Know the Past and Understand the Future

Excerpts from this piece by meteorologist Art Horn:

...Global warming was not exactly new. There had been magazine articles dating back to the late 80’s warning that humans were adding too much carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases to the atmosphere and this could cause long term warming and big problems. But the whole thing never really caught fire until the early 2000’s. Part of the reason for this was the need for another crisis. With the shocking impact of 911 mostly gone or fading and the ensuing war in Afghanistan and then Iraq over on the other side of the world there was a void to be filled here in the USA. To fill that hole more and more stories about this global warming thing began to appear. The beauty of the story was that it could be pulled from the right field bullpen at any time the starting pitcher (the daily news stories) began to weaken.

Add to this an ex vice president that was stomping the county with a slide show predicting that the ice caps were going to melt, sea level was going to flood cities, polar bears were dying. That just helped to reinforce the whole storyline. Environmental groups did not let the opportunity to capitalize on the global warming phenomena pass by either. The environmental websites were all ringing the global warming alarm bells louder and louder. After all these organizations are all about saving the planet from ourselves, who better to lead the way to a greener future free from global warming than them? These groups need money to carry out their mission just like other companies do. If you could ring the global alarms loud enough people might feel compelled to donate to these environmental groups to save the planet.

It all came to a head when our former vice president made a movie. It is of course is called “An Inconvenient Truth”. The film was truly inspirational, despite the numerous errors, half truths and scientific omissions. It inspired those who do not believe that climate change is caused by human activity to speak up and be heard. I don’t think this is what Al had in mind. Thousands of scientists around the world are making their opinions known, mostly through the internet. It has been difficult to get much air time or print space due to the fact that the media is committed to selling the scary story of global warming Armageddon. Remember the way to get the ratings up and sell more newspapers and magazines is to tell a scary story. What’s a mass murderer to a newspaper man? A man who sells newspapers of course! Global warming fits the formula very nicely if you can craft the tale properly. Don’t get me wrong here, there is nothing wrong with telling a scary story or selling newspapers or getting better ratings, that is business and we all need our businesses to do better. That is called growth and that is the American way.