Global Warming Alarmism on the Rise

The global warming alarmists are running ahead full speed these days with a concerted (and possibly coordinated) campaign to scare the world into converting to their version of capitalism-free living (from TCS Daily):

The alarm bells are ringing louder than ever in global warming circles. An impressive amount of ink has been spilled to scare you in to thinking that the planet is doomed if we don't do something about climate change, and soon.

As alarmists flood the media with scare stories, however, they are distracting the public from the economic and practical realities that will determine planetary health. And they are doing so just as some less heralded news reports demonstrate that the alarmists' prescription for our ailing planet is failing badly.

But first, the alarm bells. Consider:

-This week Time magazine has a "special report" on global warming with the cover blaring "Be Worried. Be Very Worried."

-Australian alarmist Tim Flannery has a new doomsday book out "The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What I t Means for Life on Earth."

-The Washington Post recently featured a front page article about melting ice in Antarctica.

-ABCNews recently attacked skeptic scientists such as the University of Virginia's Pat Michaels.

-A cover story in the New Republic this month attacked the popular writer Michael Crichton for his skeptical views on catastrophic anthropogenic climate change.

-The New Yorker's Elizabeth Kolbert recently published a book with the telling title "Field Notes From a Catastrophe."

-And the Advertising Council and Environmental Defense have just launched the first "public awareness" campaign on global warming.

Phew. That's considerable output in just a few weeks. And later this year Al Gore has an alarmist documentary he has produced coming out called An Inconvenient Truth so expect the bells to keep tolling.

An interesting byproduct of this debate is the fact that the Kyoto Accord, the Holy Grail of the global warming left, has been a failure in Europe, but no one wants to talk about that. They also ignore past failures in climate science, such as the global cooling scare of the 70's.

TCS Daily reminds us there are some positive ideas out there, but they're being ignored:

It is curious that the alarmists are largely silent on the failures of Kyoto in Europe. Skeptics have been pointing out the economic and technological realities of mandatory emissions reductions for years now. Skeptics have also raised alternative ways of tackling problems associated with climate change and extreme climate scenarios -- problems that exist whether or not we pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

But so blinded are the alarmists that they are largely ignoring potentially beneficial initiatives. One such effort is the Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate Change (AP6) which is backed by the governments of the United States, India, China, South Korea, Japan and Australia. The AP6 is designed to permit the robust economic growth that the developing world so badly needs while beginning to address concerns over pollution, energy efficiency and emissions. To get a sense of how out of touch the alarmists are on practical realities, in its nine(!) articles on global warming in its latest special issue, Time didn't devote a single one to AP6.

Amazingly, one article Time suggests "maybe we can begin by living more like the average Chinese or Indian – before they start living like us." According to the CIA World Factbook, the per capita GDP on India is $3,400 a year, and $6,200 a year in China. In the United States it's $41,800. So yes, Time is indeed advocating cutting living standards by as much as ten times. If you want something to "be worried" about, as Time asserts on its cover, well there you have it.

Yes, let's reject modern living in favor of grass huts and poverty. Great idea.