24 October 1997

"The sky is falling! The sky is falling," Chicken Little cried. And from this fairy tale many generations of Americans learned the moral truth that things are not always what they seem. We all chuckled over the absurd notion, proposed by a cowardly barnyard animal, that life as we know it was about to end. And all because Chicken Little – that generation’s version of the modern environmental whacko – misinterpreted the empirical data with which he was confronted.

So how is it that so many now buy into the equally absurd notion that just such a disaster confronts us?

"The sky is warming! The sky is warming," is the new mantra from today’s environmental whackos. But the current warning doesn’t come from a fictional, fairy-tale animal. Instead, a new breed of Chicken Little – well educated and cloaked in respectability – is taking up the mantle of lunacy.

And the empirical data upon which they base their claim is just as flawed as the fairy-tale version.

The question then naturally occurs, "If these people are so well-educated, how can what they’re saying be wrong?" The answer, of course, is "Follow the money."

The fact remains that there is no scientific consensus on global warming. There are easily more scientists who disagree that the atmosphere is heating up, at least in any significant sense. Data collected over the last century show an increase of one-half of one degree – and most of that occurred before 1940. Since then, atmospheric temperatures have actually decreased – despite increased levels of man-made pollution since that date (which briefly caused some of the whackos to propose radical steps to prevent the disaster of global cooling).

Those who dispute the Chicken Little theorists say that the aggregate ½-degree temperature increase over the past century is attributable to naturally occurring weather cycles that have prevailed since the earth was formed.

So why would anyone claim impending disaster without hard evidence to support it? One more time folks: Follow the money. Look carefully, for instance, into how much grant money is available for "studies" into global warming, which doesn't even come close to what we'll have to spend if the Kyoto treaty is ratified. This issue is, always has been, and always will be a story about liberal "scientists" nuzzling up to the federal trough. And the biggest pig at that trough is Vice President Al Gore, who stands to gain (or lose) the most by trying to convince you that a lie is the truth. He wants very much to be your president, and his holy grail is global warming – and other environmental fairy tales.

Money and power are the real issues here, and the public’s gullibility quotient will ultimately determine who wins, who loses.

In a nutshell (pun very much intended) the nuts claim that global warming is occurring because chlorofluorocarbons, or CFCs (not to be confused with the Combined Federal Campaign, which is another story for another day) are being released into the upper atmosphere, surrounding the globe with a blanket of gases that prevent heat from escaping naturally. Furthermore, the nuts claim these CFCs have created (and are continually widening) a hole in the ozone layer – a good blanket of gas that protects us from harmful radiation from the sun. In truth, however, the hole in the ozone layer has always been there. It is located, naturally enough, over the poles. It gets bigger in the summer and smaller in the winter. Go figure.) If allowed to continue unchecked, we’re expected to believe that a projected two- to three-degree Celsius increase over the next century (yeah, that's it: two to three degrees) will cause the polar ice cap to melt, resulting in a rise in global sea levels, flooding of coastal cities, crop failures, and the occurrence of deserts where none previously existed.

Let’s assume for a moment that the nuts are right and the globe heats up by three degrees Celsius by the year 2097. Many scientists say that such a temperature increase, were it to occur, would mostly affect colder regions, such as Siberia, which would ultimately result in more arable land being available as extreme edges of the frozen tundra thawed out. The growing season in marginally arable regions would then be lengthened, causing crops to flourish. More (not less) snowfall would result in extreme regions, actually causing the polar ice cap to grow.

Whichever argument you believe, it’s all based on flawed data to begin with. Computer modeling, which means the computers spit out whichever doomsday scenarios the whackos input. So none of it really matters.

Let’s look at those nasty CFCs. The whackos are correct in stating that CFCs are created by the burning of fossil fuels – such as your car makes whenever the engine is running. CFCs also power air conditioning units – or did until an alternative was found. Air conditioning units in new cars, as well as new units for home air conditioning, are now powered by something reputed to be more environmentally friendly. Time will tell.

You’ve undoubtedly heard all this before. What you’ve likely not heard is that CFCs occur naturally in nature – such as volcanic eruptions. Studies confirm that the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines put more CFCs into the upper atmosphere – more than two cubic miles of the stuff – than all the CFCs created by man since the dawn of time. The eruption also covered more than 300 square miles with several feet of ash. Meanwhile, the CFC-carrying cloud swept across North America and was felt globally.

And that was just one eruption of one volcano. More CFCs than the combined total of human output since Adam and Eve.

So what was the whacko response? "Oh! Well you must understand," they mumbled, "that only man-made CFCs that are harmful." Yeah. Right. And the press eats it up.

No rational person can deny that pollution is a problem that needs addressing. And great strides have been made. But the whackos want you to give up your cars, give up your air conditioning, and mostly give up your freedom in the name of junk science – mostly so they can continue to wallow at the public trough, thinking up still yet more ways to spend your tax dollars. With today’s Chicken Little, it’s one new crisis after another, none of which has ever proven true. Remember the Gulf War? Chicken Little first told us that none of our high-tech weaponry would work. Wrong. And that thousands of American soldiers would be slaughtered. Wrong. When it was over, they said all those oil-well fires that Saddam’s retreating troops had set would blanket the globe, causing crop failures and taking decades to put out. Let's see, now; wrong, wrong, and wrong. Less than a year later the last one was snuffed – by dedicated, knowledgeable American oil-field professionals.

How about the Exxon Valdez? "Why it’s the worst ecological disaster in the history of the world! It will take decades to fix!"

Oh yeah? Less than a year later there was precious little evidence that a disaster had ever occurred. The beaches were clean. The fishing industry was back, stronger than ever. Seems the whackos either didn’t know (or just didn’t want you to know) a curious fact: oil is biodegradable. Along any shoreline, the same wave action that brought it to ground will eventually wash it away. A tragedy? Yes. A disaster of Biblical proportions? Hardly.

How about the forest industry? All those greedy loggers are decimating America’s forests, right? Okay, so how come there are more forested acres in America today than 200 years ago? Could it be that those EEEvil loggers are planting more trees than they cut? Could it be that they have some vested interest in ensuring their own future and therefore take better care of the forests than any environmentalist could or would?

Alar. Asbestos. Radon. Global warming. Global cooling. The oil crisis. Can you say "extremist, radical wacko?" Sure. I knew that you could.

On month from now, in Kyoto, Japan, President William Jefferson Blythe Clinton is going to condemn your children to a future of higher taxes, enormously expensive cars the size of a shoebox, $5 per gallon gasoline, higher unemployment, and God knows what other unacceptable consequences when he signs an environmental treaty that requires reduced "greenhouse gas" emissions by the U.S., while exempting nations such as India, China, and South Korea, where environmental pollution is already far ahead of anything seen here. Television ads warning of this were pulled from Ted Turner’s cable networks when a whacko group complained that the ads were untrue. So we see that not only will the press refuse to investigate, much less report, both sides of the global warming debate – Ted Turner sees to it that anyone who tries to present the other side is denied paid air time.

President Clinton is going to sign this treaty. And he’s going to do it all in the name of . . . what? Saving us from a three-degree temperature increase by the year 2097 – an increase which is unproven, suspect at best, arguably false – and may even benefit mankind if true?

No. This is all about money and power. This is all about getting Al Gore into the White House in 2000. This is all about expanding government and taking away your freedom. Don’t let them do it. Legitimate environmental concerns are real and should be taken seriously. But global warming is a cruel joke, and this treaty is an injustice to the American people. If signed, the Congress should refuse to ratify it. If ratified, the people will pay a terrible price for Al Gore’s ambition.