Gore Got It Plenty Wrong; But
Heartland’s Joe Bast Got It Wrongggrrrrrrr
There is something nasty and “inconvenient” about truth, when you’re on the wrong side of it; and there’s something downright liberating when you’ve got things straight. Ex-Vice President Al Gore has been leaving his politically-incorrect “mansion” in Tennessee with its monstrous “carbon-footprint” to barnstorm all over the globe spreading the Gospel of Global Warming before impressive crowds. Here in the United States Heartland Institute’s President Joe Bast has been doing the same thing while talking against Gore, but the audiences to hear him have been minimal. Neither man owns the right side of the argument. Gore is a Liberal interested in action now, to stop the end of the world as we know it. He believes notions of “progress” have brought us to a yawning cliff. Bast is a Conservative strongly interested in preserving the status quo; he believes that the answers for human beings always lie with “progress.” Politics and science do not mix, but both men are politicians first and scientists not at all.
The story of the search for truth about so-called “Global Warming” starts in Boulder, Colorado. Incredibly enough the United States Government in a typical and outrageous waste of taxpayer money has created a national climate research center in Boulder, Colorado, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. I’m a Coloradoan (actually I’m from everywhere: 47 states and 28 foreign lands and lived in Colorado for the majority of my adult life), but I’m not such a fool as to think you can monitor climate from Boulder, Colorado.
I’m NOT saying Boulder is a bad place to monitor weather, the day to day fluctuations in temperature, barometric pressure, wind, precipitation, etc. Boulder is a great place to monitor weather. But, friends, you can no more monitor climate from Boulder than you can monitor hummingbird migrations from the moon. To underscore that point, recently the national climate research center changed its name (for, I believe, the third time) from AIRS to “Earth System Research Laboratory” and were placed under control of the “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. In other words somebody with some clout decided you just can’t monitor climate effectively in Boulder.
Climate, the major shifts in atmospheric patterns around the entire globe, is the result of a crazy-quilt set of interlocking systems virtually dominated by the world’s oceans, period. In San Diego, California, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography has been monitoring the world’s oceans for more than a century. Scripps knows what it’s talking about, Boulder does not. Even though climate is not Scripps’ only concern, the private institution is light-years ahead of the government bureaucrats.
Since the hanging chads and Supreme Court decision on Florida’s electoral vote of the 2000 presidential election sent him packing from Washington, D.C., Vice President Gore has been spreading the word about so-called “Global Warming.” Gore and a United Nations’ entity called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won co-Nobel Peace Prizes in 2007 for “their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” Gore split the prize money with the U.N. Panel.
Unfortunately, the Nobel Foundation and the folks selecting the Peace Prize recipients are not talking about PEACE here but rather about SCIENCE. No war involved, no oppression involved, sorry, just a question of where real science leads and that’s as plain as the nose on Al Gore’s face. Let’s call that STRIKE ONE! Secondly, the Nobel Peace Prize folks have shown a misguided willingness to make political statements more often than not in recent years.
You give a Peace Prize to Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., or Nelson Mandela, that’s one thing. You give one to Jimmy Carter for actually NOT accomplishing anything towards lasting peace in the Middle East and for sitting on his duff while American hostages were taken and held forever in Iran: that’s a political statement. You give one to Mikhail Gorbachov but not to Ronald Reagan, (“Tear down this wall, Mr. Gorbachov” and the initiator of their numerous face-to-face meetings) how in hellfire can you justify that? That’s a political statement. You give it to Al Gore to share with the U.N. that’s a political statement. Let's call that STeeeRIKE TWO!
Let me say unequivocally, the IPCC did real science and they deserved the medal, though clearly not for peace, but for earth science or climatology, if you wish to get more specific. If the medal were presented today, the IPCC would deserve it even more, because they, unlike Gore, have continued to grow in their understanding. From the start, Al Gore and his film “An Inconvenient Truth” have been a political statement, an effort to prove Al Gore and liberal environmentalists right and everybody else wrong. From the start the U.N. Panel has been about real science, as in, what in the hell is happening? The IPCC is about what’s true, not about who’s right or wrong. That most clearly is seen in the naming of the problem: Al Gore inaccurately calls it “Global Warming.” The IPCC names itself IPCC after “Climate Change.” So by giving Al Gore any part of this recognition: STRRRRRIKE THREE, Yer out!
Real science is not about rubbing somebody’s nose in it. Real science is about getting into the truth, not just superficially, but deeply and accurately: about nailing down the “Why?” way beyond any reasonable doubt. Real science is a-political, there is no agenda to real science.
Let me give you an example of what I mean by “having an agenda?” I’ve got this chess position I love to show to very good (but not great) players. It calls for “White to move and checkmate in three moves.” No matter how they struggle, the players who study the position unless they are chess masters, senior masters, or grand masters cannot win, they can draw or lose the position but not win. I’ve only shown it to one expert (the playing strength below master) who could solve it. The position is actually very, very easy, surprisingly enough. When they can’t solve it, I ask them “how many possible legal moves do you see for White?”
They invariably tell me there are “Six legal moves.” The reason they can’t solve the puzzle is because there are actually nine legal moves in the position and one of the “missing three” moves is the correct first move. The players aren’t stupid, they know the rules of the game . . . but they can’t solve the puzzle because they cannot see all the possible options. Every time they count up the possible moves, they can only see six. It turns out a common five-letter word in their brain makes it literally impossible for them to solve the puzzle until they come to understand that their own thinking and their own seeing are being limited by their “expectations.” That’s what an agenda is and in science it’s the death knell to finding truth.
