A new multimillion-dollar coordinated campaign by global warming alarmists is under way to scare the American public into believing that global warming is the greatest threat facing humanity.
Along with the premier of his Hollywood movie this week, Al Gore announced the creation of a new group dedicated to spending millions of dollars to push global-warming alarmism.
This explains the recent media frenzy over global warming featuring cover stories like the one in Time magazine, news specials on TBS and HBO, an Ad Council campaign, and of course, Al Gore’s very own Hollywood movie.
Not to be outdone, former President Clinton made headlines last weekend declaring that global warming is a more serious threat than terrorism.
Global-warming alarmists are turning to their political and Hollywood connections to raise millions of dollars to intensify the rhetoric in order convince the American people the science is settled regarding man-made global warming.
One major problem — scientists themselves do not believe that a scientific consensus exists.
Just last month, 60 scientists sent a letter to the Prime Minister of Canada calling on the Canadian government to re-open the debate over Kyoto. The letter states:
” ‘Climate change is real’ is a meaningless phrase used repeatedly by activists to convince the public that a climate catastrophe is looming and humanity is the cause.Neither of these fears is justified. Global climate changes occur all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural ‘noise.’ ”
The most flagrant distortion of science by global-warming alarmists is their claims that the recent hurricane devastation in the Gulf Coast region is linked to global warming.
Leading experts such as Dr. Christopher Landsea (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration), Dr. William Gray (Colorado State University) and Dr. Robert Sheets, (Director of the National Hurricane 1987 to 1995), are part of the vast majority of scientists who reject claims that man was responsible for these violent storms.
This, however, didn’t stop Robert Kennedy Jr. just days after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans from declaring that the hurricane was due to global warming. It’s precisely what promoters of Gore’s film lead you to believe in order to push their agenda.
This manufactured scientific consensus, propped up by a multimillion-dollar campaign of disinformation that preys upon your fear, is the primary reason why I have long believed that claims of a consensus that man is causing global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.
International momentum shifting away from cap-and-trade approach
It is little wonder that alarmists have intensified their rhetoric about the impending doom of the planet. Longtime supporters of cap-and-trade programs are slowly coming to grips with the realization that these programs are unworkable and unsustainable.
Last summer, Prime Minister Tony Blair made a stunning statement that initially went unreported by the press. Blair, as the London Telegraph reported, made a “U-turn” on Kyoto. The Telegraph reports, “Mr. Blair, who has been seen up to now as a strong supporter of the Kyoto Treaty, effectively tore the document up and admitted that rows over its implementation will ‘never be resolved.’ Regarding future Kyoto-like plans Blair stated, “To be honest, I don’t think people are going, at least in the short term, to start negotiating another major treaty like Kyoto.” Prime Minister Blair’s “U-turn” comes as Europe struggles to meet the limits imposed by Kyoto.
Legislative proposals to cap emissions continue to lose support here in the United States as well. Last summer, the United States Senate rejected cap-and-trade legislation by soundly defeating the McCain-Lieberman bill 38-60, losing by five votes more than the previous time it was voted on.
The momentum shift away from a cap-and-trade program is not surprising. Cap-and-trade proposals are all cost and no reduction.
Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates estimates that Kyoto would cost an American family of four $2,700 annually, yet only reduce temperature by .06C.
The rejected McCain-Lieberman proposal would have cost American households an additional $810 a year and more than 1 million jobs would have been lost. Electricity prices would have increased 20 percent. The difference in temperature? 0.029 Celsius.
An inconvenient truth
The state of science continues to evolve on every frontier. So ask yourself: Is it really possible that the most complex scientific question ever to face mankind is settled?
So next time someone trying to sell you a “global-warming solution” tells you the science is settled, tell them you won’t fall for that hoax.
James M. Inhofe is a Republican U.S. Senator from Oklahoma.
