By Selwyn Duke
At one time some would call
them “deniers.” The more generous called
them “skeptics.” But now, increasingly,
it appears that they can be called something else: sane. Yes, the climate has certainly changed.
Even in the mainstream media, the less liberal organs are waking up. There is now a never-ending barrage of articles on the climate scam, with The Washington Times, The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post firing some recent salvos. And these inconvenient truths are just adding to a case against the Climateers that has become dizzying.
Really, those issuing Chicken
Little warnings had a tough sell from the get-go. We’re told that our world has seen at least
five major ice ages, but, then again, I’ve also heard four. It has experienced numerous minor ones, although
I’m not sure anyone knows precisely how many.
In fact, we hear that the pattern is to have 100,000-year glacial
periods followed by 12,000-year interglacials, with1500-year cycles of warming
and cooling embedded within them. We’re
told that during part of the Cryogenian
Period — otherwise known as “Snowball Earth” — the world was completely
blanketed with snow and ice and that during another period, glaciers were
almost or completely gone. Furthermore,
we’re informed that during the latter there was still, believe it or not, dry
land and creatures to tread upon it.
But the creature called man has
the capacity to worry, and worry he does.
He worried about global cooling in the 1970s and then later about global
warming. Then it became “climate
change.” He worried about causing rising
seas, even though we know that the ocean around Florida was once 300 feet lower
and at another time 100 feet higher. He
worried that CO2 — a naturally occurring gas necessary for life and conducive
to plant growth (which is why botanists pump it into greenhouses) — would spell
our end. Never mind how it’s said that
C02-level changes follow temperature
changes, not the reverse. A hypothesis
needed its data.
Then, oh, boy, did we hear
about that data. First there was
Climategate, with emails showing that “scientists” had schemed to suppress
inconvenient truths and had refused to comply with the Freedom of Information
Act. Then came the admission that the
U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was dead wrong about
Himalayan ice melt. And other shoes have
dropped as well. Remember the IPCC
warning that climate change could cause the loss of 40 percent of the Amazon
Rainforest? It was based on a report by
an advocacy group, the World Wildlife Fund, that misrepresented a study. Then we learned of other notable IPCC sources
as well, such as a student’s Master’s dissertation and a sporting magazine.
Next, notorious University of
East Anglia head and central Climategate figure Phil Jones may not yet be
starting to sing truly, but he is at least singing a different tune. He now admits that the Medieval Warm Period
might have been toastier than today, meaning that current temperatures “would
not be unprecedented.” To those of us
who vaguely remember stories about dinosaurs and Mesozoic CO2 levels 5 to 10
times today’s and temperatures 11 to 22 degrees greater, this isn’t exactly
earth-shattering. Jones also admits that
there has been no “statistically significant” warming since 1995, something that,
when asserted mere months ago, got one branded a flat-earther. In addition, he now says that the Gorelesque
view that “The debate is over” is “not my view.” Interestingly, though, he never made this
known until he was caught green-handed.
Then we heard how the 6000
weather stations that collected temperature data had mysteriously been reduced
to 1500 and that those eliminated just happened to be in cooler regions. As for examples of those used, journalist Wesley
Pruden writes,
“Several were located near air-conditioning units and on waste-treatment
plants; one was next to a waste incinerator. Still another was built at Rome's
international airport and catches the hot exhaust of taxiing jetliners.” That’s almost as bad as positioning one in
front of Al Gore’s mouth.
But, hey, while the Chicken
Little Climateers had a tough sell, they had the Government-Media-Academia-Entertainment
Axis on their side and a tight little theory.
If it got warmer, it was man’s fault.
If it got cooler, it was man’s fault.
If it got warmer in places it was cooler and cooler in places it was
warmer, it was man’s fault. If the
weather became more volatile, it was man’s fault. The only thing that could have disproven
their theory was if the weather stayed precisely the same henceforth, anywhere
and everywhere. Of course, this actually
would be unprecedented.
The Climateers, however, can
change as quickly as what they claim to care about. For example, robbed of settled-science
sleight-of-hand, MIT climate scientist Kerry Emanuel now states, “We do not
have the luxury of waiting for scientific certainty [before acting]. . . .”
Ah, that’s the ticket. Before we had to do something because of
certainty; now we have to do something because of uncertainty.
Well, my head is spinning. Trying to process all these twists and turns,
its interior has become a hodge-podge of information resembling Phil
Jones’ office.
Yet, amidst this exposition of
fact and exposure of fiction, one point never changes: We have been had. And one question remains: Will justice be
done?
Let us be clear on the gravity
of the Climateers’ crime: They have used billions of our tax money to fund
fraudulent science. And why?
For the purposes of promoting
policies that would steal billions more.
And what happens now? Do they just get to say “oops” and slink
away?
Unfortunately, this prospect is
better than what may actually happen, as the Climateers may very well be able
to wait out the current storm. Take Phil
Jones, for instance. Although little
more than a criminal with a science degree, he is avoiding a criminal
investigation because it’s too late under the law to prosecute. Moreover, he has not been fired from his
position as head of the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Sciences Unit; he
has merely stepped aside temporarily. And
while recent revelations that he was contemplating
suicide may evoke sympathy in some, cry me a rising ocean. If you’re a good man with the courage of your
convictions, you don’t think about ending it all upon meeting opposition; as
Kipling said, you rather “trust yourself when all men doubt you, but make
allowance for their doubting too . . . .”
No, Jones is better explained by Sir Walter Scott and something about a
“tangled web.” His is the depression of a
man who has been living a lie and now, as some slings and arrows come his way,
doesn’t even have the might born of being right to sustain him. Yet, if I may offer some unsolicited counsel,
suicide is no solution, Dr. Jones. The
answer is to become a better man, come clean and make amends.
Then there is the deafeningly
silent Al Gore, who, just as Punxsutawney Phil did after seeing his shadow Feb.
2, seems to have scurried into a hole. Will
he, like the reluctant rodent, emerge again when the climate changes? Will he rise again along with the mercury as
the weather warms and memories fade?
Along with many other
hucksters, such as IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri, these men make Bernie Madoff
look like a piker. And what recourse do
we, the victims, have? Well, here are a
few suggestions.
First, we need to adopt an
aggressive stance. We should cast from
office any politician who facilitated the climate-change fraud. Next, we need to press for criminal
investigations into and charges against Climateers whenever possible. And, when such a remedy isn’t, we should
resort to civil-court action when feasible.
Lastly, just as Senator Ben
Nelson was driven
from a pizza shop by angry patrons after finagling the cornhusker kickback,
the Climateers should be treated as pariahs and not allowed a moment’s
rest. Some may say this is out of
bounds, but scorn and ostracism are powerful corrective forces. Besides, if the law cannot hold these elites
to account, the peasants with pitchforks must step into the breach.
Of course, the Climateers don’t
really fear this, as they take the peasants for serfs. Let’s just hope they’re as wrong about this
as they are about their science.
