Wednesday, April 03, 2019

doomsday propaganda

Arctic ice has been increasing. For a while.

The linked-to article is admittedly written in a tone indicating heavy bias, so forget the rhetoric and just focus on the data. A 2015 NASA article said much the same thing about Antarctic ice. For those who aren't on board with the above, and in the interest of fairness, a doubter's perspective can be found here.

It really wouldn't surprise me to find out that our planet was, in fact, losing polar ice. But the fact remains that the media in industrialized countries have had a tendency, over the years, to promote doomsday alarmism and, like religious cults do, they've slapped dates on when the apocalypse will occur. Also like cults, the media haven't been discouraged by the fact that their predictions have always proven wrong: there's been no "population bomb," no new ice age, no burial-by-sea of island countries, and no disappearance of the Arctic ice cap. (I can hear the alarmists adding, "—yet!" Sigh...) Yet the loonies persist.

My position has long been that the topic of global warming is ripe for reasoned debate. I don't accept the wild-eyed war cry of, "But there's a consensus! The science is settled!" And I reject the other side's war cry of "There's nothing to talk about." What I do accept is that hypocrisy abounds among the alarmists who, as has been widely noted, don't act as if there's an emergency to which there needs to be an immediate response. We've got actor/enviro-nerd Leo DiCaprio polluting the air in his private jets, fish-hugging director James Cameron with his sprawling properties in New Zealand, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez with her "the world ends in twelve years" nonsense, and now Kennedy-lookalike/wannabe Beto O'Rourke with his "we've got only ten years" drivel. This, too, shall pass, as the latest dunderheads are once again proven wrong, but a new wave of idiots is sure to inherit the hysteria. It's an eternal crusade that reminds me of those who are currently waiting for Jesus to come back in clouds of glory.



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