The Science of Alarmism

Here in Washington DC, specifically all over Union Station (near my home), countless signs with images of Bigfoot, Martians and mermaids declare “There is no such thing as clean coal.”  Several yards away are signs of windmills and solar panels and an Obamian catch phrase: “Clean energy can repower our economy.”  It’s a cute advertising gimmick, but it’s missing a key reality.   While it is true that “clean coal” is somewhat of a mirage - it should really be defined as “not as dirty” coal - at present, so are sustainable wind and solar energy programs powerful and cheap enough to power the nation.  So in the interest of environmentalism, the ad campaign simply displaces one “myth” with another one that appeals to its sensibilities and supports its call for increased funding for “renewable” energy programs.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t pursue revolutionary technologies that would eliminate our need for oil and coal based fuel.  But, half of the nation’s electricity is powered by coal.  Until some genius develops sustainable wind and solar energies, what else are we supposed to use?  The best option is nuclear energy, the cleanest, cheapest and most sustainable energy yet known to mankind.  But environmentalists and peaceniks also hate that option due to unfounded fears - particularly in the 21st century - of reactor meltdown and soil toxicity and because the term “nuclear” simply causes them to break out in cold sweats.  Even France, one of the most Liberal nations on earth (arguably second to Sweden) heavily relies on nuclear power, yet nuclear plants in the United States are being closed down due to age with no intention to replace them.

Perhaps “absolute clean” coal does not exist.  But neither does large scale and sustainable wind or solar energy.  In the short-term why don’t we use the resources that actually work and minimize pollution while we work on another solution.  Methods that produce no pollution, but are not yet feasible do not benefit anyone (except those individuals who can afford them).  After all, poverty-stricken nations like Botswana don’t have carbon footprints, but they can’t feed their people either.

The fact is that Liberals are simply using their blind, cultist faith in global warming to ignore the realities of feasible energy solutions - coal, nuclear, oil or otherwise - for today.

Global warming is no different than the alarmist movement in the 1970s caused by the publication of a book in 1968 called The Population Bomb.  The theory was that as worldwide population increased the world would run out of the agricultural resources necessary to feed everyone resulting in widespread famine and the extinction of entire peoples.  Scientists the world over rang the alarm; those selfish enough to have children were condemned; worldwide socialism was called for to regulate the food supply and address the emergency.  Then, nothing happened.  The population boomed, but so did the food supply due to technological improvements, innovation and new discoveries unforseen by the omniscient scientists.  The issue simply became obsolete.

The same is happening today:  scientists, Al Gore and Prius owners the world over are predicting that the world’s icecaps will soon melt and California will become part of the Pacific Ocean’s Continental Shelf.  They show pictures of cute polar bears (who can swim mind you) stranded on lonely chunks of ice floating out to sea and blame economic success and industrial progress for its plight.  They sound the alarm, demand that every nation (except China and India) sign the feckless Kyoto Treaty (to which half of the signatories don’t even abide), pillory those, namely the United States, who refuse to sign and guilt Middle America into buying compact cars while they use their private jets to fly cross-country to attend the next global warming conference cancelled due to snow, all the while decrying the poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (which as previously noted has zero carbon footprint).

Don’t buy into the hype.  Like the economic plight, Liberals are simply using global warming to consolidate power and socialize the country.  Fortunately, according to Powerline a pluarality of Americans now believe global warming is not caused by human activity, but rather planetary weather cycles.  And according to one scientist, we’re actually entering an age of global cooling.  Oh no! Begin hording fur coats and hand warmers!  Rally for electronic heaters!  Protest ice rinks!  Shut down Dairy Queen!