I knew long before I published my very first commentary online that I was inviting insults – not only to my intelligence, but also to my very being.
Which, incidentally, is why my heart goes out to all of the kids whose online chats, pictures, observations, etc., incited such degrading and dehumanizing abuse (aka bullying) that they killed themselves. I just wish those kids could have seen the abuse some of my commentaries incited. This might have made them feel better about themselves.
At any rate, none of my commentaries have incited more abuse than those on global warming. Mind you, I’m not referring to ignorant comments made by anonymous (i.e., cowardly) trolls who get off on littering the Internet with irrelevant snark. Instead, my abusers, in this case, were mostly scientists, politicians, and/or environmentalists with a vested interest in propagating/proselytizing the gospel of global warming.
Even so, their abuse was so degrading and dehumanizing that I decided to publish what I thought would be “My Final Word on Global Warming” on August 8, 2006. (A form of intellectual suicide, I suppose.) Except that, as new developments continually vindicated my initial take on this global debate, I could not resist the urge to say to my self-righteous critics, “I told you so.”
As it happens, I’ve had many occasions since 2006 to say so – as a simple search here of the term “global warming” (or “climate change” – their CYA term) will attest. Today is another such occasion.
For your information and some context, though, here’s the unassailable way I have proffered my take on global warming from day one:
I am convinced that all of the preaching about global warming is just hot air. Of course the planet is getting warmer (although only by a sweltering 1°F every 100 years … ouch?). Moreover, I have no doubt that humans (especially Americans) are marginally to blame. But I also have no doubt that this warming is simply due to natural climate variations (i.e., a cyclical phenomenon).
(“My Final Word on Global Warming,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 8, 2006)
Please note that I did not deny, and have never denied, the existence of global warming. I have only ever argued that, to the extent it exists, it is a cyclical phenomenon – as a subsequent commentary, “Global Cooling? Yes!” The iPINIONS Journal, October 21, 2008, will attest.
But here’s an excerpt from one other commentary, just to show that I gave as good as I got where my critics were concerned:
After the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) published a report last Friday, which zealous environmentalists are now touting as ‘the final word on global warming,’ I felt obliged to respond…
The way the findings in this report are being proselytized begs allusions to the Holy Bible. It is ironic, though, that some environmental scientists (including Dr. Tim Ball – Chairman of the Natural Resources Stewardship and Dr. Richard Lindzen – Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) are dismissing this IPCC report with the same intellectual derision with which some secular humanists dismiss the Bible…
Believers in global warming are uninformed, fad-obsessed herds being (mis)led by a cadre of myopic media and political elite… I could not be more indignant at rich environmentalists who seek absolution for their environmental sins by ‘purchasing carbon credits’ in the same spirit with which Catholics once sought absolution for their moral sins by purchasing Papal indulgences.
I fear, however, that the IPCC will only be redeemed if melting ice caps defy God’s Rainbow Covenant and cause another flood of Biblical proportions. In the meantime, these revelations [about researchers manipulating scientific data to give credence to global-warming theories] should compel the Nobel Committee to revoke the IPCC’s, as well as Al Gore’s, Nobel Prize….
(“Climate Change: As Much Fraud as Junk Science,” The iPINIONS Journal, February 2, 2010)
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Alas, with the ice caps now re-freezing, that redemption might be generations away.
Given all that, here’s the cause for my latest, I told you so.
A chilly Arctic summer has left nearly a million more square miles of ocean covered with ice than at the same time last year – an increase of 60 per cent.
The rebound from 2012’s record low comes six years after the BBC reported [in 2007] that global warming would leave the Arctic ice-free in summer by 2013.
Instead, days before the annual autumn re-freeze is due to begin, an unbroken ice sheet more than half the size of Europe already stretches from the Canadian islands to Russia’s northern shores…
(Daily Mail, September 8, 2013)
But let me hasten to clarify that I have no common cause with right-wing, Bible-thumping nutters who deny global warming with the same religious fervor with which they deny evolution. Instead, here’s an illustration of what animates my disdain for holier-than-thou global warmers:
To hear most of these rich folks lamenting about the depletion of the ozone, the increasing gap between haves and have nots, and the almost criminal waste of non-renewable energy, one would think they jet-pooled to Davos on ethanol-fueled airplanes; whereas they all flew in on gas-guzzling, air-polluting private jets.
(“More CO2 than Solutions at World Economic Forum,” The iPINIONS Journal, January 29, 2007)
Not to mention the hypocrisy inherent in rich folks – who live in air-conditioned, energy-hoarding mansions, lecturing poor folks – who live in non-electric, ramshackle huts, about burning “ozone-depleting” coal to fuel their subsistence living.
Related commentaries:
Final word on global warming…
As much fraud as junk science
More than solutions…