Barone: How Climate-Change Fanatics Corrupted Science.

Michael Barone has a great piece about the self-inflicted and fanatical wounds that gradually eroded the credibility of the climate change movement from within. The article itself is well-researched and meticulously cited, here are some brief excerpts: 

"Recently, there have been even more shocking revelations. The IPCC has claimed that warming will cause the Himalayan glaciers to disappear by 2035. It turns out that that claim was based solely on a pamphlet published by the World Wildlife Federation, based on no science at all. The head of the IPCC was informed that a 1996 report said those glaciers could melt significantly by 2350, not 2035, but he let the claim stand.

As Christopher Booker writes in the Telegraph of London, "A Canadian analyst has identified more than 20 passages in the IPCC's report which cite similarly non-peer-reviews WWF or Greenpeace reports as their authority." Similarly, the Times of London reports that a claim that warming could endanger "up to 40 percent" of the Amazon rainforest came from an anti-smoking activist and had no scientific basis whatever."

Does anyone else catch the irony in that last line?

Anyhow, the moral of the story is that transparency, accountability, and honesty are crucial to successfully pushing an effective issues campaign in this day and age. Information is readily available and easy to access. As the article suggests, the big question will be,  how did large swaths of society, especially governments and corporations become so enthralled with an idea driven by junk science at best and manipulative deceivers on a blind crusade at worst ? The werewolf thinks for governments it was about control and for corporations it was a short term play to try and find revenue opportunities. Not particularly flattering for either. Still, thank goodness for the vigilance of those who questioned the herd mentality on this issue.

Al Qaeda upset over Global Warming

You know your belief in bad science is in deep shit when a radical retrogressive Islamo-fascist terrorist who lives in various caves between Afghanistan and Pakistan decides it is time to jump on your sinking ship and endorse your bad science for the sake demonizing the "Great Satan." The werewolf thought this was an Onion headline at first. Nope, "Bin Laden blasts US for climate change"  is straight from the Associated Press wire. Humor sometimes manifests itself in the damnedest of ways.

Hey Baby, It's Cold Outside.

Brace yourselves boys and girls. It's going to get very cold. In fact, our Anglo-cousins are suffering from an unprecedented snowfall and cold weather snap. Even the Orient is getting chilled to the bone.

I'd imagine some of our frostbitten friends would welcome a little global warming at the moment. Frankly, I'd rather perish with a nice tan, riding some super-wave induced by a melted glacier, than having lost all of my extremities to frostbite. But that's just the werewolf in me.

Three decades ago, leading scientists fretted about the Earth's pending doom from global cooling. As temperatures rose, the last decade saw the reverse fears of gloom and doom sourced from global warming. Damn you nature! Why won't you cooperate with Al Gore? Ironically, both of these apocalyptic trends were attributed to the industry and growth of mankind. Heaven forbid there be a force on this earth that acts independent of man. We always have to be at the center of attention, don't we?

The new lingo is "climate change." Broad enough to be applied to the last two concepts without having to explain which one it is, while simultaneously making "change" a bad thing. Weren't we all about, "change" in 2008? The werewolf is confused, too.

Here's the lesson. Some winters are colder, some summers are warmer. Have a fur coat and bathing suit handy, but not everything that happens is the fault of man, nor can man do much to change the outcome, other than adapting. Hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and epidemics all have happened before we industrialized and could apply our self-loathing on to a global-platform, and will continue to happen despite our carbon foot, or if we buy organic or not.

Let's worry about the things we can control and actually mean something in peoples lives. To start with let's pursue sound fiscal policies, macro-economic sanity, combating terror and those who harbor it, justice, tearing down trade barriers, respecting peoples freedoms, empowerment, and constructive applications of energy technologies. Imagined nightmares of a rebellious earth and frayed environment keep our eyes off the ball, when the solution is more simple. Diversify your wardrobe.

In the meantime, bust out the fur-coat. It's going to get cold.