"Environmental "Chicken Littles" have come home to roost at the AP
As if we don't have enough to worry about already, Associated Press editorial science writer Seth Borenstein has thrown together a global warming scare piece that reads more like a press release from AlGore.com than an intelligently researched news article. According to Borenstein, the planet is already doomed because we did not act soon enough to stop global warming, and there is so little time left that even the divine efforts Barack Obama may not be enough.
Borenstein claims:
Since Clinton's inauguration, summer Arctic sea ice has lost the equivalent of Alaska, California and Texas. The 10 hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration. Global warming is accelerating. Time is close to running out, and Obama knows it.
"The ten hottest years on record have occurred since Clinton's second inauguration." Really? I'm going to nominate this statement for "Most Obvious Example of Talking Out of One's Ass" for the year 2008. Borenstein seems to be referencing the widely-quoted NASA/GISS chart showing that four out of the ten warmest years since 1900 occurred after 1997, and that 1998 was the warmest year of the Twentieth Century. But that chart has since been debunked, and the resulting corrections show that only three of the ten warmest years since 1900 occurred since 1997, and 1934 was actually the hottest year of the twentieth century. Conclusion: Borenstein has no idea what he is talking about.
The article continues:
Scientists are increasingly anxious, talking more often and more urgently about exceeding "tipping points.""We're out of time," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said. "Things are going extinct."
Wow. Just like they have been for the last billion years or so. If I were going on a cruise with Al Gore on his new solar powered boat, I would be worried about "tipping points" when Gore stepped on board. Otherwise, not so much. Man can heavily damage environments on a local scale, but globally? The Earth is really, really, big, and man simply doesn't control the power necessary to do it.
Care to read a little more?
Mother Nature, of course, is oblivious to the federal government's machinations. Ironically, 2008 is on pace to be a slightly cooler year in a steadily rising temperature trend line. Experts say it's thanks to a La Nina weather variation. While skeptics are already using it as evidence of some kind of cooling trend, it actually illustrates how fast the world is warming.
Amazing thing, that Global Warming. When the Earth warms, it's Global Warming. When the Earth cools, it's Global Warming. Place your bets on Global Warming, and you'll come out a winner every time.
The rest of the article talks about domestic and international initiatives to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. To his credit, Borenstein actually admits that China's emission of CO2 has doubled since 1992, while the United States has increased CO2 emissions by 20% during the same time. Borenstein has high hopes that new international agreements can stem the tide of increased CO2 production before it is too late:
In December 2009, diplomats are charged with forging a new treaty replacing the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which set limits on greenhouse gases, and which the United States didn't ratify. This time European officials have high expectations for the U.S. to take the lead.
Well, here's a little secret: what the US and Europe does won't mean diddly unless China, India, Indonesia and other growing nations in the Pacific Rim, and Mexico are all on board. The reasoning behind Kyoto's exemption of these nations was based on "legacy" -- nations emerging from poverty weren't "legacy" polluters, so they should not be held financially responsible for the 20th century's legacy of pollution. But the 21st century emissions levels of these nations, especially China, threatens to dwarf the pollution emitted by much more environmentally-conscious nations in the West. And unless they are forced to do something about it, all the "carbon credits" surrendered by the West will be nothing but a colossal waste of money.
Even German Chancellor Angela Merkel, once an aggressive green advocate, has finally been smacked in the face by the fiscal realities associated with burdensome and lop-sided carbon emission reduction schemes. Merkel previously supported the EU's so-called "20-20-20" targets -- "20 per cent cut in emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels, combined with 20 per cent of fuel to come from renewable sources and a 20 per cent improvement in energy efficiency" -- but she now fears "carbon leakage" from the German economy; that is, the relocation of carbon emissions-producing industries to other non-EU nations that do not subscribe to the 20-20-20 plan.
And can Americans really afford draconian restrictions on coal-fired power plants like the ones Barack Obama seems to support?
Maybe Seth Borenstein doesn't believe any of this stuff either. Maybe his piece is just part of the grand post-election effort by the MSM to cusion Barack Obama's inevitable fall from the wobbly pedestal of false messiah-hood. But his outright distortions are inexcusable. Shame on the AP for publishing this completely worthless piece of environmental wacko trash.
Realted: Newsbusters - "Scientists Denounce AP For Hysterical Global Warming Article"
