I was taken aback by this paragraph in a Politico story by someone a colleague of mine styles as the best reporter in DC on these issues. It reveals the media are not only telling us what to watch for this year, but getting an early jump:
Despite mounting evidence that the greenhouse gas buildup in the Earth’s atmosphere is causing runaway changes to the climate – NASA this month declared 2010 the hottest year on record – several pollsters say the American public isn’t listening. (emphases added)
Now, the reason no evidence — mounting, or otherwise — of runaway climate change was cited there is because there is no evidence of runaway climate change. Let alone man-made. There is as there always has been a continuing stream of evidence of changes in climate, because change is the sole constant in climate. But it takes an environmentalist or axe-grinding politician to say that whatever happens is evidence supporting his faith and/or agenda. The ‘runaway’ business is just absurdly hyperbolic. Which, again, is why no such evidence was actually cited.
Get this straight because you are going to get used to this: their new talking point, 2010 being the hottest year ‘on record’, wouldn’t be such evidence even though it is knowingly intoned as a self-evident example of cause-effect. This is true even if the claim by cited source, NASA — meaning James Hansen’s runaway office, known as GISS — did not reflect GISS having done two things: adjusting the historical record to make older years cooler (rewriting history) and ‘extrapolating’ data over vast stretches in the Arctic where they have none…but which happens to be where they find the warming (making history up).
None of which is secret, all of which then makes the above-cited paragraph an embarrassment.
Then the reporter discussed what the global warming industry plans to do about this, and includes the following predictable punch telegraphed.
…Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), co-author of several unsuccessful climate bills over the last decade, said he agrees with the need to make more local connections for the public. Hitting home for him are studies showing lobster and winter flounder moving north out of Long Island Sound.
“It’s not the end of the world, and yet it suggests the world is changing,” Lieberman said. “It’s one small example. The world is full of them.”
Lieberman said he thinks there’s a need for more TV and radio commercials that capture the most eye-catching images. “Just show people what’s happening,” he said. “Show them satellite pictures of the ice caps.”
Yes, the world changes and, of course, if something happens then you did it and their agenda would change it. Even if after billions of dollars and several decades they cannot make their case and are reduced to doing what they started with. Primitively pointing to the world around them and shrieking that the witch — now, the SUV — did it.
Expect the media to run with this. And in response I will show you pictures of, say, the World Trade Center collapsing. Why? Because that is their logic: show you something and say it is evidence that you did it. Example, invoked by a mindless fellow panelist on a tv show last week:
Man-made global warming is causing Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glacier to recede.
How do you know?
Mt. Kilimanjaro’s glacier is receding.
Oh. OK.
The CIA brought the World Trade Center down.
How do you know?
The World Trade Center came down.
Your ‘conclusion’ is actually an assumption. And that’s too stupid even for Washington to re-engineer the economy around. Here’s to an invigorating 2011.
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