In a comment on one of Ranger Rick’s columns on climate change, a reader asked, “Do ‘common sense conservatives’ who share the author’s views on global climate change ask their doctors about the subject prior to being treated?” Well yes, we do.
He/she went on to ask if we ask questions of a pharmacist when filling a prescription. Well yes, we do, at least I do. The point was that global climate change is settled science and we should not question it, like we must not question our doctors. Really?
So as I have a habit of doing, I started to research past predictions of climate catastrophes. Let it suffice to say since the first “Earth Day” in 1970, we have seen the number of predictions of the end of the Earth/mankind or personkind come and go. The predictions were irrefutable, since no thinking person should question them. Folks, you can’t make this stuff up.
During a hypersensitive period in the early 1970s the concern was mass global starvation the bestselling book “Famine 1975! America’s decision who will survive?” predicted a mass famine by 1975. Global cooling and population increase would cause the famine. The world’s population in 1975 was 4.068 Billion, in 2017 it was 7.547 billion and we have not had mass starvation, oops.
The word’s population is growing by some 85 million per year. The new environmental movement would have us believe we not only can, but must feed the world without petrochemicals, we must use organic farming, or the world will end. Research tells me organic farming will reduce food production by at least 25% with costs increasing accordingly.
United Nations official Noel Brown stated in 1989 that shifting climate patterns would cause a 1930s style dust bowl in the great plains in the U.S. and Canada by the year 2000. Oops again.
Global cooling was once a horror to many, such as University of California at Davis professor Kenneth Watt, who warned that present trends would make the world “eleven degrees colder in the year 2000… about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” Maps were printed in News Week with permafrost (the ground being frozen year-round a few inches below the top) as far south as middle Tennessee.
George Mason University economist Professor Walter E. Williams, who argues that there are so many apocalyptic predictions because “they have an agenda for more government control… fear about the environment is a way to gain government control. Communism and socialism have lost respectability, so it’s been repackaged as environmentalism.” Please note American socialism has wrapped itself in the Green New Deal.
In 2006, while promoting his movie “An Inconvenient Truth”, Former Vice President Gore said that humanity had only 10 years left before the world would reach a point of no return. In 2019 Representative Ocasio-Cortez said it will be in 12 more years. Oops times three.
Vice President Gore’s movie also featured animations of water inundating Manhattan and Florida by now, yet Mr. Gore bought an 8 million dollar beach-front property near Los Angeles a few years later? Go figure.
In 1970, Sen. Gaylord Nelson, D-Wisc., – often considered the “father of Earth Day” – cited the secretary of the Smithsonian, who “believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” That date has passed by 25 years.
Global cooling, global warming, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer, global climate change, global famine, AIDS changing to a heterosexual disease, Swine flu jumping species, and more? So, to the folks who maintain global climate change is settled and cannot be challenged, perhaps you are incorrect?
In a debate with the members of the New York side of our family in 1987 they insisted global cooling was settled science and with modern advancements in science and discoveries we can’t question it. Ok, they now maintain the same thing when it comes to climate change.
Only in a totalitarian state are people not allowed to ask questions of those in power; we are going in that direction in reference to global climate change. Never question why or how, just trust those in power and let them socialize our nation in the name of climate change. Got it.
I agree some predictions have been far fetched. Myself, like you, I question everything from car repair to doctors. Climate change, true or false, is no excuse not to be aware of our own actions.Banning cows, cars and airplanes is not the answer. But looking only one way is not the answer either. ,As a young boy the weather man said hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk. I had to try that got my butt chewed out for wasting a 5-cent egg.
Mr. Longstreet,
Sir,
Well said, thanks.
It is the nature of science to question, test, and revise based on evidence. The disparity under consideration seems to be between faith and reason. Faith is blind, by definition. Reason is allowing to be convinced by evidence. To question a pharmacist, or a mechanic, or a minister may be antithetical to faith, but essential to inquiry.
Mr. Basura,
Sir,
Ever notice the term he/she does not believe in Global Climate change? or they do believe in or support climate change? Perhaps it is a faith to some. An interesting fact is President Thomas Jefferson predicted rapid climate change if Americans moved west past the Allegheny Mountains then went on to purchase 827,000 square miles west of the Alleghenies. Politicians, go figure.
Thanks for the comment.
Ever notice the timeline cited as the start of Armegeddon? Why is it always 12 years? Why not 4 or 5? Pick a number?
I thought Algore said 20+ years ago the cities of New York and Miami would be underwater in 12 and disaster would strike.
I’m more worried about the Yellowstone magma dome exploding than climate change. But I’m a thinking person and not one to believe hype, especially when a dolt vice-president or a mentally disturbed teenager predict doom and gloom.
Respectfully to both Robert Traxler and DOTM, may I suggest that timelines may be subjective measures when we discuss climate change? Jefferson wasn’t wrong that the face of North America would change due to westward expansion, but his definition of “rapid” may have meant decades rather than mere years in terms of the times in which he lived. That modern doomsayers or creditable scientists put a specific time span on change, may I also suggest that that is a mistake, because it causes some deniers to pooh-pooh the forecast based on an invalid time line? The main, and more important, point is that change is occurring, be it slow or rapid. There is no doubt that sea levels are rising and ice caps are melting. Glaciers are disappearing at a rate alarming to those who live near them and have not seen such quick change within their lifetimes. Sure, change seems to be cyclical within the natural world. But does that mean we can, out of hand, ignore some of the more disturbing changes? Does it mean we can make excuses for our poor stewardship of the globe? Does it mean we (the good old US of A) should not be leaders of a more responsible attitude toward Mother Earth? My answers are no, no, and no.
DTOM says he is a thinking person. He should, therefore, be looking at a variety of sides to any question, climate change, political, or otherwise. That’s what thinking persons do. They think about things from many angles. Otherwise it is not thinking, it is reacting with emotion rather than logic.
Maybe your knowledge of climate change is lacking? When someone like Algore states we only have 12 years to stop global warming, there are many unsuspecting and naive people believing such claptrap. Do you doubt the snarling Swedish teenager blaming everyone for her mental condition brought on by climate change? I think her parents should get her professional help.
This country is the most advanced in stewardship of the earth resources. We have more windmills destroying millions of migrating birds and more solar panels than any other country. We spend more on clean air and water than any other country. This country is not the polluter it once was.
When somebody states “97% of scientists”, I quit listening because it is a false bull@$÷t narrative. Consensus is not science. It is opinion.