I published “Global Warming or Just Hot Air” on February 16, 2005—almost 10 years ago. In it I maintained that:
Global warming (and cooling) are natural phenomena that have occurred in cycles since the beginning of time.
But, for a more updated and authoritative proffer, consider this from Patrick Moore, PhD, the co-founder of environmental pioneer Greenpeace:
There is no scientific proof of man-made climate change, a co-founder of Greenpeace told a committee of the U.S. Senate [on February 25, 2014], rebutting claims made by environmental activists, prominent politicians, and a steady stream of media reports of a nearly unanimous ‘consensus’ among scientists about ‘overwhelming’ evidence that man-made emissions of greenhouse gases — mainly carbon dioxide — are responsible for global warming.
‘There is no scientific proof that human emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) are the dominant cause of the minor warming of the Earth’s atmosphere over the past 100 years,’ Patrick Moore said.
(The New American, February 27, 2017)
That said, I have written far too many commentaries on this topic to count. Unfortunately, they’ve done little more than lump me together with the “heretics” trying to temper increasing alarms about climate change with calming facts about environmental protection and conservation.
Therefore, on behalf of all proud heretics in this respect, let me hasten to clarify: We acknowledge climate change as a fact but hardly an existential threat. We simply maintain that there are many “Global Priorities Bigger than Climate Change” – as the critically acclaimed Danish environmentalist, Professor Bjorn Lomborg, proffered in his now seminal TED talk in 2005.
Mind you, since the beginning of time, the planet has demonstrated a remarkable ability to save itself – despite natural and man-made catastrophes. This is why we’ve been urging its self-appointed and meddlesome guardians (like Al Gore) to limit their efforts to more sensible and urgent causes, like the fight to end global poverty.
Unfortunately, nothing demonstrates what little impact we’ve had quite like the hundreds of thousands who took to the streets of New York City on Sunday for what, according to reports, was the “largest climate change protest in history.”
More than 300,000 protesters — movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Mark Ruffalo among them — turned up the heat Sunday on world leaders delaying global action on climate change…
Scores of celebrities and elected officials joined the huge gathering in advance of Tuesday’s climate summit at the UN. Drums and horns echoed through Midtown, and protesters chanted ‘There’s no planet B!’ and waved colorful signs with messages like ‘Cook organic not the planet’ and ‘Don’t frack with us!’
(New York Daily News, September 22, 2014)
The reason we’ve had so little impact is that the alarmists have demonstrated a deft and stubborn ability to defy facts and, failing that, to fudge them.
Most notably, they rebranded “global warming” to climate change when the inconvenient truth of re-freezing polar ice caps indicated that, far from global warming, the planet was entering another “cycle” of global cooling. I duly commented on this phenomenon in “Return of the Polar Ice Caps. I Told You So!” September 12, 2013.
Then, of course, there was the notorious “climategate,” which had prominent scientists manipulating their findings to justify their hot air about global warming, um, er, climate change. I duly commented on this political ploy in “Climate Change: as Much Fraud as Junk Science…?” February 2, 2010.
Most disturbing of all, however, is the pharisaic sanctimony proselytizing prophets of climate change have exhibited over the years. For, on the one hand, they continually breathe fire of damnation on anyone who refuses to say “Amen” to their alarmist gospel; while on the one hand, they do more to contribute to climate change (with their gas-guzzling private jets and fancy cars, to say nothing of their electricity-hording mansions) than entire populations of some poor countries.
I could not be more indignant at rich environmentalists who seek absolution for their environmental sins by ‘purchasing carbon credits or offsets’ in the same spirit with which Catholics once sought absolution for their moral sins by purchasing Papal indulgences.
(“Mother Nature Makes UN Report on Global Warming seem Like a Flaming Hoax,” The iPINIONS Journal, April 12, 2007)
This latter point was brought into comic relief during Sunday’s march, when a reporter cornered celebrated climate-change activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and asked whether he’s prepared to give up his car, phone, private jet and other luxuries – all of which cause him to leave one of the biggest carbon footprints of any human on the planet. His response?
I do not believe we have to reduce our quality of life in order to … stop the use of carbon … to divorce ourselves from a fuel that’s destroying the planet.
