| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
An Inconvenient Truth: Mr. Gore’s Sanity in the Balance
I am not a credentialed psychologist, but I have a
psychological theory about why ex-vice president and
presidential near miss Al Gore is such a rabid advocate of
global warming hysteria. It goes something like this.
For many years, Gore believed that the eventual attainment
of the presidency was something akin to a birthright and would
almost certainly be his ultimate destiny. In 2000, when he
missed it by a gnat’s eyelash and his hopes were dashed, it must
have been psychologically devastating for him.
So he dropped out of sight for a while. Eventually, he turned
up again, sporting an uncharacteristic and unflattering beard,
and, whether out of sour grapes or ideological extremism,
began his relentless criticism of Bush administration policies,
particularly where they pertained to the war in Iraq and the
environment, Gore’s pet subject for years as evidenced by his
book “Earth In The Balance.”
Sometimes adopting the speaking style of a fire-and-
brimstone, Pentecostal-type preacher during his harangues
against that “renegade band of right-wing extremists,” he was
transmogrified into something worse than simply the old
wooden, monotoned and personality-challenged automaton he
had always been. He gave every appearance that he had
become instead a fairly nutty guy who seemed to have sorta,
kinda gone off the proverbial deep end.
Because of that new perception, future presidential
aspirations seemed accordingly dim. But if you can’t be
president, then what might be the next best thing? Well, how
about the guy who saved mankind and all of civilization? Not
too shabby if he can pull it off. And that’s where the global
warming hysteria-mongering comes in.
Gore fancies that he can go down in history as a visionary
who saved the world from a self-induced climatic disaster,
contingent, of course, upon the world’s politicians waking up
and doing something before it’s too late. And according to Al in
his new movie, the world has approximately ten years to make
some pretty dramatic changes before the effects of global
warming become irreversible and we plummet headlong into a
downward spiral that will culminate in civilizational
destruction.
Saving mankind is a pretty tall order, but nobody thinks any
more highly of Mr. Gore’s abilities than Mr. Gore himself. So,
he dragged out the old slide show he’s been carting around the
country and the world for years, turned it into a motion picture
and gave it the dopey name “An Inconvenient Truth.” And in
that movie he very matter-of-factly states that scientific debate
on global warming is over, all scientists are now in absolute
agreement and the only remaining dissenters are right-wing
nut jobs.
Well, okay, he didn’t actually say that last thing, but it’s
implied. Anyway, the funny thing is, if you call up that handy-
dandy website, Wikipedia, and do a search for “global warming
skeptics,” it will bring up a page with a long list of respected
scientists who, believe it or not, are not in total agreement with
Al Gore’s stable of doom-mongers.
Take Dr. Bill Gray, for instance, highly respected
atmospheric scientist who is world renowned for his yearly
forecasts of Atlantic hurricane activity. “They’ve been
brainwashing us for 20 years,” Dr. Gray has said. “This scare
will . . . run its course. In 15-20 years, we’ll look back and see
what a hoax this was.”
Gray acknowledges that there’s been some warming over the
past 30 years. “I don’t question that. And humans might have
caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But .
. . my belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will
start to cool again, as it did from the middle ‘40s to the middle
‘70s.”
Now, to hear Al Gore tell it, anyone who disagrees with global
warming orthodoxy to the same degree as Dr. Gray should be
confined to a rubber room, wearing a strait jacket and
slobbering on himself. And yet, every year the meteorological
community waits with bated breath for his hurricane forecast
to come out. If global warming doomsday-think is so
monolithic, how do they tolerate Gray’s dissent and why would
they listen to him about anything else? Is he just viewed as a
colorful eccentric, like a lovable uncle that inappropriately
belches at the dinner table?
