In recent days, conservatives have seized on the cold snap gripping the southeast region of the country to cast doubt on global warming. "Hey Al Gore: we want our global warming, and we want it now," said Newsbusters' Mark Finkelstein. In his newsletter today, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich wondered about "Al Gore's explanation for this miserable, persistent chill," and the National Review's Mona Charen claimed that the "cold snap has spurred the 'warmists' to spin control.".... For the past week, Fox News host Neil Cavuto has been giving a daily "Fox News global warming alert," which consists of him telling viewers how cold it is. "It is still cold," Cavuto said yesterday, adding that it's "not your recent garden variety global warming." "It's freezing across the entire globe," Cavuto shouted on Saturday. Former Nixon speechwriter and actor Ben Stein responded, "Maybe somebody in the government will wake up and say, 'Hey, it's colder. It's not hotter.' Maybe all this talk about global warming needs to be rethought."
It should go with needing to be said, because you'd think that people so ostensibly intelligent could be intellectually honest enough to admit to reality. Sadly, when you're devoted to denying the existing of something whose very existence is widely recognized...well, ignoring reality and twisting the truth are merely costs of doing business.
These maroons are smart enough to understanding that "global warming" isn't really the argument being made by Al Gore and those who have taken on the environment as their crusade. No, the more accurate appellation is "global climate change", the reality that we have impacted the planet's environmental balance in such a way that it could only really accurately be described as being out of whack. By ridiculing and soft-pedaling the fact that overwhelming evidence indicates that global climate change is real, the deniers are really only striking a blow for those with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
"Al Gore's explanation for this miserable, persistent chill," as Newt Gingrich is demanding, would probably be quite simple. Our production of destructive greenhouse gases have negatively impacted the ecological balance maintained by the planet for millions of year. One of the consequences of upsetting that delicate balance is the change in weather patterns- hotter summers, colder winters, more destructive tropical storms, etc. Hell, I was a History major, and even I can grasp that simple concept. Yet the deniers continue to snicker as they actively deny solid scientific evidence. Why? Because they, their outsized egos, and their benefactors have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. When you've built a career out of valuing propaganda over people, this is what you get. These folks should know better, but the reality is that they just don't care...because by the time we've reached the point of no return, they'll be gone. Then again, if you're waiting on the Rapture, why would you care about global climate change, anyway?
WE DESERVE BETTER.
