Friday, February 29, 2008

Environmentalist Craziness On Parade

Here are two stories that reveal the craziness of environmentalist wackos.

Marc Sheppard reports on the latest from the fringe greenies in Australia: not even a wholesale switch to hybrid cars and 'green' light bulbs will be enough to save the planet:

"Based on the latest science, the report warns that the world is speeding towards more dangerous levels of climate change than previously thought, levels that are a byproduct of increasing carbon dioxide emissions that are a consequence of unexpectedly high growth in the world economy, particularly China. This, [Garnaut] suggests, renders the Bali framework for tackling climate change inadequate and means that emission cuts will have to be deeper, and sooner. If nothing is done, it will be to the greater cost to Australia, and the world."

Never mind the fact that the latest science actually says:

Following a rapid rise between 1978 and 1998 corresponding to exceptionally high solar activity, global temperatures were flat between 1998 and 2006 and the planet has just experienced its coldest January in 15 years. China is suffering through its coldest winter in 100 years, the same winter which saw the first snow ever recorded falling on Baghdad.  Antarctic ice is currently at record levels.  New Englanders are digging out nonstop from record snowfall.  And similar signs of a cooling trend are being reported worldwide.

As I've said before, environmentalists don't appear to be willing to let facts derail their hysteria about man-made global warming.  No matter what we do, it won't be enough.  Take a look at what
Monash University Associate Professor Damon Honnery says:

"Our calculations show that not even the best combination of fuel efficiency, hybrid and electric cars, alternative fuels and car pooling could provide the reductions needed to meet the 2050 targets for avoiding dangerous climatic change."

That's right, you need to give up your Prius altogether.  Oh, and there's one more thing...
Dr. Patrick Moriarty, one of Honnery's colleagues, adds the following:

"An overseas trip might become a once-in-a-lifetime experience rather than an annual event."

Basically, you need to go back to living in the 1700s if you want to 'save' the planet.  How's that sound to you?

This next story is a perfect example of how global warming is not about the evidence.  John Fund writes at the Wall Street Journal about how Clinton, Obama, and McCain all have announced plans to implement ambitious global warming legislation when they get into the White House.  On top of that, lots of other groups (and the general public) has hopped on the bandwagon to 'fix' global warming.  Fund says:

You'd think this would be a rich time for debate on the issue of climate change. But it's precisely as sweeping change on climate policy is becoming likely that many people have decided the time for debate is over. One writer puts climate change skeptics "in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial," another envisions "war crimes trials" for the deniers. And during the tour for his film "An Inconvenient Truth," Al Gore himself belittled "global warming deniers" as unworthy of any attention.

The perfect example is the reaction to Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg's latest book, "Cool It," which calls for a reasoned debate on global warming.  "[H]e has infuriated environmentalists by saying it is necessary to debate 'whether hysterical and head-long spending on extravagant CO2-cutting programs at an unprecedented price is the only possible response.'"

And Lomborg even begins the book by saying he believes in manmade global warming!

So, you have such a rabid belief in man-made global warming out there that these nuts will even turn on one of their own when he suggests simply looking at the evidence and holding an intelligent discussion about that evidence.  This is not science, it is pseudo-religion!

Next week, there is a gathering in New York of some big-time international scientists, economists and policy experts who dissent from the "consensus" that climate change requires radical measures.  The gathering will discuss the latest scientific, economic and political research on climate change.  Since it's a reasoned debate about evidence, and since it goes against the consensus, my bet is you won't hear a peep about it in the MSM.  Environmentalists should be excited about this legitimate forum in which to debate their ideas and proposals, but they have apparently black-listed it instead.

Proving once again that facts are pesky things, and they have no place in the global warming debate.

There's my two cents.

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