George Rebane

Sometimes I wish that there would pop out two Earths so that we could give one of them to the True Believers lead by Team Gore, and then compare how each would work out.  The True Believers share most of the same ideas about how humanity should be governed as do the socialists.  Most of them are also convinced about the benefits of a global government that will stop wars and equitably share the world’s wealth.

In times past such left-wing thinkers have wished for some worldwide portending catastrophe to make us set our differences aside and unify us.  Well, now they have found one – anthropogenic global warming (AGW).  Shoving science aside and betting on wholesale stupidity promised by the bell curve, AGW has been completely politicized by our leaders and is being sold daily to the rest of us on a grand scale.  The campaign sweeps along with it political parties and corporations ready to sign up for the grand unification and redistribution schemes subsidized and regulated by governments, or better, super-governmental agreements like Kyoto, Bali, and who knows what next.  Even our ex-market capitalist and ex-conservative President G.W. Bush promotes CO2 legislation and carbon credits.  My, my, my.

But there seems to be more and more residual stubbornness seeping out of scientists and commentators still willing to give reason a chance, and not join the masses led in the chant that “the debate is over”.  Nationwide these voices have been local bloggers like my friend Russ Steele (NC Media Watch) and Anthony Watt (Watt’s Up With That) who have devoted much research and energy to keep the debate alive.  Recently I was also pleasantly surprised to find a DVD inserted in widely distributed magazines (mine came in the recent copy of The National Review) which gives a short, succinct counter argument based on long-term climate science and the historical record.  It is titled ‘Unstoppable Solar Cycles – The Real Story of Greenland’ and can be viewed here on YouTube.

I also draw your attention to the recent ‘Manhattan Declaration’ from a conference sponsored by the Heartland Institute last March that featured scientists not co-opted by the UN’s International Panel on Climate Change and politically correct grant monies.  The mainstream media ignored it, but it was covered by the WSJ in a 5mar08 article titled ‘Gored: Why Skeptics Need Al’.  The article concluded –

In the debate over climate change — and as the conference, and the reactions it provoked show, there is still a debate in some quarters — science is becoming increasingly conflated with personalities. The former vice president, Oscar and Nobel in hand, has obviously become the avatar of the camp that says the science is certain and tough emissions caps are an obligation to avert “catastrophe.” The other camp doesn’t have a single leader of Mr. Gore’s stature, though Heartland’s conference offered a few candidates. 

It isn’t just the recent prizes: During the 1990s, after the publication of the less-paraded “Earth in the Balance,” Mr. Gore became the bete-noir of enviro-skeptics in a way Rachel Carson never did. In certain quarters, there seems to be at least as much debunking of “An Inconvenient Truth” as any Michael Moore film. At the Heartland conference, roasting Mr. Gore and his message was de rigueur. He even inspired the title of National Review’s environmental blog.

The Heartland Institute invited several prominent members of the opposite camp, including Mr. Gore and James Hansen, the NASA climate expert. But they threw down a global-warming debate challenge only to Mr. Gore; a similar challenge was issued by Lord Monckton, a former Thatcher adviser. Even Mr. Gore’s old professors come under scrutiny like Dan Quayle’s never have.

Mr. Gore was invited to speak at the skeptics’ conference — with his $200,000 honorarium. No dice: He was at the TED conference in California, speaking for free.

And speaking of Big Al’s performance at TED, to us of the libertarian tilt it was downright scary.  Here we see a slimmed down, extremely polished, communicative, self-effacing, sincere, and effective speaker oozing statesman-like gravitas.  This was no longer ‘wooden Al’ whose stilted delivery used to make us reach for the remote.  Al has gone to charm school and graduated cum laude.  When his TED talk ended I had visions of Howard Dean and the Democratic leadership making plans to draft Al if the two short-on-damn-near-everything hopefuls cannot resolve their urinating contest before the convention – ‘Listen up you two, either you get this settled and settled quickly or Al gets the nod from those of us who really count.  Capisce?  And he may even grab one of you as VP; don’t hold your breath Hillary.’

Aw, the heck with the primaries and super delegate counts, I will just come out and predict that the Dems will grab Al, and convince him that he can push bigger government, global warming, and unite the world most effectively from the Oval Office – which is what he has wanted to do in the first place and still does.  Now that’s your global warning.