Your government officials at work
The Obama administration is nothing if not fashionably in tune with the campus orthodoxy of the moment. Here are some thoughts from the US Energy Secretary, of all people:
“I think the Caribbean countries face rising oceans and they face increase in the severity of hurricanes. This is something that is very, very scary to all of us. The island states in the world represent — I remember this number — one-half of 1 percent of the carbon emissions in the world. And they will — some of them will disappear…
(sea levels) could go up as much as three-quarters of a meter in this century, but there is a reasonable probability it could be much higher than that…Lots of area in Florida will go under. New Orleans at three-meter height is in great peril. If you look at, you know, the Bay Area, where I came from, all three airports would be under water. So this is — this is serious stuff. The impacts could be enormous”
The administration’s science adviser sings from the same hymnal of course. What will they do if the trend of global cooling continues?
Britain still might be a little ahead of us in the inanity department, however. Their fashionable scientists say things like this: “We need to be doing a lot more to reverse the global trend toward fatness, and recognize it as a key factor in the battle to reduce (carbon) emissions and slow climate change”…
April 21st, 2009 at 2:12 am
The underlying attitude here is totalitarian. This guy pretty much nails it:
Somewhere, Mencken is not surprised:
And then there are the Earth Without People people:
I’m baffled. I have no idea of how to communicate with someone who thinks this way.
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I don’t know if the climate is warming, cooling or trendlessly fluctuating, or whether anthropogenic warming and natural cooling are offsetting each other. IMHO the proper long-term recourse is geoengineering–reversible geoengingeering, thank you very much–, and I support research into such proposals even when the motivation seems half-cocked.
April 21st, 2009 at 2:32 am
Afterthought. Jack asks:
I don’t think it matters to the heavyweight players. Their objective is to get the command economy in place.
They might sacrifice a few scapegoats, but the one thing they wouldn’t do is relinquish control. On the contrary, if they turn out to be dead wrong and their measures exacerbate a cooling trend, the “planetary emergency” will be that much greater.
When the government screws up, the first thing it does is to demand more power. The ploy usually works.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:01 am
A few links which sicken my heart today…
The little known killing fields of Jews (h/t, Jungleman)
Gummint may try to convert TARP funds to equity. No wonder they don’t want to let the banks return the money.
It is scientific misconduct. No doubt about it. It’s politicized "scien…
April 21st, 2009 at 11:10 am
What will they do if the trend of global cooling continues?
They’ll take credit for it. That’s why they’re in a panic now to get their program implemented, so that it’ll be running by the time the scientific data for cooling becomes overwhelming. Then they’ll be able to say, “See? It worked! And that’s why we need to continue it forever!”
April 21st, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Steven Den Beste, you nail it, but if that doesn’t happen I can see a rewrite happening to the research. I remember reading about CO2 in the early 1970s in HS. Back then they were unsure if CO2 would trap heat and cause the ‘Greenhouse effect’ or if it would reflect sunlight back into space, cooling the planet. So if the planet continues to cool I can see the story changing to CO2 causing the planet to cool. Either way we will continue to be told to cut CO2 use. A great scam, eh? Heads they win, tails we lose.