Paxety Pages

So, manmade global warming is here and we've only got ten years to stop it – or is it already to late? It depends on just which scientific prophet of doom you listen to. And just what is modern science's predictive record in the field of doomsday scenarios? Remember the comet Kohoutek? Remember Y 2K? Remember global cooling? The impending displacement of the Gulf Stream? Any of those ring a bell? When it comes to predictions of civilization-ending catastrophes, science has fared no better than soothsayers, crystal-gazers, tarot card casters, remote viewers, and gloomy Old Testament prophets.

When it comes to large-scale predictions, whether astronomical (comets, meteors, solar flares or falling space debris) or earth bound ( like sliding plate tectonics or failing magnetic fields), or biological (name your pandemic) or social (war, overpopulation or really nasty teenagers with guns) science does not have a very good track record. In fact, each of the following were supposed to have killed us or caused serious havoc at one time or another over the last century : Global Freezing --  Global Warming --  Overpopulation --  Starvation --  HIV --  Y2K -- Bird Flu --  Shark Attacks --  Heat Stroke --  Anthrax --  Missing Children --  Weapons of Mass Destruction --  Killer Bees --  Snipers --  Flooding --  Breast Implants -- Rising Crime -- Airline Crashes -- Forest Fires -- West Nile Virus -- Mad Cow Disease -- Ebola  - SARS. Face it; if large scale scientific predictions of doom were correct, you wouldn't be reading this right now! (A tip of the hat to the Ace Of Spades HQ blog site for the list)

The late Professor Carl (billions and billions of stars) Sagan, of Cornell University, is a case in point. Sagan was to many Americans the embodiment of a man of science. Sagan had a great presence on the TV screen, had a well-modulated voice, and seemed to employ the irrefutable logic of the scientific method. Sagan was as close to a priest-of-science as a man can get. Therefore, during the Persian Gulf War, when Saddam Hussein's non-green-friendly troops set 526 Kuwaiti oil wells on fire, Sagan did some calculations on the amount of particulate matter ejected into the atmosphere by the fires, pumped the data into a computer to make a model of the effect this would have on the earth, and promptly went on ABC’s Nightline and predicted that within 200 km of the source of the smoke plumes from the oil well fires temperatures would experience a drop a precipitous ten degrees centigrade!

Meanwhile, a more cautious scientist, Fred Singer, a retired atmospheric physicist and climate change skeptic, looked at the data and promptly called Sagan's prediction nonsense. The smoke would dissipate in a few days, with no long term ecological damage resulting. When the predicted mini-nuclear winter failed to materialize, Sagan's excuse was that "Science is a learning process."

Proponents of the Kyoto Treaty – with it’s disastrous effect on the American economy, restrictions on American technology, penalizing taxation, and other culture-changing fiats – should take serious note of Sagan's enforced humility.

The idea that sufficient particulate matter can cloud the atmosphere enough to interrupt the process of solar radiation reaching the earth's surface, thereby lowering temperatures enough to cause ecological disaster, is called Nuclear Winter. The Nuclear Winter formula says, basically, that if X amount of nuclear bombs are dropped within Y region of the globe in A amount of time, the resulting ejection of matter into the atmosphere will interfere with solar radiation with a concordant drop in temperature, resulting in loss of crops, death to many species and serious depreciation of beach-front property around the globe.

Like a child with a new toy, scientists were fascinated with Nuclear Winter for a while. Then, just as nuclear winter seemed to be fizzling out, Global warming came along. Since Global warming also offered the threat of extinction (according to some computer models), and since politicians were more than willing to get on board with research financing, this shiny new toy quickly replaced nuclear winter in the hearts of shock-jock scientists. The New Ice Age was also a competitor for the hearts and minds of the apocalyptic faction of science back in the 1970s; however, since it’s doomsday scenario moved with "glacial" slowness, literally, it had little threat value with the MTV generation and was discarded in favor of Global warming. {Note: Carl Sagan also wrote a book lauding the scientific process, called "The Demon Haunted World," which derided the folly of all thought prior to the advent of twentieth-century science. In the Church of Science, we now have doctrine (Global warming reality), belief (the infallibility of scientific consensus), a Messiah (the Kyoto Treaty), an Apocalypse (the end of the world if we don’t make correct ablutions in the form of "green" taxation) and heretics, (the scientists who are unbelievers and actually question the truth of the doctrine.)}

I predict that on the day the Global warming green-left shakes hands with the UFO-paranoid-conspiracy theorists, we will actually be in position to have an actual old-fashioned kick-ass and destroy-civilization science-fiction-type Apocalypse. When the core faction of the political scientists finally suppress the heretics within their ranks, the edifice of techno-civilization will come tumbling down as if Samson himself had spread their supporting pillars of hypothesis and experiment apart. Post techno world will have no universal medical care, save what your local hippie Shaman can provide, and the stunning diagnostic ability of such inventions of the capitalist-pig consumer society as the MRI will be replaced by the aforementioned hippie waving a crystal on a string over your middle and saying, "Oh, wow. Looks like a bummer for your liver, man."

