Reproduced from Alan Caruba's Warning Signs (link)
The Green Enemies of Humanity, Science and the Truth
By Alan
Caruba
Among the greatest liars on Earth today is the international organization
called Friends of the Earth (FOE). It has engaged in the most scurrilous
fear-mongering for decades, along with Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the World Wildlife
Fund, while all the time they pulled in billions in funding.
In May
2012, the Daily Caller noted that “The Congressional Research Service estimates
that since 2008 the federal government has spent nearly $70 billion on ‘climate
change activities.’” The leading critic in Congress, Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK)
asked at the time, “Which would you rather have? Would you rather spend $4
billion on Air Force base solar panels, or would you rather have 28 new F-22s
or 30 F-25s or modernized C-130s?”
“Would you
rather have $64.8 billion spent on pointless global warming efforts or would
you rather have more funds put toward modernizing our fleet of ships, aircraft
and ground vehicles to improve the safety of our troops and help defend the
nation against the legitimate threats that we face?’
On May 9th,
I received an email from Friends of the Earth that repeated all the lies we
have heard for years. Painting with a very broad brush that completely ignores
the fact that the U.S. climate has always had highs and lows of temperature,
FOE complained that “Last year the U.S. experienced record-breaking weather all
over the country. But, the nightly news programs on ABC, CBS, and NBC barely
talked about what was fueling this extreme weather—climate change.”
What FOE
failed to mention was a record that was set in 2012-13; as of May, according to
the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration, the U.S. had its longest
stretch in recorded history—2,750 days—without a major hurricane landfall. The
many claims of “extreme” weather are classic fear-mongering. I might also add
that, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, the number of
wildfires is at a ten-year low. Glaciers are not melting and seas are not
rising, unless a millimeter or two worries you.
“Climate
change” is the replacement name for “global warming.” Climate is measured in centuries. The weather
is whatever is happening anywhere in the nation on any given day. Around the
world, however, there has been a significant increase in cold weather and many
are still waiting for spring to arrive.
Typical of
the hyperbole that is representative of the lies we have heard from so-called
environmental organizations, FOE fumed that “the nightly news programs at the
major broadcast networks have largely ignored what is fueling this extreme
weather—climate change.” Citing a Media Matters for America study, FOE noted
that “ABC’s nightly news program did only one segment about climate change last
year. Meanwhile NBC’s news show did only four and CBS just seven segments to
this critical issue.” Perhaps this is because these notably liberal news
organizations have concluded it is not
a critical issue?
It gets
better, FOE was angry, saying “What’s almost worse is that when these networks
have covered global warming, they have often treated climate change as a
‘two-sided debate’ rather than what it really is; an issue in which there is
overwhelming scientific consensus.” These are people who do not want to have a
debate because, based on the facts, they would lose. As for scientific
consensus regarding either global warming or climate change, there is NONE. If
anything, leading scientists around the world have been debunking global warming now for
years. (emphasis added)
One of the
leading think tanks in the effort to end the global warming hoax has been The Heartland Institute. It has sponsored several international conferences in
which scientists and others have offered papers and addressed the topic. I
recommend you subscribe to its national monthly, Environmental & ClimateNews. Its Managing Editor, James M. Taylor, J.D., provides the latest
information on the environmental organizations greatest villain, carbon dioxide
(CO2).
Two recent
dispatches by Taylor noted in one that “Climate models supporting predictions
of rapid global warming during the next century have performed miserably
predicting global temperatures during the past two decades”, citing a
comparison of computer model predictions and real-world temperatures by climate
scientist Roy W. Spencer. In another, Taylor noted that “New data from the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show atmospheric carbon dioxide
levels continue to rise, but global temperatures are not following suit. The
new data undercut assertions that atmospheric carbon dioxide is causing a
global warming crisis.”
Undismayed
by the facts, FOE could only cite the taxpayer-funded PBS News Hour that
“devoted 23 segments to covering climate change.” When the President is telling
everyone that the climate is the greatest threat to the nation, PBS bureaucrats
who know where the money comes from can be depended upon to broadcast his lies.
Ironically,
the Wall Street Journal published an opinion by Harrison H. Schmitt and William
Happer on the same day the FOE email arrived. It was titled “In Defense of Carbon Dioxide.” Schmitt was an Apollo 17 astronaut and a former U.S. Senator
from New Mexico. He is an adjunct professor of engineering at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Happer is a professor of physics at Princeton University and
a former director of the office of energy research at the U.S. Department of
Energy.
“The
cessation of observed global warming for the past decade or so has shown how
exaggerated NASA’s and most other computer predictions of human-caused warming
have been—and how little correlation warming has with concentrations of
atmospheric carbon dioxide.”
No wonder
FOE is upset that even the mainstream media networks no longer want to report
on a global warming that does not exist. There’s real science and there’s the
fulminations and lies of Friends of the Earth.
© Alan
Caruba, 2013
