grace, the coming doomsday---these are deeply held mythic structures. They are profoundly conservative beliefs. They may even be hard-wired in the brain, for all I know. I certainly don't want to talk anybody out of them, as I don't want to talk anybody out of a belief that Jesus Christ is the son of God who rose from the dead. But the reason I don't want to talk anybody out of these beliefs is that I know that I can't talk anybody out of them. These are not facts that can be argued. These are issues of faith.
And so it is, sadly, with environmentalism. Increasingly it seems facts aren't necessary, because the tenets of environmentalism are all about belief. It's about whether you are going to be a sinner, or saved. Whether you are going to be one of the people on the side of salvation, or on the side of doom. Whether you are going to be one of us, or one of them.
My problem with enviromentalist is that it is usually a cover for anticapitalist. Most of their so called solutions are to make "evil corporations" pay. I put them in the Blame America First crowd.
The biggest cause of pollution is immigration and you'll notice that the so-called environmentalists never oppose immigration. So how sincere can they be? Their main goal in life is to re-name lands that are already protected from development. In truth, farmers, ranchers and Ducks Unlimited have done far more for the environment than all the "environmentalists" and the EPA put together.
BTTT
I'm midway through Crichton's novel, "State of Fear." It's a thriller about ecoterrorists trying to convince the world that abrupt climate change will follow global warming. As part of the story Crichton presents a well-documented refutation of global warming scaremongering. It's a good read.
Yeah, Crichton's book is interesting. But I also found this discussion of it on a science blog. Looks like there's a few problems with Crichton's science.
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=74
I wouldn't take any of it for granted, but Crichton's view seems to be as questionable as any others, if not more so...
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