It was a peaceful Sunday morning. Then I read The Washington Post's editorial titled Staying Cool. And I got HOT!
The Post's editors declare that
By virtue of the coal we burn and the gasoline we use and in a thousand other ways, we all have a great effect on the weather...If nothing is done to slow global warming, the consequences in the next century are likely to be dire.
To avoid these "dire" consequences, the Post concludes that the U.S. government must commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions at a December 1997 conference in Kyoto, Japan.
I have written many times on this page about the junk science behind global warming [William the Conqueror's Global Warming, Manmade Global Warming?, Listen to the Rhythm of the...Wobblin' Sun?, Big Business Treachery, A Flash of Light in the Darkness, Damn the Science, Full Speed Ahead, Tree Ring Circus].
And it is becoming more apparent that little is known about the causes and effects of climate change. That is, more apparent everywhere except at The Washington Post, EPA, Environmental Defense Fund and the other global warming Cassandras.
But soon I was rolling on the floor with laughter.
On the same day as the Staying Cool editorial, there was a front-page Post story on "doomsday asteroids" which read, in part:
[Are doomsday asteroids] mere millenial madness?
Actually, experts say the threat is real enough to merit more serious study than it's getting, but not imminent enough to mobilize the nukes. At least not yet. They hope.
In a sense, Chicken Little was right," said planetary scientist Eleanor Helin of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "The sky is falling." And sooner or later, "we could become the dinosaurs."
And according to the article,
The odds that an object will smash into the Earth in the next century are slightly less than 1 in 1,000...It could happen centuries from now, thousand of centuries from now or next month. [emphasis added]
Less than 1 in 1,000? Next month!? March? Please God, not until after the NCAA basketball tournament!
But what does "less than 1 in 1,000" mean? One in one thousand is roughly the odds of an "average" smoker contracting lung cancer. So the odds of an asteroid smashing into Earth during the next century (and perhaps as early as next month) are somewhat less than the odds of an "average" smoker getting lung cancer.
And The Washington Post is worried about global warming? A phenomenon that: (1) could very well likely to be due to natural variation in climate; and (2) pre-dates the industrial revolution and the bulk of manmade greenhouse gas emissions?
Pardon me, but if we're going to be concerned about doomsday scenarios, I would be more concerned about getting clocked by space rubble. Of course, maybe we'll get lucky and the asteroid will just hit The Washington Post editorial department at 1150 15th Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C.
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