Take, for example, the June 20 post “State of the Ocean: ‘Shocking’ Report Warns of Mass Extinction from Current Rate of Marine Distress.” I doubt that most HP readers have a clue how vast the oceans of the world are. They compose the majority of the Earth’s surface, some 70 percent, and contain 97 percent of the world’s water.
According to its website, the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) gathered at the University of Oxford, for “A high-level international workshop”, described as “the first inter-disciplinary international meeting of marine scientists of its kind… designed to consider the cumulative impact of multiple stressors on the ocean, including warming, acidification, and over-fishing.”
“The 27 participants from 18 organizations in 6 countries produced a grave assessment of current threats - and a stark conclusion about future risks to marine and human life if the current trajectory of damage continues: that the world's ocean is at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history.”
Please, someone, please tell me the last time an international group of scientists did not get together and then announce to the world that some horrid future awaited everyone?
According to the IPSO geniuses, “We are looking at consequences for humankind that will impact in our lifetime, and worse, our children’s and generations beyond that.” The scientific panel concluded “that the degeneration in the oceans is happening much faster than has been predicted” and, therefore, all the coral reefs “could be gone by 2050.”
Why is it that every one of these apocalyptic groups always predict something “could be”, “might be”, “is expected to”, and a whole raft of wishy-washy terms that add up to “We don’t know, but we want to scare the crap out of you just the same”?
Implicit in this latest prediction is that human actions are responsible for whatever they claim is happening to the oceans. Never mind all the other creatures on Earth, gazillions of insects, millions of birds and all manner of mammals, not to mention all the fish, it is always humans despoiling the Earth.
Have we not lived with this tiresome nonsense since the early days of the environmental movement and, in particular, the creation of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change? A recent editorial in The Washington Times exposed the way the latest IPCC pronouncement that “the entire world will soon depend on renewable energy” was lifted from a paper whose primary authors were from Greenpeace and the European Renewable Energy Council!
The IPCC has managed to destroy the integrity and the trust in science that has taken centuries to be built. Its constant flogging of the bogus global warming fraud has caused everyone except the Green Kool-Aid drinkers to conclude that scientists cannot be trusted.
Many can’t. Over the years, they have been seduced by billions in government funds for research that always seems to confirm whatever the political agenda is at the time. Galileo was put under house arrest by the Vatican because his findings conflicted with the teaching of the Church at that time. Now governments just buy scientists by the boatload. In addition, the scientists working for government agencies such as NASA know where their paycheck comes from.
A caveat, please. I am privileged to know quite a few scientists as the result of spending the last thirty years debunking global warming. A relative handful of very brave men and women risked their academic and professional careers to dispute the IPCC and other charlatans. From June 30-to-July 1, the Heartland Institute will convene its sixth international conference devoted to the truth about "global warming", i.e., that it is a massive lie. So, yes, there are many good scientists and interested parties who fought the good fight.
Compounding the problem here in the U.S., the nation’s schools have been totally co-opted by the Green agenda and whatever passes for science is mostly some version of the Gaia religion spoon-fed to the kiddies in pre-school, kindergarten, and up to graduation. The process continues at most colleges and university. The result is a generation or two of enviro-robots for whom science is little more than propaganda.
So, like the marine prognosticators, be polite, listen to their ravings, and ignore them. Be serene and secure in the knowledge that the sun, the oceans, the clouds, the volcanoes, and other factors affecting the Earth are immune to any but the ancient cycles that were known by Chinese, Mayan and druid astronomers long, long ago.
That is why the end is always near, but thankfully never seems to arrive.
© Alan Caruba, 2011
Excellent commentary as always. I was never a believer in this whole global warming mess, and now the focus is shifting from the glaciers to the oceans. Anyone, scientist or not, who is contemplating joining the enviro-fascists should first read Michael Crichton's excellent book, "State of Fear". Not only does he provide plenty of evidence disproving global warming, but he also exposes radical environmentalism for what it is: a hateful political movement designed, like most, to put a select few in charge of everyone else's lives.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I call myself a conservationist, mainly because I think we should be responsible about our use of resources. Most radical environmentalists and hippies scorn people like that, but if they want to take offence, that's their problem.
@James. I'd put myself in the conservationalist school, but with the caveat that we have enough national forests, parks and refuges at this point in our history. As usual the Greens want to have every swamp and bog declared a national treasure.
ReplyDeleteAlan, there has been about six International Conferences with hundreds of respected scientists that didn't come with an Apocaliptic vision of the future. The were held by the Heartland Institute and were called NIPCC. Their lenghty reports are not gloom and doom. I have even translated into Spanish the first NIPCC Report asked by Fred Singer a few years ago.
ReplyDelete@Eduardo: I am aware of the Heartland conferences and mentioned the upcoming on in the commentary. I attended the first three.
ReplyDelete@Alan:
ReplyDelete"It's the end of the world as we know it...
and I feel fine"
This would make a really neat song.
Can someone suggest band?
My favorite character in Start Trek was 'Spock' the Vulcan. His line 'simple logic will suffice' while he raised the left eyebrow was always whimsical. What made it funny was the truism of it. A big problem today is that most people don't think, don't make their own observations of the world around them, and don't use simple logic, least of all people who suck up the drivel from sources like the Huffington Post, MSNBC, NBC, CBS, etc. The naiveté of people who listen to this trash and buy it hook, line, and sinker is utterly astounding.
ReplyDeleteWhen a power company was having hearings about builting a nuke plant along the river in the area where I was raised, all you heard from the enviro-nazies was the warm discharge water from the cooling towers flowing into the river would have devastating effects on the fish and wildlife. Eventually the plant was constructed and started and the fish and wildlife flocked around those discharge pipes and the warm pool of water it made in the river like it was a tropical paradise. Apparently the fish, foul, reptiles, and amphibians like warm water as much as humans do.
Don't whales, dolphins, sea bass, blue fish and a host of marine life migrate from the cold waters of the artic or antartic through the gulf stream and back again many times during their lives where we are talking a temperature gradient of 30 degrees or more? So we are supposed to buy into the garbage that a degree or two rise in ocean temperature is going to kill off all the sea creatures?
Every nuclear device on earth detonated under water at the same instant would not generate enough heat and energy to have any appreciable effect on global ocean water temperature. So how can anything man is doing raise the temperature of the ocean water?
These snake oil peddlers bank on people being gullible and not using the brains the good Lord has provided them.
Simple logic will suffice....
As long as folks realize that there has been over-harvest of some marine species. The Atlantic giant tuna, for one. Cod and halibut, as well.
ReplyDeleteIn the GOM, it's king mackeral and swordfish.
The catch on a per-hour, per boat basis in many areas is way down. More effort, lower incomes to fishermen. In many areas, fewer fishermen.
State wildlife agency data is quite informative, as to the near-shore waters of our coasts.
I remember this guy, long snow white beard and hair, about 50 years ago, in Oklahoma City, he walked up and down Reno St wearing a sandwich board saying, *The End is Near*...
ReplyDeleteMaybe we're just not in the same *time continuum* as he was...
You're traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind; a journey into a wondrous land whose boundaries are that of imagination. That's the signpost up ahead — your next stop, the Twilight Zone.