Politicians are notorious for being UNable to see truth because it’s hidden by their agendas. Al Gore is no exception. He expects to see man-made actions, and virtually nothing but man-made actions driving “Global Warming” and he can literally see nothing else. The U.N. panel sees worldwide climate shifting, they believe that man-made “pollutants are the chief driving force, but they are open to possibilities. So what is the truth about climate shift and where is it to be found?
A good place to start is:
http://shop.history.com/detail.php?p=69311&ecid=5511&pa=CSE-FGL
This is a provocative, thought-provoking and scientifically detailed and exciting DVD taken from a History Channel presentation called: “Little Ice Age, Big Chill.” In the DVD you see real science in action. And unlike Al Gore and his know-it-all approach (to the answers), the first thing you see is that real science is all about the questions. Questions after questions after more questions are explored honestly. The truth: we don’t know with 100% certainty what caused the Little Ice Age nor what’s causing the current climate shift. However, we do glean certain truths from the DVD as well as an inquiring perspective that would demand further exploration.
We come to see that there have been an almost infinite number of shifts in the earth’s climate. We come to see that what’s happening now could be a “normal” climate shift. We come to see, however, that man’s actions are creating an overabundance of what are called “green house gasses” with carbon dioxide and methane among the most crucial. We come to see the effects of those green house gasses have been with us throughout history: but, sometimes the earth itself releases immense quantities of carbon dioxide or methane. Sometimes, in fact quite often, volcanic actions seem to be the key factors in short-term climate shift toward colder times. We come to see that there are no easy answers but that, in all probability man is exacerbating trends already underway in nature.
We not only come to see there are no easy answers, but we see that Al Gore is wrong, the most important consequence if present trends continue is that the climate shift will cause individual weather patterns to become more extreme: more tornadoes and hurricanes and more violent ones; more extreme storms and resulting floods; more records for heat and more records for cold and fewer “average, typical or normal” days, etc. etc. We come to see how desirable it is to get mankind’s negative contributions to present day trends under control. We come to see that the human side (jobs, food, recreation even) must always be considered and that we must come to terms with the environment but also with the necessity of progress. We come to see that global climate change is happening, but there is much debate about how much effect man is having on the process. We come to see there is NO debate that less man-made interference in natural global processes of climate is better.
And then there is Mr. Bast. To say that his head is in the sand seems accurate. I have to come to respect the Heartland Institute. Three of my favorite websites are:
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/i-pencil/
http://www.heartland.org/
http://jim.com/econ/
I keep all three of these sites right under Wikipedia at the top of my favorites list. So I am mightily distressed to have to write this conclusion about Heartland Institute and its President Joe Bast when it comes to their stance on Global Climate Shift. I think that when you are so often right (as Conservative thinkers are on virtually all things economic) it may come to a point from time to time where you’re in the “argument” with the intent of winning (finding out who’s right) rather than discovery of truth (finding out what’s right). In other words, you go into it with an agenda and thus you, like Al Gore are very likely NOT to see all the options.
Two areas of Conservative thought jump out at me as I make this conclusion: Creationism vs. Evolution; and Joe Bast’s present stance on Global Climate Shift (that mankind is having NO significant effect on climate at the present).
I firmly believe these two stances are killing Conservatism’s chances (as the most logical line of reasoning about the way things are) to assume its rightful place in leading America forward. I believe that this need to always be right, is making us wrong in the eyes of many Americans and making us vulnerable to charges of narrow-mindedness. Let me explain, hopefully, I can convince you that there is another way . . . a way that makes Conservatism stronger and the obvious choice for, say, 58% of Americans on say, 98% of the issues.
Consider the 23rd Psalm, I do not literally believe, “The Lord is my shepherd . . .” that is a metaphor. I do not literally believe, “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures . . .” another metaphor. I do not literally believe, “He leadeth me beside the still waters . . .” or “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies . . .” again a metaphor. I do, however, deeply believe that the 23rd Psalm is the most beautiful and most powerful prayer ever written. I do believe that the lovely metaphors delineate clearly and comfortingly my relationship to God when I am at my best; most calm; most alert; most at peace with myself; most courageous; most able to contribute to worthwhile human endeavor.
Any Biblical scholar can tell you that not only the 23rd Psalm, but all of the Bible was written by human beings. In the Old Testament, it is obvious: Divinely inspired human beings, but nevertheless human beings fallible and inspired both created the Old Testament. Moses clearly has his own sections etc., etc. And some of the Bible is symbolic, metaphorical just as the 23rd Psalm is. Is there any good reason NOT to see the earliest part of Genesis as a metaphor for just how powerful Almighty God is and to see his desire to create a perfect being to inherit all of his creation. Are there fingerprints? Is there DNA? Are there fossils? Did God give us a brain to think with and create with? Are not my brain, my soul, my body and my emotions all gifts from God. Everything came from God. If God chooses to create man late in the history of the universe must we believe he literally did it from the dust of the earth (and then woman literally from Adam’s rib) or can we not see this as a metaphor. All powerful God takes up the chemical underpinnings of life and creates intelligent life (and a mate to be close to his side). And if God chooses to create through DNA and evolution are we going to make our churches so small that Almighty God is “uncomfortable inside?
On global climate shift, I can only say, watch “Little Ice Age, Big Chill” with an open mind. Is it possible that mankind can do a better job of stewardship of God’s earth? Now just because we see some areas which need to be corrected . . . we do NOT need to make the constant liberal mistake and discard the baby with the wash water (for example, only green-energy can save us: so creating five million new green jobs but losing eleven million other jobs is a necessity??) but we can and should enjoy progress itself; while instituting progress in cleaning up God’s earth.
Live long, strong and ornery,
Bob