Climate Changes In Liberal Dreamland
One has to understand the editors at the Charlotte Observer: They use their bully pulpit to advocate whatever they dreamed of the night before. Being dreams, there is no requirement of rational, consistent thought; only whatever makes them feel good at the moment. Two recent pieces remind us of this truth.
On Friday, May13th, one finds a piece taken from the Los Angeles Times written by Bill McKibben, a fear monger of climate change. Using the current flood in the Mississippi River valley along with snow this past winter in order to elicit fear in the reader, Mr. McKibben would have us “…kick, oil, gas and coal habits, very, very fast….” He cites an insurance company, Munich Re, as saying “the only plausible explanation for the rise in weather related catastrophes is climate change.” Now I’m afraid – afraid people like McKibben will have more influence over our legislators than is reasonable. (Actually I’m amazed he didn’t use the earthquake in Japan as a harbinger of climate change also)
Certainly the climate is changing. That is the nature of the world. From historic times when the planet earth was much warmer and dinosaurs roamed, to about 20,000 years ago when glaciers covered much of the northern hemisphere, change is the natural order of the climate. In the United States the Ohio River is one of the southern boundaries of the glaciers. During that time the ocean levels were between 200 and 300 feet lower than they are now.
So what is it about the time we live in now that makes it so imperative that we change everything that makes our lives comfortable in order to stop adding CO2 and CH3 and H20 to the atmosphere in the vain attempt to control the climate. I say vain in that no matter what we do, the climate will continue to change. Hopefully we won’t go back into an Ice Age, which according to some theories is where we should be headed based on the recent 400,000 years of climate history.
The actual issues are those of control and stupidity. People like McKibben and the editors of the Observer want control over our lives, so that we live according to their wishes. Stupidity in that many of the ‘catastrophes’ are due strictly to the fact mankind builds in locations where mother nature will wreak havoc sooner rather than later. The catastrophes are also due in part to the number of people living on the planet. We are so numerous we can hardly avoid being in the way of something or other.
Tsunamis kill thousands who live on the coast of an island that has a history of earthquakes and tsunamis. People in the Mississippi River valley lose their homes to flooding that occurs in the flood plain of a huge river. People are caught in snowstorms where it snows in the winter. Because of these facts McKibben wants us to think we can do something about the death and destruction by following his prescription: stop burning fossil fuels. And the Observer prints his piece on the editorial page because they support these policies.
I suppose they want me to stop taking the daily hard copy so the driver won’t have to use gas to deliver the paper in the mornings. I mean seriously, how much could they save the world by just shutting down. Think of the trees left uncut. Think of the savings in gas for deliveries. Maybe I won’t – too much to ask.
In another article, Mary Newsom denigrates the state legislature for writing bills that override local autonomy. Without going into the details of her arguments, I would like to remind all that this is the same Mary Newsom who is often very supportive of federal laws and regulations that supersede state and local laws. What then is the difference between what the fed does and what the state legislature is doing now you might ask? The answer is in dreamland: the editors support whoever is doing what they like and make up reasons to try to rationalize it. Being in dreamland, consistency is not required.
But let me just say this: if the state legislature was writing rules the editors approved of which superseded local authority, they’d be all for it.
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