The democratic process will be replaced by the biggest man who swings the meanest club. Eating the rich will no longer be a concern since everyone will be dirt poor. Within a few years of the Apocalypse, diets will be a thing of the mythic past. Everyone will be heroin-thin, only it won’t be sheik anymore; likewise, many now endangered species will in the future be referred to as lunch. On the positive side, most of the greeners, whiners, professional protestors, welfare bums, college professors and the like, will be killed and flayed for their hides – now actually worth something, since they can be draped over a lean-to as protection against the elements.

Caveat About Global Warming Liberals

Some of the more devious liberals, aware of the crunch coming from the anti-manmade-global-warming faction of science, have ingeniously started to "spread" their definition of global warming. They have achieved this by replacing the term global warming with "climate change." Now, any movement up or down the thermometer – too hot, too cold, too tepid, whatever – can be deduced to be evidence of global warming! Now, global warming doesn’t have to mean just warming. Thus, they are freed from the constraints of relying solely on global warming data; if weather is happening, it supports their thesis.

(Note: Global warming believers have probably taken the "spread" method directly from the civil rights movement, whose proponents, as actual racism began to decline, realized that to keep themselves in power they had to "spread" the definition of racism to include almost any situation where a black person had a confrontation with a white person. In the past, in order to increase the idea of ‘victim hood,’ and keep federal dollars coming, liberals have also spread the definition of hunger and poverty.)

Will these wacky theories actually affect us? Some in Europe have suggested that the United States, due to its failure to sign the Kyoto Treaty, be penalized with green taxes when doing business in Europe. Leftists in the US are also touting the idea of ‘green taxes’ – leading to the possibility that we will soon be charged a dollar for every bushel of grass clippings we toss away, that raking and burning leaves will not only be an act of shame but an unpardonable and costly sin, and that before cutting down a tree we not only have to consult a licensed arborist, but the tree's court-appointed attorney.

But the taxes may be the easy part. Others are seeking criminal penalties for designated ‘enviro-crimes.’ The European Commission recently interpreted a 2005 ruling by the European Court of Justice as an open door "for the European Union to designate a new class of pan-European crimes and how they should be punished."

And please, remember this when debating a liberal about global warming: the average liberal is dangerously unbalanced: in addition to the burden of collective guilt they carry because of their egotistical belief that they have caused catastrophic climate change, they exist in a nether world of alien abduction filled with reptilian-shape-changing aliens, reverse engineered UFOs zooming nightly over the heartland, harbor repressed memories of being sexually abused, believe that satanic child abuse is rampant in America, and hold the paradoxical belief that a benign president is as evil as Hitler while believing that actual terrorists who have proclaimed they will fight to the death to achieve America’s destruction will eventually yield to the diplomatic efforts of Hillary Clinton. As a result, the average liberal is a mass of neuroses and seething repressed anger. At any time either Bush's secret police or his alien minions might burst inot their bedrooms and subject then to painful rectal probes. Can you imagine the tension this puts them under? (Of course, as you readers are no doubt aware, some liberals live for rectal probing).

To cope with their dissatisfaction with objective reality, the liberal seeks solace in a world of inner reality and usually covers his or her lack of self-esteem with a garish veneer of ego that is inversely proportional to the actual reality of their situation. Hence, they experience extreme psychological disassociation. Some typical examples of liberal disassociation can be spotted at auditions for American Idol. These are the contestants who are blithely unaware that their dancing appears spastic (and mimics many symptoms of neuronal disorders), that their vocalizations are atonal and painful to normal auditory canals, that the charisma they believe they possess is completely imaginary, and that their grandmothers and mothers have been lying to them about how cute and talented they are in a misguided effort to bolster their flagging self-esteem. Just as these American Idol contestants believe wholeheartedly in the mythic version of themselves – the fictional version that sings beautifully, dances like an acrobatic dervish, has the looks of a Greek god, and exudes charm like a fluffy pink-tongued Christmas puppy – so the Global warming liberal believes that the mishmash of slogans he parrots make his beliefs impervious to challenge. And, like the American Idol contestant, when confronted with the bitter truth of objective facts, the global warming liberal will usually become combative and angry and swear with the dedication of someone with Turret's Syndrome.

We are seeing the ascendency of a new religion, and the rise of the new Salem Witch Trials is not far behind. As a member of the Monty Python troop so aptly put it, "No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!" If liberals have their way, in the near future a federally employed remote viewer may be floating around the part of the astral plane that is contiguous to your living room, spying on your conversations to see if you are indeed a global warming heretic. If you are found to be a global warming heretic you may suffer one of two punishments; 1) be sent back to 1999 to work endlessly at repairing the calendars on pre-Y2K computers, or; 2) George W. Bush will personally hand you over to the bad-grays for medical experimentation.

History, as always instructive, records that once a vain Persian King ordered the waves to retreat from the beach – then ordered his troops to flog the waves when they failed to obey him. I have it on good authority that Al Gore is a direct descendant of that king.

So beware. It is probably not wise to argue with global warming liberals . . . it is probably not wise to talk to them at all. So whenever possible . . . particularly if the temperature is above or below seventy-two degrees . . . flee for you life is you come across a global warming liberal.

And remember, if it is too hot – or too cold – outside, that just means that the democrats are confiscating your personal resources for a good cause: they are locked in a life and death battle with the weather.