Suppose a company doctored data, misrepresented study findings, replaced observations with computer simulations and hired PR flacks to promote its new “wonder drug.” News stories, congressional hearings and subpoenas would be in overdrive. Fines and jail sentences would follow. And rightly so.
But the standards change when “climate catastrophe” is involved.
The House of Representatives is preparing to vote on a 942-page bill to tax, regulate and penalize all US hydrocarbon energy use. The Senate promises an August vote. In December, 190 countries will meet in Denmark to discuss slashing carbon dioxide emissions, to “save the planet from global warming disaster.”
But average global temperatures peaked in 1998 and since have fallen slightly, even as carbon dioxide levels continue to climb. Antarctic ice shelves show no signs of climate change, a six-year study has determined, while Arctic ice is seasonably normal. Hurricane activity is at a 30-year low.
Thousands of scientists say CO2 has little effect on planetary temperatures, and there is no climate crisis. Few developed countries are ready to commit economic suicide by agreeing to reduce their CO2 emissions by even one-tenth of what Waxman-Markey demands for the United States. Most Americans put global warming dead last in a Pew Research list of 20 concerns.
Climate Armageddonites are trying to counter these inconvenient truths, scare people into clamoring for climate legislation, and enact the job-killing Waxman-Markey bill before more citizens realize they’ll be forced to pay $$$$ trillions for a hypothetical 0.1 degree Fahrenheit reduction in global temperatures. What to do?
Issue another report by government scientists carefully selected to present alarmist views on climate disasters. Ignore contrary data and analyses. Rely almost entirely on computer-generated worst-case scenarios. Hire an activist media firm that specializes in environmental scare campaigns. And spend tens of millions hyping disasters that will befall us if we don’t act immediately:
Rising sea levels, floods in lower Manhattan, California beaches permanently submerged. Ferocious hurricanes, floods and droughts. Food shortages, epidemic diseases, a quadrupling of heat-wave deaths in Chicago. Aged sewer systems convulsing from massive storm runoff. Wildflowers disappearing from Rocky Mountain slopes and polar bears from the Arctic. Leisure time gone as people struggle to survive.
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