And then there’s Dr. Richard Lindzen, professor of
atmospheric science at MIT, who wrote an article that
appeared in the Wall Street Journal just recently that was
entitled: “Don’t Believe the Hype -- Al Gore is wrong. There’s no
‘consensus’ on global warming.” Here’s a few factoids he
provided that would seem to punch holes in Gore’s dire
presentation:
1.) The Arctic was as warm or perhaps even warmer in 1940
as compared to now. 2.) Evidence so far suggests that the
Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. 3.) Alpine
glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, long
before global warming could have been caused by man. 4.) The
global warming models that give Gore such heebie jeebies imply
that atmospheric temperatures should rise more than surface
temperatures, but satellite data has shown no such warming of
the atmosphere since 1979.
Dr. Lindzen also said in the article that atmospheric
scientists quite simply “do not understand the natural internal
variability of climate change.” If that’s the case (and who
could argue that it isn’t?), then it makes no sense to so
adamantly attribute most or all of whatever warming of the
earth there has been to human activity.
So what are we to glean from all of this? Well, that Al Gore
needs to face an inconvenient truth himself, that being that, in
reality, and however disturbingly for him, the debate over
global warming is not, in fact, totally and decisively over. If
there is any sanity at all in the scientific community, the
debate can’t be over.
That’s not to say there shouldn’t be a debate at all. There
should. But humanity would be better served if a frustrated
egotist like Al Gore didn’t go around alarming the public with
doomsday predictions, all for the sake of nursing his personal
psychopathologies.
Maybe global warming really is being mostly caused by
human activity, but what are the odds that of all the possible
scenarios, the worst case scenario is the one that will come
true? Why would you believe that instead of believing, for
instance, that the world will heat up another two or three
degrees and then swing back the other way due to natural
climate fluctuations and that civilization won’t be destroyed?
Do you believe with absolute certainty your local weather
forecast for three days out? How about two? How about for
tomorrow? Then why would you believe a forecast for decades
in the future when it is infinitely and impossibly more
complicated than tomorrow’s forecast?
When it comes to global warming, Al Gore apparently
believes those scenarios that are the most outlandish rather
than the most likely or plausible. The question is, why? Mr.
Gore is no atmospheric scientist, but he sure would make a hell
of a case study for a team of world class psychologists.
I am not a credentialed psychologist, but I have a
psychological theory about why ex-vice president and
presidential near miss Al Gore is such a rabid advocate of
global warming hysteria. It goes something like this.
For many years, Gore believed that the eventual attainment
of the presidency was something akin to a birthright and would
almost certainly be his ultimate destiny. In 2000, when he
missed it by a gnat’s eyelash and his hopes were dashed, it must
have been psychologically devastating for him.
So he dropped out of sight for a while. Eventually, he turned
up again, sporting an uncharacteristic and unflattering beard,
and, whether out of sour grapes or ideological extremism,
began his relentless criticism of Bush administration policies,
particularly where they pertained to the war in Iraq and the
environment, Gore’s pet subject for years as evidenced by his
book “Earth In The Balance.”
Sometimes adopting the speaking style of a fire-and-
brimstone, Pentecostal-type preacher during his harangues
against that “renegade band of right-wing extremists,” he was
transmogrified into something worse than simply the old
wooden, monotoned and personality-challenged automaton he
had always been. He gave every appearance that he had
become instead a fairly nutty guy who seemed to have sorta,
kinda gone off the proverbial deep end.
Because of that new perception, future presidential
aspirations seemed accordingly dim. But if you can’t be
president, then what might be the next best thing? Well, how
about the guy who saved mankind and all of civilization? Not
too shabby if he can pull it off. And that’s where the global
warming hysteria-mongering comes in.
Gore fancies that he can go down in history as a visionary
who saved the world from a self-induced climatic disaster,
contingent, of course, upon the world’s politicians waking up
and doing something before it’s too late. And according to Al in
his new movie, the world has approximately ten years to make
some pretty dramatic changes before the effects of global
warming become irreversible and we plummet headlong into a
downward spiral that will culminate in civilizational
destruction.
Saving mankind is a pretty tall order, but nobody thinks any
more highly of Mr. Gore’s abilities than Mr. Gore himself. So,
he dragged out the old slide show he’s been carting around the
country and the world for years, turned it into a motion picture
and gave it the dopey name “An Inconvenient Truth.” And in
that movie he very matter-of-factly states that scientific debate
on global warming is over, all scientists are now in absolute
agreement and the only remaining dissenters are right-wing
nut jobs.
