Posted on 05/11/2008 8:31:34 PM PDT by Graybeard58
Blaming climate change for the storm that ravaged southern Myanmar a week ago is neither helpful in a humanitarian crisis nor scientifically defensible. But it's a neat diversionary tactic that seems to be working.
Al Gore described the cyclone as an example of "consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming." Mr. Gore conceded a comparable storm struck the same region as recently as 50 years ago. The earlier storm and those that preceded it over the long march of time were less damaging, for obvious reasons: population and government.
Myanmar, once known as Burma, is home to 57 million people. Most live in the capital of Yangon and the fertile Irrawaddy River delta, where the storm hit hardest. The population has doubled since the 1970s but remains desperately poor and ill-equipped to defend itself from repressive government or violent weather.
Today, Myanmar is run by a military junta that last year brutally suppressed peaceful demonstrations led by Buddhist monks. Warned by meteorologists in neighboring India two days before the cyclone made landfall, the government made no effort to evacuate people. When the storm hit, it wrecked many villages and killed tens of thousands. Many more will die of disease and starvation because the government is obstructing efforts by international aid agencies to provide relief and seizing supplies that are getting through, prompting the United Nations to suspend aid operations Friday. The death toll is expected to reach into the six figures.
The civilized world's impulse is to help. Tying the disaster's magnitude to global warming doesn't serve that objective. Mr. Gore surely knows of the Risk Management Solutions study that found a repeat of the 1927 Great Mississippi Flood today would cause many times the deaths and property damage because of "the economic and social changes that have occurred along the Mississippi River since 1927." Likewise, the Myanmar cyclone found more people, more buildings, more roads and bridges, than any similar storm in the past.
Nor did The New York Times help by devoting much of its cyclone coverage Wednesday to Bush-bashing. The president was right to criticize Yangon for obstructing aid workers. Instead, the Times went out of its way to find critics. Is this really a time to make nice to a repressive, incompetent, dishonest government?
These diversionary tactics serve the cause of the far left, which loves big government, hates President Bush and harbors dreams of vast power fueled by a framework of laws controlling greenhouse-gas emissions. It's nevertheless shocking the left would place these initiatives ahead of the call to help those who are suffering the effects of random nature, demographic changes and bad government.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Really???
Didn't the lunatics in SLORC move the capital to their mountainous stronghold recently?
Sounds just like New Orleans after Hurricane Katerina. Including the repressive, incompetent, dishonest local government.
It might not be scientific, but it sure is stupid.
We all have to remember and keep reminding people that Gore gets 6K per minute to spread these lies!!!!
I would try and convince you that dog pop on a stick was better than steak for that kind of money.
-bflr-
Awaiting Al’s comments, tying the huge earthquake in China to the global warming scam. ;)
I don’t know about dog poop, but Al sure provides a wealth of bullshit.
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