Global Warming: Hysteria Will Prevail Over Science [Updated]

The battle over global warming is over. We lost, "we" meaning skeptics who don't want to jump the gun on expensive and likely useless solutions. There's just no official representative to raise the white flag. Why is the battle lost? Is it based on science or something else? It's the something else. Global warming activists will keep up their rabid attacks until every scientist who doubts them is destroyed and every skeptic is silenced.

Hysteria over global warming: the extent of it, the causes of it, the solutions for it--all credibility issues, have prevailed over reason and cooler heads. It's like a lie about someone's reputation that gets spread so far and so fast that there is no hope of redemption.

If man-made global warming is so real, then why has politics replaced science, why have well-meaning skeptics been demonized, why does liberal media present only one side, and why does this require indoctrination of young people in schools? Like most things, conservatives are going to lose this battle--not for lack of scientific honesty, but because the left totally dedicates itself to radical causes, especially those that cripple capitalism, while the rest of us put our priorities on maintaining responsible jobs and families. They gradually wear us down.

Here are some of the latest efforts to ram global warming's radicalism down our throats. For time reasons, I will provide links and selected quotes from several articles which illustrate this problem. They are found on the next page. It's long, but enjoy.

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The Democrats are making this a priority. Watch President Bush cave in when he gives his State of the Union Address.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, intent on putting global warming atop the Democratic agenda, is...moving to create a special committee to recommend legislation for cutting greenhouse gases.... Pelosi has supported mandatory reductions with specific target dates for achieving them.

Al Gore offered 50,000 free copies of "An Inconvenient Truth" to U.S. schools. This National Science Teachers' Association (NSTA) treaded carefully on this but instructed science teachers on how to get their own free copies through Al Gore's site.

But, one U.S. school system refused to allow the showing of the film to its students. How dare they not agree to indoctrination of young minds!

Some have questioned whether this movie is controversial as defined in our policy. I acknowledged in the meeting that it might be reasonable for someone to think that the movie was not controversial because he or she believes the debate is over.

But I am charged with the tough job of putting my own views aside, wading through the passions and prejudices of others, and making a decision based upon the big picture for what I believe is right. My opinion was that this was controversial on a number of different levels.

Merely looking at this as an issue involving global warming is too simplistic because it involves complex issues created by others beyond my control — i.e., the merging of politics and science.

I am not an atmospheric scientist so I will not venture on their turf, but the global-warming issues include the following: What is the cause of global warming? Do humans contribute to global warming? To what extent? What does the future hold?

We need only to look in our own backyard to find that our official state climatologist and the official Oregon state climatologist agree and disagree on many of the above issues to varying degrees. On some issues, they are polar opposites.

Finally, there are the policy issues. This is where passion and prejudice merge science and politics, with both sides accusing the other of "science faction" (scientific prejudice based upon political views).

Some scientists on both sides have fully immersed themselves in policy blurring the line between science and politics. Politics creates the majority of controversy and that controversy existed before any action by our board. It would have been irresponsible not to recognize this aspect of the movie.

There is also the issue of the long-term effects of opening the door to political partisans to create curriculum-affecting policy issues. Do we really want partisans to have an incentive to go into the business of developing curriculum for our public schools? Where do we draw the line? This is a big-picture issue that gets lost in the shuffle by focusing only on this one movie.

Imagine if an established Republican narrated a movie about global warming. Do you understand the need for following our policy now? My concern would have been the same.

In sum, we simply asked for duly adopted policy to be followed when a political partisan presents a contested political/scientific issue to impressionable youth. I hope that was not too much to ask for.

But, how do journalists report the story? They try to make parents look stupid. How dare a parent want to instill his own values into his children?! Doesn't government know better? No political correctness applies to attacks to some faiths.

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Then the article gets to the gist of what many global warming/Kyoto Treaty lovers believe. This is an attack on the U.S. It's about envy and being against capitalism. Note that China and India get a free pass on this.

Scientists say that Americans, with about 5 percent of the world's population, emit about 25 percent of the globe-warming gases.

But, a national school system in Europe has gotten on with the program.

A generation of environmental activists is set to emerge from Scotland's schools after it was agreed every pupil in the country will hear Al Gore's "powerful message" about the dangers of climate change.

The Scottish Executive announced yesterday - as the former US vice president flew in to Glasgow to address business people, environmentalists and others - that his documentary film An Inconvenient Truth would be shown to secondary school pupils.

