Will I ever shut up?
THE END IS NIGH! THE END IS NIGH! I know I shouldn't have done it, but I tuned in to CNN's Special Report "Our Changing Climate: The Great Debate" on (gasp) global warming. Oh, I don't know what I was thinking. The program billed itself as a debate. I guess I was duped. The first three segments were about how the world is definitely being destroyed by man and his damned progress. Pictures of pawns in the grand illusion were shown. You know the usual lot: a high school ecology class, self-interested egghead scientists, third-world government officials who only wish they had economies that could account for such pollution. I've said it before. I'll say it again.
THERE IS NO F***ING MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING!!! WE ARE NOT DESTROYING THE PLANET!!!
You know what produces a whole hell of a lot of "greenhouse gases"? Volcanoes. Obviously these man-made volcanoes are creating a crisis of...wait a second. Man did not create volcanoes. God did! Oh, no! Now God is fighting against us! Is it not bad enough He kills so many with the ash and lava spewed forth by His curse. And what about cows? Yes, cows. Livestock (and all of the rest of us) are giving off methane in their, well, you know. And so do we. Every time we, well, you know, we get one step closer to global annihilation. We must be stopped!
Okay, the hour long program is over and about five minutes was devoted to an opposing view. Gee, that seems to be the liberal definition of a balanced debate. Five minutes of rational thought versus fifty-five minutes of panic about the potential of melting glaciers (obviously caused by man), rising tides (obviously caused by man), dwindling food supplies (obviously caused by man) and general plague and pestilence (obviously caused by man).
Now, I realize that about 0.00001% of the number of people who watched that program will actually read this, but I must offer a rebuttal. Glaciers have been receding since at least the early nineteenth century, before the peak of the Industrial Revolution. Global climate changes have fluctuated since the beginning of time. Changes take place on the scale of centuries and millennia. No baby boomer scientist worth his test tubes can honestly and credibly say that the findings of a few years or decades constitute a long enough period of time to make a responsible conclusion. The argument of "we cannot afford to do nothing" doesn't wash. We cannot afford to roll back a couple of centuries of progress on a false assumption. Need to fly to the coast? Forget it. Need to drive to the store? Nope. Need to cool your home on a hot summer day? Sorry. If these morons convince enough people who can't think for themselves or draw their own conclusions, the 21st century will look a lot like the 18th. Ah, yes the good old days. Ever tried to beat your laundry against a rock?
Our only hope is our youth. I know that's a scary thought, but with any luck they will be way too selfish to give up modern conveniences and personal freedom to save the world. There were comments on this "debate" from air-headed students who just care so much and are so frightened that they would be ready to give up everything to preserve the earth for our children. However, when it was suggested to a class that raising the legal driving age to 21 would cut down on vehicle emissions, the kids balked. Thank God for selfish Americans. And just maybe some of these young people will see this global environmentalism movement for what it really is, socialism spurred by jealousy on the part of lesser-developed nations. If their standard of living isn't as high as ours, then the Americans must be brought down to the level of the rest of the world. From those according to their means to those according to their need. Isn't that right? We have the money. They don't. Never mind that we produce more per level of pollution than many other industrialized countries. Forget that some of the larger urban pollution problems are in the cities of the third world. They will never tell you that. They will just repeat that the U.S. is the world's biggest polluter. If our current GDP can be maintained or grown with less pollution, I'm all for it. If not, pollute on, dudes!
And another thing ...