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A cynic's view of global warming
Speaking at the New York venue of the Live Earth concert event, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attacked those who don't believe that global warming is being increased by human activity. More sober minded people would not make such outlandish statements even when on stage with less sober minded rock stars. While RFK Jr. singled out politicians and villainous companies, the charge of treason has been directed against all nonbelieving global warming infidels by others who insist humanity is killing the planet. I confess…I do not believe that human activity is increasing global warming. To paraphrase Patrick Henry's call for independence, "If believing that global warming is part of a natural cycle of global warming and cooling makes me a traitor, then let them make the most of it." Other global warming zealots are calling for population control. According to the Canadian magazine Western Standard, one of my favorite magazines, a British environmental thinktank believes that large families should be discouraged. Quoting a May 7th, 2007 London Times article, the Optimum Population Trust (OPT) issued a report that said, "Having large families should be frowned upon as an environmental misdemeanor in the same way as frequent longhaul flights, driving a big car and failing to reuse plastic bags." With three kids and an SUV, I suppose I am also guilty of misdemeanors. Other global warming believers are less severe when it comes to children, but no less committed to taking action to stop global warming by implementing major regulatory policies. For instance, the California Legislature has introduced a bill to ban incandescent light bulbs. Apparently, dimming the lights will help reduce global warming. Those of us who are guilty of non-belief can take some consolation in the fact that we will not hang alone. According to a Rasmussen poll taken following the Live Earth concerts, less than half of Americans (46 percent) believe human activity is the primary cause of global warming and 43 percent think it is part of a natural cycle or some other cause. There was also some bad news - the Rasmussen poll reported that 24 percent of Americans actually consider Al Gore an expert on global warming. Real certified experts on climate change are known as scientists and climatologists, not politicians or celebrities. Among these recognized experts, there is serious disagreement about the role of human activity versus natural trends related to global warming. There is even disagreement over whether the planet is becoming warmer or heading into a cooling phase as some scientists are now predicting. As some of you may recall, in the early 1970s an alarm was sounded when preeminent scientists predicted that the earth was in a catastrophic cooling phase. In fact, an article in the April 28, 1975 edition of Newsweek magazine said, "There are ominous signs that the Earth's weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production." The Newsweek article continued, "The evidence in support of these predictions has now begun to accumulate so massively that meteorologists are hard-pressed to keep up with it." That sounds a lot like Newsweek believed there was a consensus among scientists that global cooling was an absolute certainty. As with global warming, human activity was identified as a possible cause of global cooling. A June 24, 1974 article in Time magazine cited University of Wisconsin climatologist Reid A. Bryson and other climatologists as suggesting "…that dust and other particles released into the atmosphere as a result of farming and fuel burning may be blocking more and more sunlight from reaching and heating the surface of the earth." In other words, instead of human activity causing global warming, human activity was causing or contributing to global cooling. It is also interesting that today's global warming alarmists warn that rising global temperatures will melt the Artic ice cap while in the 70s, some climate scientists were suggesting melting the Artic ice cap as a way to combat global cooling. Thankfully, there was no Cool Earth concert to raise awareness about the need to melt the Artic ice cap to prevent a world-wide global cooling environmental catastrophe. The bottom line is that fear sells and is often the tool of choice for people with an agenda. Global warming zealots can put on their headdresses made of organically grown leaves, dance around an unlit light bulb while chanting environmental slogans all night long. Eventually, the light of day will break and everyone will see that all they were doing was dancing in the dark.
Gary Palmer is president of the Alabama Policy Institute, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
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