Well, okay, he didn’t actually say that last thing, but it’s
implied. Anyway, the funny thing is, if you call up that handy-
dandy website, Wikipedia, and do a search for “global warming
skeptics,” it will bring up a page with a long list of respected
scientists who, believe it or not, are not in total agreement with
Al Gore’s stable of doom-mongers.
Take Dr. Bill Gray, for instance, highly respected
atmospheric scientist who is world renowned for his yearly
forecasts of Atlantic hurricane activity. “They’ve been
brainwashing us for 20 years,” Dr. Gray has said. “This scare
will . . . run its course. In 15-20 years, we’ll look back and see
what a hoax this was.”
Gray acknowledges that there’s been some warming over the
past 30 years. “I don’t question that. And humans might have
caused a very slight amount of this warming. Very slight. But .
. . my belief is that three, four years from now, the globe will
start to cool again, as it did from the middle ‘40s to the middle
‘70s.”
Now, to hear Al Gore tell it, anyone who disagrees with global
warming orthodoxy to the same degree as Dr. Gray should be
confined to a rubber room, wearing a strait jacket and
slobbering on himself. And yet, every year the meteorological
community waits with bated breath for his hurricane forecast
to come out. If global warming doomsday-think is so
monolithic, how do they tolerate Gray’s dissent and why would
they listen to him about anything else? Is he just viewed as a
colorful eccentric, like a lovable uncle that inappropriately
belches at the dinner table?
And then there’s Dr. Richard Lindzen, professor of
atmospheric science at MIT, who wrote an article that
appeared in the Wall Street Journal just recently that was
entitled: “Don’t Believe the Hype -- Al Gore is wrong. There’s no
‘consensus’ on global warming.” Here’s a few factoids he
provided that would seem to punch holes in Gore’s dire
presentation:
1.) The Arctic was as warm or perhaps even warmer in 1940
as compared to now. 2.) Evidence so far suggests that the
Greenland ice sheet is actually growing on average. 3.) Alpine
glaciers have been retreating since the early 19th century, long
before global warming could have been caused by man. 4.) The
global warming models that give Gore such heebie jeebies imply
that atmospheric temperatures should rise more than surface
temperatures, but satellite data has shown no such warming of
the atmosphere since 1979.
Dr. Lindzen also said in the article that atmospheric
scientists quite simply “do not understand the natural internal
variability of climate change.” If that’s the case (and who
could argue that it isn’t?), then it makes no sense to so
adamantly attribute most or all of whatever warming of the
earth there has been to human activity.
So what are we to glean from all of this? Well, that Al Gore
needs to face an inconvenient truth himself, that being that, in
reality, and however disturbingly for him, the debate over
global warming is not, in fact, totally and decisively over. If
there is any sanity at all in the scientific community, the
debate can’t be over.
That’s not to say there shouldn’t be a debate at all. There
should. But humanity would be better served if a frustrated
egotist like Al Gore didn’t go around alarming the public with
doomsday predictions, all for the sake of nursing his personal
psychopathologies.
Maybe global warming really is being mostly caused by
human activity, but what are the odds that of all the possible
scenarios, the worst case scenario is the one that will come
true? Why would you believe that instead of believing, for
instance, that the world will heat up another two or three
degrees and then swing back the other way due to natural
climate fluctuations and that civilization won’t be destroyed?
Do you believe with absolute certainty your local weather
forecast for three days out? How about two? How about for
tomorrow? Then why would you believe a forecast for decades
in the future when it is infinitely and impossibly more
complicated than tomorrow’s forecast?
When it comes to global warming, Al Gore apparently
believes those scenarios that are the most outlandish rather
than the most likely or plausible. The question is, why? Mr.
Gore is no atmospheric scientist, but he sure would make a hell
of a case study for a team of world class psychologists.