Sooooo
Hot
By RAVI DYKEMA
The greatest threat to Earth’s environment or the greatest hoax?
Global climate change is suddenly soooo hot. (See “Will
the Oceans Rise, Will Crops Fail?” .) Practically EVERY paper/magazine
I read contains a story on it. Take today’s (4-16-07) Wall Street
Journal (where hoax-proponents often editorialize). On page 1, “How
Denmark Paved Way to Energy Independence,” we learn that Danes
started in 1976 in response to the 1973 Arab oil embargo and the prolonged
recession it set off. They have, according to the Journal, “overcome
one thorny challenge of global warming: how to dramatically reduce energy
consumption while maintaining a solid growth rate and low unemployment.”
Danes, we learn, use 6,600 Kilowatt hours of electricity per year compared
to Americans’ 13,300.
Underneath that very article is an Exxon Mobil ad bragging that they
are developing “advanced engine and fuel systems” to reduce
emissions by 30% “for 6.5 billion people.” (In case you
missed it, that’s the planet’s human population.) Exxon
was, until recently, the most hard-line warming-debunker among oil companies
and a key supporter of the lobbying organization, the Competitive Enterprise
Institute.
Standing on the hoax box, you can still find scientists like Bill Gray
of Colorado State University saying "This is one of the greatest
hoaxes ever perpetrated on the American people."
Just yesterday, it seems, warming skeptics and doubters had managed
to squelch this hot topic, in spite of a near-consensus among scientists
that humans were responsible for scary levels of climate change. A Gallup
poll a year ago showed that global warming was far down the list of
concerns among Americans. In February of this year the National Journal
asked a group of Republican senators and House members whether they
thought that it had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that our climate
was warming because of human activity. Cover up the next sentence and
guess what percent said “no” (according to an April 1 2007
Los Angeles Times article by Jonathan Chait). Eighty seven percent.
And that’s 43% MORE than said “no” to the same question
last year!
Lest you think newsprint ink will reduce carbon dioxide accumulations
and slow our polar ice’s ocean-ward slide, listen to leading climate
scientist Konrad Steffen’s warning in our interview starting on
page 28: “The earlier we react to the increase in greenhouse gasses,
the smaller the effect will be . . . Let’s talk about 2200, and
let’s say that’s when the huge difference kicks in if we
do something now. Or, we could say, ‘Let’s just wait another
50 years; I think the next generation will be able to figure it out,’
there might not be another generation if we don’t do anything.
That’s my fear.”
SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2008 FEATURE ARTICLES
