Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Climategate and the Self-Righteous Left

Confirming long held suspicions as to the validity of AGW, Climategate has redefined the debate and left environmentalists shaken. Researchers from the world-renowned East Anglia University lamentably chose to manipulate data to fit their own predictions of Armageddon. The plan backfired when e-mails documenting the fraudulent activity were made public, stripping environmentalists of their empirical support. Oddly, the assumed protectors of Gaia didn't seem to notice. They march on with their eyes closed and fingers firmly jammed in their ears. Environmentalists and any who refuse to reconsider their positions on climate change are as equally guilty of intellectual corruption as the scientists themselves.

Painfully exposed, environmentalists have responded with a united front against the devastating news: denial. Other investigations have proven that global warming is caused directly by humans, they claim. They also like to remind you that everyone agrees with them (it’s actually around 30%, according to the latest polls). And, naturally, they never mention the elephant in the room.

Simply put, had man’s effect on global warming been so apparent, fraud would have been completely unnecessary. The data would have showed it directly and had there been a mistake in this particular set, peer reviews would have determined why. Instead, researchers deleted their data and threatened to blacklist anyone who questioned their methods. Hiding evidence is a clear indication that these results were viewed as accurate, contradictory, valid, and therefore threatening by leading experts in the field, of all people. East Anglia researchers ignored their own data to avoid facing the hard truth that their doomsday predictions were scientifically baseless. Environmentalists are doing the same, and they’re not alone.

So if science can’t implicate man for climate change, what makes "believers” so sure they’re right? The answer is nothing, they just know. What’s most obnoxious about this particular group of would-be fascists is their unwavering sense of self-righteousness. It’s so acidic that protection of the Earth, home to hippies and capitalists alike, has become an extreme position without broad consensus. Demonstrating this arrogance with crystal clarity is the administrator of the EPA, Lisa P. Jackson, who recently blessed the public with these sagacious words on her newly proposed CO2 emission controls:

“These are reasonable, common-sense steps … without placing an undue burden on the businesses that make up the better part of our economy.”

She then said that she would still prefer if congress were to act before she did.

In case you missed it, that’s an unelected official of a government agency threatening the members of our representative Congress with an ultimatum. Either they impose tougher emissions standards or she will. Jackson knows what’s best for you, the United Sates of America, and most of all, Planet Earth. Based on what, you may ask? Scientific fraud, hot air. She just knows and you just have to trust her. The administrator has also taken the liberty of assuming she understands the entire breadth of our economy, determining what the better parts consist of, and evaluating all the possible impacts of her proposed strategy. Worse, the governing left fully embraces this attempt to coerce and re-balance gubernatorial powers. Senator John Kerry said that this was a clear indication to congress that it should get moving and Barrack Obama has again said nothing. His silence implies consent.

Hypocrisy has been hemorrhaging from liberals ever since Climategate. After criticizing Bush for never admitting he was wrong over the better part of a decade, Obama, climatology zealot Al Gore and media pundits have refused to acknowledge that AGW may be even a little over hyped. The former Vice President and fellow talking heads are making media rounds employing the denial strategy and Obama is in Copenhagen pushing for new restrictions based on old information. The President has the perfect opportunity to show he is the anti-Bush, made easy by the fact that his missteps yielded few consequences thus far. The majority of Americans, similarly misled, would not find it difficult to empathize with him. But instead of admitting to error, he continues unabashedly pushing national policy based on fraudulent scientific information, equally dishonest in and of itself.

The President’s sense of urgency is completely reversed. If it were ever prudent to slow down, extend deadlines, and conduct careful policy it would be now. Global warming is a slow, ambiguous process that won’t potentially nuke a neighbor next year. This is the situation that calls for continued negotiations, Ad-hoc committees, and cabinet-level security assessments that last 3 months. Conduct a full review of the data to determine the extent of corruption and the real scope and size of climate change. Make it transparent and reviewable, then base policy on the facts as they truly are. Curbing Escalade emissions may be pointless in our eventual efforts to mitigate man’s deleterious impact on the planet, and there’s no reason for Cadillac to bare that burden.

Common sense says that Earth cannot be infinitely exploited. We cannot continue our current pace of consumption and growth without inflicting damaging and potentially fatal changes to the planet that gave us life. Nevertheless, any steps that we take globally must be done in a deliberate and clearheaded manner, not just in response to the same shrill doomsayers that have been around for millennia. Scientists from East Anglia University deceived the entire world and did a huge disservice to the environmentalist movement. It can only be salvaged if proponents lift their heads and admit that the scientific landscape has changed. While extremists on the fringe probably never will, more moderate elements and particularly politicians at the helms of policy must respond with greater honesty. Simply denying fraud has occurred is as egregious as the fraud itself.