In previous commentaries (Vol. XV, Art. 33 and Vol. XVI, Art. 20) we pointed out that Heartland Institute’s James M. Taylor has accused Al Gore of distorting science and ignoring data that defy his theory on alleged “global warming”. For example, Gore claims that “global warming”;
• … is shrinking the Himalayan Glaciers,
• … is shrinking the snow cap of Mt. Kilimanjaro,
• … is expanding the African deserts, and
• … is causing a rapid meltdown in Greenland which threatens to raise sea levels by 20 feet.

Despite the fact that all of this nonsense has been discredited by reputable scientists, gullible Americans still swallow the rants of devious environmentalists. Even the California Air Resources Board has been taken in. Although this authority was rebuffed by the court when it attempted to regulate vessel engine emissions, and although the Air Resources Board may lack jurisdiction to regulate beyond the 3-mile limit of state waters, the board now mandates the use of lower-sulfur marine distillates by vessels within 24 nautical miles of California’s coastline. Would you care to guess where the idea for that 24 mile limit came from? You’re right. Al Gore … the same guy who claims he “invented the internet”.

[He’s not the only public figure that has brought embarrassment to serious environmentalists, however. When Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, was head of the World Wildlife Fund, he once remarked that if he could be reincarnated, he would wish to come back as a killer virus so that he could lower human population levels. Spoken like a true humanitarian.]

Further scientific evidence against the outlandish claims of those insisting that taxpayers foot the bill to “green” this planet of ours is readily available to the not-so-gullible. Here’s a sampling:

• More than 31,000 scientists across the United States – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and other specialties – recently signed a petition rejecting “global warming”, the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth’s climate.

• Christopher C. Horner, author of “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming and Environmentalism”, demonstrates that the CO2 output by man is not even causing the greenhouse calamity that environmentalists predict. If we are in a time of warming – a debatable point, he insists – it is a natural and healthy cycle that occurs regularly without any influence of man. Many other scientists insist likewise.

• Scientists Eric S. Posmentier and Willie Soon produced an important essay demonstrating that the computer model predictions of the effect of CO2 on global warming are not reliable, due to the “host of uncertainties and unknowns” in the task of computer climate modeling. Yet much of the panic about a catastrophic Greenhouse future comes from this questionable computer climate-forecasting. [So, isn’t panic the hand-maiden of the “business of fear”?]