I have opened a new category entitled Global Swarming. It has become apparent that this particular form of hysteria over global warming is going to be with us for some months yet, and I would like to say something about it from time to time.
The title reflects my conviction that we are ostensibly dealing with a rise of greenhouse gases, but what we are really dealing with is an explosion of statist and bureaucratic gases. All the problems that we are supposed to be having with global warming are problems that can only be “solved” by handing enormous power over to the state, or some international ganglion of states. The statists are swarming, shrieking at the rest of us. The debate is over, you idiot. To press the question any further is treason said one of our pointy-headed solons the other day.
But there are three questions that still need to be answered, maybe four. Okay, four questions need to be answered before we resolve to do a blessed thing. The first question is this: is global warming actually happening? Second, if it is, is man causing it? Third, if it is happening, do we have any reason to suppose that the effects of it would be bad for us? And last, if it is actually happening, and it is bad, would the current proposals do anything to halt it?
I answer the questions thusly. One, maybe. These things cycle. Medieval Warming Period, and then the Little Ice Age, and now this. So maybe. Second, no. Our contributions to global CO2 come in around a whopping three percent of the total. And maybe CO2 isn’t the culprit in the first place. Maybe increased solar activity is doing it. That a possibility? Third, why the nightmare scenarios? Suppose this means that all our oranges will be the size of grapefruit now? And the melting ice caps might provide drinking water for LA and Phoenix. Why didn’t all the catastrophic AlGorithms happen during the Medieval Warming Period? And last, no. Even if the blinkered Kyoto Protocols were all implemented, it would make virtually no difference.
In the meantime, remember this. Greenhouse gases may or may not be your friend. But the statists never are.
As you contemplate some of this, let me refer you to a web site that is checking into how the temperatures of this old country of ours are actually being taken. HT: Brendan