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Against global warming fanaticism
The enviro-fascists among us have cause for alarm. In recent media, story after story has been released about how global warming alarmists have exaggerated their claims, manipulated data, conspired to hide their methods from critical scientists and personally profited from their radical claims. The result: The American public now takes the idea that we face an imminent threat from rising global temperatures as seriously as the 2012 Mayan Calendar predictions of world annihilation, and the environmentalists have only themselves to blame.
Since its inception, global warming fanaticism has had nothing to offer the world but lower economic growth, guilt trips, alarmism, regulations and infringements on personal liberties. It is now clear that the carbon-regulated world desired by green advocates will never be a reality, and that their efforts to force their carbon-friendly environmental practices down the throats of the Washington University community are an utter waste of time and resources.
The real wake-up call for most Americans was the release of the Climategate e-mails. These e-mails, obtained by enterprising young hackers, showed scientists lamenting their inability to account for periods which lacked warming and conspiring to keep data out of the hands of skeptics. This sort of conniving is bad enough for the PR of the global warming movement, but things get worse when it has been shown that supporters of the movement have been propagating outright falsities.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the UN’s panel on climate change, has recently been caught verifying several wild exaggerations. First, the IPCC made the claim that the Himalayan glaciers would disappear by 2035, causing major ecological crises in the region. Next, the panel stated that up to 40 percent of the rainforests were in jeopardy due to increasing temperatures. Neither of these claims ended up being the product of peer-reviewed science research, but rather, of off-hand comments made in environmentalist magazines. Nonetheless, these propaganda pieces were allowed to have major effects on the public policy debate.
Loading ...Furthermore, a series of inconvenient conflicts of interest have been revealed throughout the global warming alarmist community. Recent allegations have arisen that Dr. Rejendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, has held paid positions on various committees of financial institutions. While he claims that he donates all proceeds to his personal charity foundation, the lack of a conflict-of-interest policy for the IPCC panel leaves many wondering whose interests Dr. Pachauri is representing. Meanwhile, our friend Al Gore, owner of a private jet and one of the largest energy consumers in the state of Tennessee, has made millions from his global warming activism and from his personal carbon-credit company which he pushes as a solution to climate change. Right here in Missouri, the recipient of very lucrative tax credits to promote wind energy is none other than Tom Carnahan, brother of Congressman Russ and Secretary of State Robin. Major global warming and alternative energy advocates have been consistently proven to be interested in more than “cleaner” energy.
Whatever faith people had in climate change activists has long since evaporated. Yet, the goals of the fervent environmentalists never really had a chance of becoming law to begin with. As the Kyoto and Copenhagen climate summits demonstrate, it turns out that China and India are uninterested in sacrificing the sort of economic growth we have enjoyed in the United States in exchange for a vague promise of a potentially cooler climate in the distant future of generations not yet conceived. We can learn from the utter failure of the Cap and Tax Scheme in Congress that most Americans, already struggling with high energy costs, are unmoved by arguments stating that we need to be the first to sacrifice our lifestyle in an effort to reduce the world’s temperatures.
The possibility for global climate change legislation, if there ever was such a possibility, should be considered an idea as dead as the phlogistic theory of fire. So you can give us back our bottled water, cut out the local food fetish, take the propaganda off the garbage cans and let me wash my hands without being lectured about sustainability. These small changes come only from a desire to annoy and control other individuals, not from any sincere belief that they will have the slightest effect on the future of our global climate. I have no desire to partake in the religious conviction that we all must do a little part to change the climate regardless of the realities of global politics. Yet, I do understand others’ desire to participate in what they consider to be a moral obligation. Might I recommend you start by recycling the Obama stickers you all have on your cars? You probably won’t be needing those again anyways.
Phil is a sophomore in Arts & Sciences. He can be reached via e-mail at [email protected].