March 13, 2007
An inconvenient truth
I’ve been trying to come up with a name for the Gorebots, one that captures the cult-like devotion to pseudo-science, the fervor, passion and rage they display when confronted by unbelievers.
They’re really religious fanatics – cult members, actually – for whom science and whack-a-doodle new-age theories have provided an explanation for all that is wrong in the world: conservative capitalists, 99 percent Americans, as well as the less-capitalist but still too-much-like-the-Amis industrialized European nations.
Given their resistance to reality, perhaps we should appropriate the term “Scientologists.” After all, Albert Gore is no less a snake-oil salesman than L. Ron Hubbard, and his particular brand of elixir promises to fix the world, using a blend of feel-good blather and groupthink. And, as with the Dianetics crowd, these guys are passionate about their gospel.
Of course, they’re also barking-at-the-moon insane.
Facts are truly inconvenient things for these folks. For instance, at the most basic level, they seem unable to comprehend that the single greatest cause of global warming is the freaking star rising in the east and setting in the west.
An increase in the Sun’s energy output of less than .001 percent is greater than the combined CO2 emissions of all the humans who ever lived. As a matter of fact, each time Mt. Pinatubo erupts in the Philippines, it dumps more CO2 into the atmosphere than the entire human race produces in a millennia.
Global warming is a natural result of a cyclical variation in the Sun’s temperature; the world gets hotter and cooler in response to G-d periodically changing the setting on the cosmic stove from “simmer” to “boil.”
Don’t take my word for it; scientists recently found that Mars was also suffering from global warming, and it wasn’t caused by NASA’s Mars rover explorers. Yeah, it’s that SUV-driving Sun again.
And global warming isn’t always a bad thing; during previous periods of increasing world-wide temperatures, ancient Britons were able to grow wine throughout their warm, sunny land.
But the biggest dilemma for Sir Albert’s disciples is this: global warming is a natural phenomenon, and “natural” is the most important of all qualities. What hubris! Mankind – er, Womynkind, trying to disrupt the natural order of the universe. Mother Nature is having a hot-flash; get over it!
Anyhow, John Hawkins found a great example of the Gorebots resistance to a really inconvenient truth.
A North Pole expedition meant to bring attention to global warming was called off after one of the explorers got frostbite.
[…]
Then there was the cold - quite a bit colder, Atwood said, then Bancroft and Arnesen had expected. One night they measured the temperature inside their tent at 58 degrees below zero, and outside temperatures were exceeding 100 below zero at times, Atwood said.
"My first reaction when they called to say there were calling it off was that they just sounded really, really cold," Atwood said.
She said Bancroft and Arnesen were applying hot water bottles to Arnesen's foot every night, but had to wake up periodically because the bottles froze.
The explorers had planned to call in regular updates to school groups by satellite phone, and had planned online posts with photographic evidence of global warming. In contrast to Bancroft's 1986 trek across the Arctic with fellow Minnesota explorer Will Steger, this time she and Arnesen were prepared to don body suits and swim through areas where polar ice has melted.
Atwood said there was some irony that a trip to call attention to global warming was scuttled in part by extreme cold temperatures.
"They were experiencing temperatures that weren't expected with global warming," Atwood said. "But one of the things we see with global warming is unpredictability."
Hawkins’ response is terrific.
I guess they didn't manage to get that, "photographic evidence" of global warming because of the cold. But luckily, the very fact that it was colder than they expected is … proof of global warming.
So, by global warming alarmist logic, if [they] go to the North Pole and find melted polar ice, it's evidence of global warming. On the other hand, if they go the North Pole and it's actually much colder than they expected, that's also evidence of global warming.
Well then, what's not evidence of global warming according to "The global warming is going to kill us all, man! We're gonna fry like an egg!" crowd?
You know, I think liberals are right. Religious fanatics are frightening.
Posted by Mike Lief at March 13, 2007 11:00 AM
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