Global warming promoters are trying hard to blame all BAD weather on the greenhouse effect. You know that they are striking out when the Comedy Channel makes fun of their efforts. But read also what professional meteorologists have to say about the topic in this Washington Times op-ed; it's bound to make Al Gore and his buddies quite unhappy. Also, Candace Crandall is back with an article on La Nina in the American Outlook that takes the clueless media to task.

OUR CONTEST ON GW HYPE

"Why is the Clinton administration hyping global warming?" we asked. The replies are coming in, and they range from the serious to the ridiculous, from the unprintable to the concise (just 4 words):

"To gore the public," writes one of our loyal supporters. "Power. It's that simple" writes another. And from a biologist at a major Midwestern university, a long epistle:

"Both Clinton and Al Gore are firm believers that no one knows better what everyone else needs than they do. For different reasons, of course. Both of them know that external or global threats have always been used well to galvanize public opinion and to allow people with power to direct that opinion toward certain ends.

It was used effectively by Hitler to justify his militarization and attack on other European countries. It was used effectively by Churchill to mobilize the British people to withstand and to counter that attack. Al Gore believes that the major threat the people of the earth face, well, the nice people of the western democracies, is environmental damage that comes as the result of freely-developed and market-driven technological progress.

He knows that people will not voluntarily give up their private cars and air-conditioned homes and beef-eating ways. Since he believes that the threat is imminent, he believes that he cannot wait to convince the masses that he is correct in his assessment, much less leave it up to them to decide what to do about it. I mean, what if they decided to do nothing!

Accordingly, the plan is to act first, explain later. The first thing to do is to whip up a sufficiently great level of fear among the people that they will not be disposed to complain when certain government commissions or international consortiums recommend guidelines. After all, these recommendations are expected to help solve the problem. And besides, recommendations are just talk, right? The recommendations are then used by these functionaries as proof that what they were saying all along is true. Why would they have made recommendations about something that had no basis in fact? This further reification of their bugaboo is used to continue hyping the problem through the popular press. The people who read only the popular press are scarcely aware that there is any scientific dissent or how strong its critique of the entire scheme is. When popular emotions are stirred enough, then this is also pointed to as proof that something needs to be done, and done now.

Notice that Clinton has already issued executive orders to start studying ways to comply with Kyoto even though the treaty has not been ratified by Congress or even submitted to Congress. He knows that in the present Congress, it will not be ratified. Instead, he and Al Gore (and other statists of every stripe around the world) hope, by hook or by crook, to get a large enough bureaucracy set up that they can start doing de facto what they are not permitted to do de jure. Hyping global warming is their way of scaring people into accepting their solutions for a problem largely of their own creation and for their own ends. For them, environmentalism is politics by other means.

To permit them to get away with it will be as consequential as Neville Chamberlain's green light to Hitler. The economic and public health results will be as devastating to the world's population as anything experienced this century."

And from Britain:
"I have no original nor outrageous suggestions, but I think I know the three underlying reasons for the US Administration's hype of global warming.
1. The hype responds to international pressure without risk of any action by the US.
2. It provides an opportunity to appear 'honest' and 'caring' from an Administration whose President has demonstrated personal lack of morality.
3. And weather is always changing, so climate change provides the Vice-president with frequent opportunity to make outrageous (therefore newsworthy) statements that keep him in the public eye when he is doing nothing but looking forward to becoming President following the end of President Clinton's term."

And a populist view from someone who has it in for lawyers:
"That's an easy one -- the answer is POWER. There is now a large class, scions of America's historic elites, that is not really qualified to do anything in the productive economy. A large number are trained in law, of course. So to maintain their position, they must find causes for regulation. You see a lot of this in the various employment laws now, and in conventional environmental law, of course. But Global Warming is a gold mine of possibilities for them because it would require total control of the economy by the government, and by lawyers and other non-technical people."

And a conspiratorial view from a Canadian reader:
"I think the Government is trying to convince the public that global warming is such a dire threat, that it will cause heat waves and drought in the U.S., that the U.S. can finally do what they have always dreamed of doing to alleviate our suffering: INVADE CANADA.

"In my opinion, the reason that the administration pursues global warming is that they are governed by the polls of the population which wants to reduce air pollution at all costs. It is a social phenomenon, called by Dr. Nierenberg "The Law of Constant Concern," which he says is as respected as the "Second Law of Thermodynamics". The numerical cause of the concern may become vanishing small but the level of concern remains high."

"Very simple, Fred! That lucky "Faust," Al Gore, long ago made the deal that, in payment for his loyalty, Clinton would push his agenda as the 2000 election neared."

But the prize for the most outrageous scenario goes to Julie "the Jarhead" Kelleher of Malden, Mass <juliethejarhead@hotmail.com>:

"Well, I'll tell ya! There is nothing Bill Clinton wants more than to stay in office. With Hill running for the Senate (possibly), his greatest fear is her stealing his limelight. Unfortunately, that pesky Constitution is in the way; in particular, the silly term-limits-for-president thing.

So what have we here in global warming -- a ready-made national emergency. We don't even have to produce a high-budget, "Wag the Dog"-type movie. We have everything we need on the nightly news -- hurricanes, floods, earthquakes -- disasters everywhere. We're already blaming it all on GW.

Of course, the polls are working against the GW catastrophe. No one cares? No problem -- Bill and the White House spinmeisters will just find/create a poll that shows that we're all just terrified of GW, and that we need someone to lead us out of this desert. With the ball rolling, Bill steps in. Both political parties are in disarray. There is no clear-cut leader. Even after an election, the winner won't have a "mandate" to save us from Armageddon (sp?). The lame-duck president declares a national emergency, giving him the Constitutional power to remain in office. (See, that pesky Constitution does come in handy sometimes!)."

To be continued next week…