This article published by the Telegraph is completely and utterly frightening. In an attempt to further anti-global warming propaganda, this article declares that 2008 is the year when global warming was disproved. First, it claims that dropping global temperatures this year came as a complete surprise to scientists. WOW! As the climate is changing in unsuspecting ways to begin with in terms of warming, a sudden cooling suddenly negates nearly a century of steadily increasing temperatures, among the hottest ocurring in the last decade. Most scientists have been saying for quite some time that a side affect of global warming could be global cooling. To make such a radical claim as global warming being completely false on one cool year is absurd. That’s like making a claim that a particular war is the bloodiest in history because on one particular day, the casualties numbered in the thousands compared to preceding days which had only had a few casualties, the former being caused by a large attack.
The second claim made is that global warming is a “politically engineered artifact.” Considering the ball is just now rolling here in Washington to make any significant changes in policy to battle global warming is evidence enough. Why would governments want to “waste” money on reforming the nations’ energy system if the primary motivation was a farce? Even if global warming is a manufactured lie by all of the world’s governments, the second reason for energy reform is for energy security and independence - why would it be such a travesty for governments to spend money to defend themselves from outside threats. Do the writers of this article want nations to be vulnerable to attacks on their energy supplies and be held hostage by ever more greedy oil barons?
The third and final claim made in this article (and perhaps the most frightening) is that because of the current financial crisis, political leaders will not want to indulge in “quixotic schemes for combating climate change” because doing so is a luxury for more prosperous and stable times. Going on to say that spending trillions of dollars on reducing carbon emissions by 80 percent is becoming less appealing, the article has completely deviated from saying why global warming is a farce to why no one is going to act on it; no evidence here having any connection to climate change in any form, simply an assumption of how politicians should react given the earlier two claims. It goes on to claim that wind turbines and biofuels are completely “useless.”
On the contrary, I believe this is the best time to be investing in alternative forms of energy. With increasing security risks in the Middle East regarding our oil supply and the auto industry on the brink of possible collapse in the United States, combined with an increase in unemployment, why not encourage startups working on alternative fuels to hire any laid off from the auto industry, retrain if at all necessary, and provide them jobs in a new, more stable and sustainable field for the future? Why not invest in alternative forms of energy here at home, again providing numerous job opportunities, while at the same time securing ourselves from outside threats to our ever more valuable energy supply?