Articles Tagged "Wesley J. Smith"

The credibility of the global warming meme continues to sink. We are often told by alarmist apologists that we rubes irrationally refuse to believe the “settled scientific fact ” of AGW. But that is reductionist because there is much more to the issue than whether the earth is measurably warming (it has over the last century, although the rate seems to have slowed). The real issues are whether–and the extent to which–warming is human caused, what the likely consequences might be, when they might accrue, and if we have a serious problem looming, how to best deal with it as a human society–just to name a few. These are not settled facts.

We are also told that we are just too weak to follow the lead of global alarmists. We can’t believe a just God (or whatever) would allow the predicted apocalypse to take place. We’re too scientifically illiterate to understand what the scientists do. We don’t understand the difference between weather and climate, poor rubes. We are supposedly anti intellectual, anti science, in the thrall of Big Oil’s propaganda, yadda, yadda, yadda. The intellectual snobbery drips off the paragraphs.

But if alarmists want to learn the real reasons for their loss of credibility, they should look in the mirror. They say one thing one day, and when that doesn’t work out, they turn on a dime. That, people do understand.

GWH, at least in the USA, has really hit hard times. Perhaps it is because global temperatures haven’t risen in a statistically significant manner for more than 10 years, despite increases in carbon dioxide emmissions. Perhaps the bad economy is such that even believers don’t want more downward pressure to (maybe) stop warming that might never come. Or, perhaps the credibility of global warming has been generally lost due to constant dire warnings, trying to make every weather event global warming, incorrect computer model projections, or whatever, people are just not into the old panic anymore. Or perhaps, it is the evil Koch Brothers and their astonishingly effective propaganda machine. Whatever, the hysteria seems to have run out of gas.

Here’s a small but very telling example. Three years ago Pacific Gas and Electric offered its customers the opportunity to put their money where their mouths are by paying a little extra to fund carbon offsets. Well, the program is shutting down for lack of participation. From the SF Chronicle story, “PG&E to End Carbon Offset Plan After Few Sign On:

”Pacific Gas and Electric Co.’s ClimateSmart program, which lets the utility’s customers go “carbon neutral” for a price, will close at the end of the year after signing up far fewer people than expected. Begun in 2007, ClimateSmart gives participants a way to offset greenhouse gas emissions from the power plants that supply their electricity. PG&E customers who joined the program pay a little extra on their monthly bills – about $3.30 for a typical homeowner. PG&E uses the money to fund projects that fight the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, such as preserving forests from logging or capturing methane from cow manure. But the program attracted just a fraction of the roughly 168,000 customers that PG&E predicted. Enrollment peaked in 2008 at just under 31,000. By the end of last year, it had slipped to 29,623.