Here are three headlines from the January 19 edition of my local daily newspaper.
“A mercurial winter whipsaws the nation.”
“Fiercest storms in years batter northern Europe.”
“Pelosi creates panel on global warming.”
Thus, on the same day in the same newspaper, the Associated Press, reflecting the fact that it is winter, a period known for cold and blustery weather, noted that, “The storms were among the most brutal to belt northern Europe in years” in one story.
In another, it noted that, “If anyone should be able to time a getaway during what’s been a bizarrely balmy winter, you’d think it would be America’s weather forecasters. So how to explain the conditions confronted this week by members of the American Meteorological Society who packed short sleeves for their annual convention in normally mild San Antonio—icicles dripping from the rails, sleet falling from the skies and a biting chill in the air?”
On the same day, the AP reported that “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi created a special committee yesterday in an effort to jump-start long-delayed government efforts to deal with global warming.” The panel, one that is guaranteed to be packed with folks devoted to scaring the pants off of everyone, is expected to “recommend legislation on how to reduce greenhouse gases, primarily carbon dioxide generated by fossil fuels, that most scientists blame for a gradual warming of the earth’s climate.”
The problem with this last story is that “most scientists” understand the difference between a theory or hypothesis and peer-reviewed findings that prove or disprove such theories, even if the reporter does not.
Moreover, if the members of the American Meteorological Society could not predict the weather in San Antonio when they picked that city in which to meet, why should anyone believe that they or climatologists can predict what the weather will be ten, twenty, fifty or a hundred years from now?
Did anyone, by the way, predict this winter’s mild beginning on the East Coast? No.
The problem gets worse if we expect politicians who depend on polls to decide which way the wind is blowing to come up with legislation to “reduce greenhouse gases” when they seem unable to comprehend that carbon dioxide is a good gas on which all vegetation on earth depends and one which each one of us pumps out at a rate of two and a half pounds a day.
The nation and the world’s media is suffering from climate schizophrenia in which conflicting voices in their collective heads keep telling them it is cold outside while others tell them the world is warming at a dangerous rate. Reality keeps coming up against irrational fears.
The world has been warming since the last Ice Age ended. It is, however, on the precipice, not of global warming, but of a new Ice Age, due any day now in climatological terms. That is to say it could begin tomorrow or a thousand years from tomorrow.
If and when that next Ice Age begins, it will descend on the northern hemisphere with astonishing speed and then all those politicians voting to “control global warming” are going to feel very foolish, but by then they will have inflicted considerable damage on the economy for no good reason.
For example, while the price per barrel of oil has dropped from around $70 dollars to around $52, the price of an orange will rise dramatically due to the loss of an estimated billion dollars worth of the crop in California. You will be able to fill your gas tank cheaply enough, but buying an orange will, in the short term, become a luxury.
While the price of oil, a global and fungible commodity is determined by events in the Middle East, the discovery of new fields of oil, and other factors, it was the very unpredictable weather that put the kibosh on the price of oranges.
This does not, however, deter the global warming advocates from deluging all of us with news every day that global warming, as defined by rapidly rising ocean levels, massive melting of ice at the poles and elsewhere, the end of polar bears, and a thousand other bogus claims. For the record, the oceans are not rising dramatically and the ice packs and flows have been melting and growing for billions of years. The polar bear population has actually increased.
You are being lied to by ignorant journalists, by leftist politicians, and by a huge matrix of so-called environmental organizations.
Notes: Alan Caruba writes a weekly column, “Warning Signs”, posted on the Internet site of The National Anxiety Center, http://www.anxietycenter.com. His book, “Right Answers: Separating Fact from Fantasy”, is published by Merril Press.
Biography - Alan Caruba
Alan Caruba passed on June 15, 2015. His keen wit, intellect, and desire to see that "right" be done will be missed by all who his life touched. His archives will remain available online at this site.
Alan Caruba was the founder of The National Anxiety Center, a clearinghouse for information about media-driven scare campaigns designed to influence public opinion and policy. A veteran public relations counselor and professional writer, Caruba emerged as a conservative voice through his weekly column, "Warning Signs", posted on the Center's Internet site (www.anxietycenter.com) and widely excerpted on leading sites including this one.
A member of the Society of Professional Journalists, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and a charter member of the National Book Critics Circle, Caruba applied a wide-ranging knowledge of business, science, history and other topics to his examination of issues that included protecting our national sovereignty, environment and immigration, education and international affairs.
Caruba resided in New Jersey and had served in the US Army, had been an advisor to corporations, trade associations, universities, and others who used his public relations skills for many years. He maintained a business site at www.caruba.com.
Caruba performed many reviews of both fiction and non-fiction at Bookviews.Com, a popular site for news about books of merit that do not necessarily make it to the mainstream bestseller lists.
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