Join Your TownColumnists 
Furcoats and tank tops, Part two
By Todd A. Carges
Thu Jan 10, 2008, 01:49 PM EST
Okay, I'll admit it. There is climate change, and it happens everyday. In fact, there has been climate change every day since the earth was born. I will even admit that the earth is in a period of slight warming. What I won't admit, however, is that this warming is caused by human activity or that it is a crisis, and I am far from alone. Why then do many of us think that we are in the midst of a Global Warming crisis and that we are the cause? Last week, we looked at how the media propagates such myths. This week, let's look at how money and ideology fuel the climate crisis machine.
Did you know that a U.S. Senate Report released on Dec. 20 detailed the objections of over 400 scientists that dispute man-made Global Warming? This group included Nobel Prize winners and many who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore.
S. Fred Singer, atmospheric physicist and former founding director of the U.S. Weather Satellite Service sums up the sentiment: "There is no proof that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases by human activity. The current warming is likely part of a natural cycle of climate warming and cooling that's been traced back almost a million years."
He continues: "We cannot control the inconstant sun, the likely origin of most climate variability. None of the schemes for greenhouse gas reduction...will do any good; they are irrelevant, useless and wildly expensive."
Don't take S. Fred Singer's word for it. Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) has spent a great deal of time investigating the science behind man-made "Global Warming." He declared on the floor of the Senate in 2003 and reiterated in 2005: "much of the debate over global warming is predicated on fear, rather than science; the threat of catastrophic global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Meteorologist and founder of the Weather Channel, John Coleman recently had this to say: "It is the greatest scam in history. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data back in the late 1990s to create an illusion of rapid global warming. Other scientists of the same environmental wacko type jumped into the circle to support and broaden the "research" to further enhance the totally slanted, bogus global warming claims. Their friends in government steered huge research grants their way to keep the movement going. Soon they claimed a consensus."
Physician, scientist and author Michael Crichton dedicated an entire novel to the myth of man-made Global Warming titled: "State of Fear." His research for the book was meticulous and is detailed in the appendix.
What I'm trying to show you here is that there is certainly not consensus when it comes to the threat of man-made Global Warming. There are reputable scientists, senators, climate experts, meteorologists and author's who dispute the threat with scientific evidence. So why do so many others want us to believe there is a warming crisis and that we are the cause of it? That's easy: money and ideology.
There is big money in Global Warming. Just ask Gore. When he ran for President in 2000, he listed his net worth as approximately $1 million. Today, by all public accounts, his estimated net worth approaches $100 million. So, what changed in eight years? Al Gore became the face of the Global Warming crisis movement. He gave lectures, made movies and invested in companies that have greatly benefited from the myth that man causes Global Warming and that we are headed for a disaster. On a side note, did you know that a British judge ruled that Al Gore's movie could only be shown in public schools if accompanied by a disclaimer detailing the nine egregious falsehoods found in the "documentary?" Look it up. It happened. Al Gore's friends in Government have profited from the Global Warming scare as well. In exchange for campaign cash and public endorsements, they've procured the tax payer funding necessary to keep the machine running.
The scientific community is funded primarily through government, university and private grants. Without funding, they would be stuck in their offices reading about science instead of getting outside conducting experiments and field work. This funding is petitioned and need based. If there is a need to research the potential catastrophic effects of man-made Global Warming, there will be money made available for such research. Private groups with agendas pay scientists big money to produce favorable studies that are used to procure more government funding. Did you know that our government spends the same amount on Global Warming research as it does on cancer research? Well, it does, about $5 billion per year, and when was the last time you read about a scientist disputing the danger of cancer. The scientists, universities and organizations that receive this funding have a vested interest in keeping the threat of global warming very public. So much so that scientists that publicly disagree with the "consensus" are often blacklisted, ridiculed and marginalized because they threaten the gravy train.
The radical environmentalists that push the man-made Global Warming threat do so not for money, but to push their ideology. Most of the time, these people are well intended, though if they had to choose between humans and algae, they would choose algae. However, too often, the science behind their agenda is often shaky at best and corrupt at worse, and their "end justifies the means" strategy often produces expensive and counterproductive results. What they really want is to change our behavior.
It doesn't matter if Global Warming is real or not as long as we stop using oil, SUVs, or light bulbs. To many of them, human existence is the real threat and if the Global Warming scare helps curb the "damages," they’re going to push it.
The bottom line is that we all want a healthy environment, but our plan to achieve this should be based on real science, not agenda driven politics or radical ideologies. Recently, in an open letter to the United Nations 100 scientists declared: "Attempts to prevent global climate change from occurring are ultimately futile, and constitute a tragic misallocation of resources that would be better spent on humanity's real and pressing problems."
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