(Daily Mail, September 22, 2014)
A little defensive, don’t you think? And rightly so; after all, this is the same guy who preaches to poor people from South America to Africa and Asia about the environmental sins of burning the carbon-emitting fossil fuels they use, in open fires, to cook their food and keep themselves warm. Unbelievable!
But don’t get me started on those, like the Rockefellers, who pat themselves on the back for divesting from companies that profit off fossil fuels (think oil and gas) to invest in those now developing renewable ones (think solar and geothermal).
John D. Rockefeller built a vast fortune on oil. Now his heirs are abandoning fossil fuels.
The family whose legendary wealth flowed from Standard Oil is planning to announce on Monday that its $860 million philanthropic organization, the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, is joining the divestment movement that began a couple years ago on college campuses.
(New York Times, September 21, 2014)
To put this Saul-of-Tarsus financial conversion into perspective, just imagine the hypocrisy inherent in the Whites-only Augusta National Golf Club of the 1980s making quite a show of announcing that it was heeding calls (from students on college campuses … like mine) to divest from all companies doing business in Apartheid South Africa….
In any event, apropos of hypocrisy, hundreds of thousands marching in New York, one of the most CO2-emitting cities in the world, to protest climate change, is rather like hundreds of thousands marching in Abu Dhabi, one of the richest cities in the world, to protest the growing gap between the rich and poor.
More to the point, though, it’s an indication of how thoroughly discredited climate-change alarmists have become that, despite hyping this NYC protest as if the survival of the planet depended on it, the mainstream media completely ignored it as just another stunt by Chicken-Little nutters.
It seems climate change remains one potentially world-shattering issue that just can’t get any respect on television. No Sunday morning show except MSNBC’s Up so much as mentioned climate change, or the march. NBC Nightly News was the only evening news show to do any segment on it. (ABC devoted about 23 seconds to the topic in its evening show, and CBS [the most climate-change friendly network] spent exactly zero seconds on it.)
(Huffington Post, September 22, 2014)
To be fair, social media provided viral coverage of this march to combat the hazy and potential danger posed by man-made climate change. But I referred above to the “radical” notion of prioritizing global problems. Therefore, perhaps this was just a rare occasion when, instead of aping viral trends on social media, the mainstream media thought it was more important to provide coverage of global efforts to combat the clear and present danger posed by man-made terrorism, which is killing tens of thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands more.
Indeed, it’s noteworthy that the exploits of one al-Qaeda spawn, ISIS, have relegated climate change from the main course to a side dish for this week’s gabfest at the 69th Annual UN General Assembly, which of course is also being held in New York City.
Even so, it’s an indication of how insidious and self-important the prophets of climate-change doom are that they are not only trying to get the UN to cater to their global priority, but have actually gotten the UN to appoint actor Leonardo DiCaprio as a “Messenger of Peace with a focus on climate change.” I kid you not. Perhaps the UN should send him to deliver his first message to ISIS to see how that goes….
By the way, there’s going to be a lot of talk this week about forging binding agreement among all nations of the General Assembly to combat climate change. But here in a nutshell is why all efforts to do so will amount to, well, hot air:
The Chinese, whose participation in this cause is indispensable, have no more regard for environmental prophecies about global warming than atheist have for religious prophecies about Armageddon. This is why, even though they’ll talk about combating climate change, as Chinese President Hu Jintao did in Beijing at a joint press performance with Obama yesterday, they will never sign on to any binding global treaty.
(“Critical Copenhagen Treaty on Climate Change Goes Up in Smoke,” The iPINIONS Journal, November 19, 2009)
Nothing validates my five-year old prescience in this respect quite like the leader not just of China, but of the equally indispensable India too, boycotting today’s UN summit to negotiate terms for that still elusive binding agreement on climate change.
Finally, I’ve ended a number of commentaries by promising “this is my final word on global warming.” In this respect, I’m rather like smokers who keep promising to quit (emitting their carcinogenic smoke into the atmosphere). What can I say, I’m addicted to the challenge of trying to inject common sense into the irrational debate on climate change – as “Rupert Murdoch Endorses My “Third Way” on Climate Change,” July 22, 2014, will attest.
Related commentaries:
Global warming…
Return of polar ice…
Climate change…
Murdoch…