Beam me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 10/23/2011 8:31:40 AM PDT by bilhosty
On Oct. 22, 1844, thousand of Millerites, having sold all their possessions, climbed to the top of hills in Upstate New York to await the return of Jesus and the end of the world. They suffered "the great disappointment" when it didn't happen.
In 1212, or so the legends go, thousands of Children's Crusaders set off from France and Germany expecting the sea to part so they could march peaceably and convert Muslims in the Holy Land. It didn't, and many were shipwrecked or sold into slavery.
In 1898 the cavalrymen of the Madhi, ruler of Sudan for 13 years, went into the Battle of Omdurman armed with swords believing that they were impervious to bullets. They weren't, and they were mowed down by British Maxim guns.
A similar but more peaceable fate is befalling believers in what I think can be called the religion of the global warming alarmists.
They have an unshakable faith that man-made carbon emissions will produce a hotter climate causing multiple natural disasters. Their insistence that we can be absolutely certain this will come to pass is based not on science -- which is never fully settled, witness the recent experiments that may undermine Einstein's theory of relativity -- but on something very much like religious faith.
All the trappings of religion are there. Original sin: Mankind is responsible for these prophesied disasters, especially those slobs who live on suburban cul-de-sacs and drive their SUVs to strip malls and tacky chain restaurants.
The need for atonement and repentance: We must impose a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system that will increase the cost of everything and stunt economic growth.
Ritual, from the annual Earth Day to weekly recycling.
Indulgences, like those Martin Luther railed against: private jet fliers like Al Gore and sitcom heiress Laurie David can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their carbon-emitting sins.
Corporate elitists, like General Electric's Jeff Immelt, profess to share this faith, just as cynical Venetian merchants and prim Victorian bankers gave lip service to the religious enthusiasms of their days. Bad for business not too. And if you're clever, you can figure out how to make money off it.
Believers in this religion have flocked to conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Kyoto and Copenhagen, just as Catholic bishops flocked to councils in Constance, Ferrara and Trent, to codify dogma and set new rules.
But like the Millerites, the global warming clergy has preached apocalyptic doom -- and is now facing an increasingly skeptical public. The idea that we can be so completely certain of climate change 70 to 90 years hence that we must inflict serious economic damage on ourselves in the meantime seems increasingly absurd.
If carbon emissions were the only thing affecting climate, the global warming alarmists would be right. But it's obvious that climate is affected by many things, many not yet fully understood, and implausible that SUVs will affect it more than variations in the enormous energy produced by the sun.
Skepticism has been increased by the actions of believers. Passage of the House cap-and-trade bill in June 2009 focused politicians and voters on the costs of global warming religion. And disclosure of the Climategate emails in November 2009 showed how the clerisy was willing to distort evidence and suppress dissenting views in the interest of propagation of the faith.
We have seen how the United Nations agency whose authority we are supposed to respect took an item from an environmental activist group predicting that the Himalayan glaciers would melt in 2350 and predicted that the melting would take place in 2035. No sensible society would stake its economic future on the word of folks capable of such an error.
In recent years we have seen how negative to 2 percent growth hurts many, many people, as compared with what happens with 3 to 7 percent growth. So we're much less willing to adopt policies that will slow down growth not just for a few years but for the indefinite future.
Media, university and corporate elites still profess belief in global warming alarmism, but moves toward policies limiting carbon emissions have fizzled out, here and abroad. It looks like we'll dodge the fate of the Millerites, the children's crusaders and the Mahdi's cavalrymen.
The bluff and bluster of Al Gore certainly doesn’t help their cause.
Why has there not been any tabloid story about why Tipper left Al, after 40 years???
I know Al goes to get those massages, but was Tipper done in by other things? In other words, was Al so involved with Global Warming that he neglected his wife?
Maybe Tipper couldn’t take being lectured by Al about global warming????? It would be interesting to know the real reasons behind their split, and if Al’s devotion to the cause pushed her away.
“MEMOIRS OF EXTRAORDINARY POPULAR DELUSIONS AND THE Madness of Crowds.”
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24518/24518-h/24518-h.htm
By CHARLES MACKAY, LL.D. (published 1852.)
Volume I.
The Mississippi Scheme.
The South-Sea Bubble.
The Tulipomania.
The Alchymists.
Modern Prophecies.
Fortune-Telling.
The Magnetisers.
Influence of Politics and Religion on the Hair and Beard.
Volume II.
The Crusades.
The Witch Mania.
The Slow Poisoners.
Haunted Houses.
Popular Follies of Great Cities.
Popular Admiration of Great Thieves.
Duels and Ordeals.
Relics.
the goal of rich enviro’s
1. to rich themselves at public expense.
2. to control the public.
Not in California. They are going over the cliff - the new Jonestown.
AGW has always been complete idiocy. When you cannot confidently separate natural climate forces vs man made (if any), then you cannot determine which has the most influence and in what direction. That has always been the main reason why I have never bought into this garbage.
Optimistic!
Just this past week we had two articles seemingly attempting to fan the spark AGW has been reduced to back into the flame it was.
One such article claiming authoritively how an “independent” study by a Berkeley group led by some honorable honorary professional professor has discovered there is truth to it all, and that we must all accept AGW as a fact, and persue that which the IPCC has been promoting, OR WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE!!!!!
Then came another article from NASA.........
I didn’t bother reading beyond the first couple of paragraphs of that NASA article as IMO it is obvious the two articles are desperation on the part of the Global Warmists.
THEY are still out there shoveling the bull, and until they put down the shovel we have to be on the alert.
Tagline of yours is right on. Great!
No sensible society would take Money from a successful investor (Warren Buffet) to allow some government bureaucrat (DOE) to invest in Energy Companies.
The reason that the global warming myth doesn’t go away is that there is lots of money to be made and certain principles to be destroyed with this deception.
P T Barnum said it best....there is a sucker born every minute...
It’s both worse and more simple than Barone presents:
These people start out as anti-industrial, population control fanatics, who seek any means to convert the masses to their cause.
Thus they invent and invoke catastrophe to enlist support.
Global warming is entirely political. A chance to put us all in chains.
Thank the Good Lord that common sense finally broke out!
I have never sorted my garbage and never will. One can only think about so many things and I've got much better things to think about.
An apt metaphor. The AGW alarmists are used to the old weapon of MSM lies and spin. That failed miserably against the growing internet response to such, and they still don't know how to overcome our principled resistance.
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