Ross Finnie, the environment minister, said he felt the status of Mr Gore would ensure pupils listen to the message of the film, but was sure they would make their own minds up about it.

He dismissed any suggestion that the film was political propaganda, saying there was firm evidence of climate change and that anyone disputing it "has got to be on planet Mars".

Well, as a Martian, I can tell you that global warming has been occurring on that planet, too, without any contribution from mankind. Thankfully, Democrats don't live on Mars.

Then, there is this popular site, RealClimate, for global warming activists that pushes the agenda and makes every excuse and rationalization to support their side and to attack doubters.

"An Inconvenient Truth," the Davis Guggenheim documentary on global warming starring Al Gore's presentation on the subject, provides an accurate, engaging, accessible, thought-provoking and (at times) even humorous introduction to one of the most important scientific issues of our time ( see our review of the movie). In some countries, viewing "An Inconvenient Truth" has actually become a required part of the science curriculum, and with good justification, we think....

One commenter disagreed. There was no objection to showing Gore's film, but there was only a suggestion for balance. See the comment with the response that follows.

Showing Al Gore's piece in tandem with the opposing view would be both useful and stimulating. The best presentation that I have seen from the "non-believers" side is "Climate Catastrophe Cancelled" a 25 minute video (I think that it it also available on DVD) created by the Friends of Science Society in collaberation with the University of Calgary.

[Response by Site Author: What you're suggesting would be about as useful as calling in somebody to show "the other side" of the theory of gravitation. It may indeed be a useful exercise to bring in somebody dressed like Ptolemy and have the students learn why epicycles are a bad idea, but I really don't think it's a particularly efficient way to learn about science. As is also the case for evolution, the "controversy" is purely manufactured. --raypierre]

One commenter got huffy when it was suggested that equal time be given to that other position. He attacked their rationalization without admitting that it was the same as Al Gore's.

As the tobacco industry says, "You've got to get to them when they're young."

Another comment to that post:

Global warming is not a "controversial subject" any more than evolution is a "controversial subject". There is nothing whatsoever "controversial" about the scientific content of An Inconvenient Truth. Those who claim that there is "another side" to this issue -- that there is a "controversy" about the scientific reality of anthropogenic global warming -- are lying, or have been duped by liars. It's as simple as that.

One for our side:

It is funny that a website that supposedly prides itself only scientific objectivity posts an article about the lack of DVD's about global warming getting to students. Al Gore's movie, (and it is his movie, the movie would be nothing without him) is a propaganda hit piece, and should not be shown to anyone under the collegiate level. Younger students lack the ability to see through the propaganda. There could be a new course, Film Propaganda, where An Inconvient Truth is shown with Farienheit 9/11 and Reefer Madness are shown.

Why is Gore's movie propaganda? The first clue is the constant repetition of the scientific "consensus" surrounding global warming. Even if this were true (which it is not) this is a subtle ploy to eliminate debate that its claimaints cannot win. Why? Science is not consensus, but only fact. Facts are not determined by agreement, but through the scientific method. In no part of this method is agreement necessary. Therefore, the only reason that one would claim consensus is to "prove" that their claims were correct, since it would fail the stronger standard derived from the scientific method.

The reply to that is so hypocritical. Considering how global warming supporters connect every dissenting scientist to Exxon or as just being stupid.

With regard to Gore being a "partisan" it is a sad state of affairs when people will ignore a truth just because of who is saying it.

Moving along, do you remember the Union of Atomic Scientists, who were always moving the doomsday clock closer to midnight, usually when they wanted the U.S. to unilaterally destroy its nuclear stockpile during the cold war. Well, they have taken the giant step of including global warming as a major cause of doom. Really.

The news release in the BBC by Molly Bentley entitled “Climate resets ‘Doomsday Clock’" is a disappointing example of the lack of balance in the media (thanks to Eric Harmsen for alerting me to this). The article includes the highlight

“Experts assessing the dangers posed to civilisation have added climate change to the prospect of nuclear annihilation as the greatest threats to humankind.”

The “Clock” is prepared by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists”.

The news release further writes that “Not since the darkest days of the Cold War has the Bulletin, which covers global security issues, felt the need to place the minute hand so close to midnight.”

and

“Growing global nuclear instability has led humanity to the brink of a ‘Second Nuclear Age,’ the group concluded, and the threat posed by climate change is second only to that posed by nuclear weapons.

I'll remember that the next time some liberal accuses me of hyperbole.

