State of Fear, 2011 [Andy]

This post should bridge the Sunday book thread and the forthcoming NFL chat/pointy-elbowed cheerleader pic bashing thread quite nicely. On the one hand, it touches on State of Fear, Michael Crichton's 2004 novel that continues to be a remarkably accurate assessment of the politicized science behind the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (AGW) hoax. And on the other, well ... carbon footprint from all that heavy breathing or something.

The "big reveal" in State of Fear was that the environmental movement was basically the new home for Western communists after the fall of the Soviet Union and its satellites. There was a remarkable piece in the Vancouver Sun a couple of weeks ago entitled Confessions of a Greenpeace founder. It was written by Patrick Moore, who was indeed a founder of Greenpeace and has a new book out called Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist. Here's the money quote from the article, but you really should read the whole thing:

The collapse of world communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall during the 1980s added to the trend toward extremism. The Cold War was over and the peace movement was largely disbanded. The peace movement had been mainly Western-based and anti-American in its leanings. Many of its members moved into the environmental movement, bringing with them their neo-Marxist, far-left agendas. To a considerable extent the environmental movement was hijacked by political and social activists who learned to use green language to cloak agendas that had more to do with anti-capitalism and anti-globalization than with science or ecology. I remember visiting our Toronto office in 1985 and being surprised at how many of the new recruits were sporting army fatigues and red berets in support of the Sandinistas.

What?! Why, that sounds like something straight out of a novel!

When you think about it, there's no natural reason for real environmental stewardship to have a political angle (apart from the fact that it seems like everything is politicized these days). I've spent a lot of time in the great outdoors as a hunter, fisherman and camper, and I consider myself to be as environmentally conscious as anyone. But for some reason, the left accuses me of Destroying the Planet™ with my evil, carbon dioxide-belching SUV. And the snow thrower and chainsaw? Fuhgeddaboutit!

Environmentalism isn't about the environment. It's about control. Control of what you drive, what you eat, what kind of lightbulbs you use ... control of your life. Achieving this level of control does have a political angle, and the left owns it lock, stock and barrel.

You really don't need to go much further to validate this than taking a gander at the China fetish held by people like Tom Friedman and the esteemed NASA-funded junk-climatologist James Hansen:

November's election made it quite clear that the people of the United States do not want to radically change our society in the name of global warming. Pretty much every close House race went to the Republicans, while the Democrats won all the Senate squeakers. The difference? The House on June 26, 2009, passed a bill limiting carbon-dioxide emissions and getting into just about every aspect of our lives. The Senate did nothing of the sort.

The nation's most prominent publicly funded climatologist is officially angry about this, blaming democracy and citing the Chinese government as the "best hope" to save the world from global warming. He also wants an economic boycott of the U.S. sufficient to bend us to China's will.

It's tempting to say that Hansen has jumped the shark, but this is the same James Hansen who compared coal plants to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz during World War II and he has called for Nuremberg-style trials for scientists who disagree with him about the causes and possible consequences of climate change.

Like Glenn Reynolds says, I'll believe there's a crisis when the people who tell me there is one start acting like it. But as long as the Al Gores and Tom Friedmans of the world continue to fly around in private jets and live in huge mansions ... and alleged climate scientists like Michael Mann stubbornly refuse to hand over their tea leaves and chicken entrails for inspection by experts, I'll keep driving my SUV, thank you very much.

Now back to Crichton. He was no conservative; his politics were left-of-center, but not out in moonbat territory by any means. However, on science-related topics, he was fantastic. There are several videos at his official site (linked above) that are a must-watch if you're interested in AGW or other lefty enviro-nuttiness. This one titled Environmentalism as a Religion is one of my favorites:

And here he is on DDT:

Spot on! I sure wish Crichton had lived to see ClimateGate.

(h/t JackStraw)

posted by Open Blogger at 12:23 PM

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