This morningGeorge Will's column discusses a new book by Michael Crichton's new book State of Fear. Apparently, the plot of the 600 page tome revolves around a group of environmentalists that go out of their way to create a sense of fear about global warming in order to advance their agenda.
Call me a right wing reactionary, but I have never understood why people are so eager to latch on to the global warming phenomenon. There is no proof whatsoever that the earth is warming any more than there is proof that the earth is cooling at an accelerated rate. Nonetheless, it has become an accepted certainty, on par with gravity and the revolution of the earth around the sun, that global warming is a grave threat to the world.
A conspiracy theorist (of course, not me) may postulate that the global warming panic was dreamed up by a group of anti-American statists who want to see the United States weakened in the name of environmentalism. Think about it: First you create a worldwide panic about the harmful effect of "greenhouse gases"; then you call an international conference to reduce emissions of these "greenhouse gases"; at the conference, you agree that the most successful countries should reduce the "greenhouse gases" while the poorer countries continued to pollute; Who is the biggest producer of greenhouse gases? Of course, the United States. So, in order to limit their greenhouse emissions, you force the Untied States to incur unnecessary costs to every product it produces, thus undermining the United States economy. Now the United States isn't so strong anymore.
I realized how entrenched the global warming myth has become the other day when I was talking to a friend of mine. It was 8 degrees outside in Chicago and I repeated the tired old cliche, "So much for Global Warming!" just to make small talk. He became very serious and explained to me that global warming was a very serious phenomenon and was a threat to the earth. I asked him "What proof do you have?" His only response was to look at me like I had just questioned the existence of cheese or that I had just claimed that the sky was pink. He said, "You didn't really mean that, did you?" At that point I gave up.
(I realize my storytelling abilities are not on par with even Michael Crichton, but I do my best).
Anyway, I tire of the assumption that global warming caused by mankind is reality and that those who question it are right wing wackos. I also tire of the assumption that even if global warming is a true, man-made phenomenon, it is bad for us. That's all I have to say about that.
Tre
