Bad news for Al Gore: The earth is cooling

As the U.S. Senate jumps aboard the global warming hysteria bandwagon, I came across an interesting column by Charlie Reese, the libertarian curmudgeon and climate change skeptic.

In "A cooling world," Reese argues:

Global warming has ceased. In 2005, it was .45 degrees centigrade above the 1961-1990 global average temperature. In 2006, it dropped to .42 centigrade, and in 2007, to .41 centigrade. That's one of many facts to be gleaned from an intelligent and calm book, "An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming," by Lord Nigel Lawson, a British politician and former journalist.

Richard S. Lindzen, Sloan Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says of the book: "This brief and elegant book treats the science of global warming seriously, but convincingly shows that whatever view one has of the science, almost all proposed approaches to the putative problem are intellectually deficient, economically absurd and harmful, and morally misdirected at best. Lawson's 'An Appeal to Reason' is an appeal that must be heeded if one is to truly avoid great harm to man and the planet."

Lawson sums up his book with this warning: "So the new religion of global warming, however appealing it may be to the politicians, is not as harmless as it may appear at first sight. Indeed the more one examines it the more it resembles a 'Da Vinci Code' of environmentalism. It is a great story and phenomenal best-seller. It contains a grain of truth -- and a mountain of nonsense. And that nonsense could be very damaging indeed. We appear to have entered a new age of unreason which threatens to be as economically harmful as it is profoundly disquieting. It is from this, above all, that we really do need to save the planet."

Reason has always had an uphill climb against superstition, myth, propaganda and lies. Some people seem to prefer their myths and their lies to the truth, which can often be discomforting. Lawson even points out that there is an element of scapegoating in the global-warming hoopla. He sees it as a way to detract from our real sins, which are against our fellow humans and for which we could be held accountable, by substituting a global force for which everyone is responsible, and therefore no one can be held accountable.