The worst attacks by the left against skeptics come in the form of trying to destroy them. Free speech is not allowed in a politically correct world where global warming rules. You won't believe this, but it's true.

The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist is advocating that broadcast meteorologists be stripped of their scientific certification if they express skepticism about predictions of manmade catastrophic global warming. This latest call to silence skeptics follows a year (2006) in which skeptics were compared to "Holocaust Deniers" and Nuremberg-style war crimes trials were advocated by several climate alarmists.

The Weather Channel’s (TWC) Heidi Cullen, who hosts the weekly global warming program "The Climate Code," is advocating that the American Meteorological Society (AMS) revoke their "Seal of Approval" for any television weatherman who expresses skepticism that human activity is creating a climate catastrophe.

Cullen’s call for decertification of TV weatherman who do not agree with her global warming assessment follows a year (2006) in which the media, Hollywood and environmentalists tried their hardest to demonize scientific skeptics of manmade global warming. Scott Pelley, CBS News 60 Minutes correspondent, compared skeptics of global warming to "Holocaust deniers" and former Vice President turned foreign lobbyist Al Gore has repeatedly referred to skeptics as "global warming deniers."

In addition, Cullen’s December 17, 2006 episode of "The Climate Code" TV show, featured a columnist who openly called for Nuremberg-style Trials for climate skeptics. Cullen featured Grist Magazine’s Dave Roberts as an eco-expert opining on energy issues, with no mention of his public call to institute what amounts to the death penalty for scientists who express skepticism about global warming.

Intimidating scientists with calls for death trials, name calling and calls for decertification appears to be the accepted tactics of the climate alarmists. The real question is: Why do climate alarmists feel the need to resort to such low brow tactics when they have a compliant media willing to repeat their every assertion without question.

[Update]

A certified meterologist responds to call for deceertification of skeptics:

Well, well. Some “climate expert” on “The Weather Channel” wants to take away AMS certification from those of us who believe the recent “global warming” is a natural process. So much for “tolerance”, huh?

I have been in operational meteorology since 1978, and I know dozens and dozens of broadcast meteorologists all over the country. Our big job: look at a large volume of raw data and come up with a public weather forecast for the next seven days. I do not know of a single TV meteorologist who buys into the man-made global warming hype. I know there must be a few out there, but I can’t find them. Here are the basic facts you need to know:

*Billions of dollars of grant money is flowing into the pockets of those on the man-made global warming bandwagon. No man-made global warming, the money dries up.

[End of update]

Do you see how global warming activists are forcing people to be quiet about what is obvious? Here's a fable you may remember.

...The people have found out about this extraordinary fabric and they are anxious to see you in your new suit." The Emperor was doubtful showing himself naked to the people, but then he abandoned his fears. After all, no one would know about it except the ignorant and the incompetent.

"All right," he said. "I will grant the people this privilege."

...A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.

"The Emperor is naked," he said.

"Fool!" his father reprimanded, running after him. "Don't talk nonsense!" He grabbed his child and took him away. But the boy's remark, which had been heard by the bystanders, was repeated over and over again until everyone cried:

"The boy is right! The Emperor is naked! It's true!"

The Emperor realized that the people were right but could not admit to that. He though it better to continue the procession under the illusion that anyone who couldn't see his clothes was either stupid or incompetent. And he stood stiffly on his carriage, while behind him a page held his imaginary mantle.

Global warming alarmists are the Emperor. It takes courage for others to stand up for what's right in the face of drummed-up, politically correct support for the opposition. But, too many people don't want to appear stupid, so they go right along with the Emperor and his movement.

It's pretty discouraging, when you consider how far the world has moved on this issue in such a short time. It started as politics--not science--in Kyoto and the mission to attack western economies was so transparent, but not admitted.

But, if you still have some fight in you, here are some sources that can help:
Top Ten Websites for Informed Skeptics

Good luck. The U.S. economy and its workers cannot afford to waste money on global warming proposals without absolute proof that the money will provide an acceptable cost/benefits result. Even more important, the limited resources we have must be allocated to the greatest uses. I believe that medical research and education are greater and proven uses of those funds that might be taken.

With this inspiration, we can not give up and must continue to fight for honesty with the passion of Bluto in Animal House:

Over? Did you say "over"? Nothing is over until we decide it is! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! And it ain't over now. 'Cause when the goin' gets tough...the tough get goin'! Who's with me? Let's go!

Maybe it's not over.

Meanwhile, in other global warming news:
Snow Falls In West LA, Malibu