Oh boy.
The cover of Time Magazine in bold letters says:” Be Worried. Be VERY Worried”.
The story? “Global warming”, of course. The darling of the media these days.
Time’s Jeffrey Kluger proclaims: “No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.”
He goes on to report: “Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. “
Maybe Mr. Kluger needed to watch our special this past Sunday night. Our own Brian Peters interview Dr. John Christy, the Alabama State Climatologist, who spoke the truth about “global warming”. It is the truth the nation media continues to ignore. Dr. Christy has done countless hours of research on this issue using satellite data, and has concluded that there has been slight warming in recent years, explained by the cyclic nature of our climate. He attributes the national media hysteria to flawed computer models that are simply wrong about future warming trends globally.
We must remember that good weather records go back to 1880… that is a tiny slice of time considering how long this planet has been around. Trying to prove long term climate change with such a tiny amount of data is just about impossible. Yes, the issue needs research and study, but the politics need to be taken out of the equation. And, quite frankly, journalists are not qualified to be climatologists. I suggest they stay out of the mix as well!
The cover of Time Magazine in bold letters says:” Be Worried. Be VERY Worried”.
The story? “Global warming”, of course. The darling of the media these days.
Time’s Jeffrey Kluger proclaims: “No one can say exactly what it looks like when a planet takes ill, but it probably looks a lot like Earth. Never mind what you've heard about global warming as a slow-motion emergency that would take decades to play out. Suddenly and unexpectedly, the crisis is upon us.”
He goes on to report: “Environmentalists and lawmakers spent years shouting at one another about whether the grim forecasts were true, but in the past five years or so, the serious debate has quietly ended. Global warming, even most skeptics have concluded, is the real deal, and human activity has been causing it. “
Maybe Mr. Kluger needed to watch our special this past Sunday night. Our own Brian Peters interview Dr. John Christy, the Alabama State Climatologist, who spoke the truth about “global warming”. It is the truth the nation media continues to ignore. Dr. Christy has done countless hours of research on this issue using satellite data, and has concluded that there has been slight warming in recent years, explained by the cyclic nature of our climate. He attributes the national media hysteria to flawed computer models that are simply wrong about future warming trends globally.
We must remember that good weather records go back to 1880… that is a tiny slice of time considering how long this planet has been around. Trying to prove long term climate change with such a tiny amount of data is just about impossible. Yes, the issue needs research and study, but the politics need to be taken out of the equation. And, quite frankly, journalists are not qualified to be climatologists. I suggest they stay out of the mix as well!
on March 27, 2006, 10:21 pm
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on March 27, 2006, 11:40 pm
Though the book's plot is adventurous fiction, Crichton points out in his preface that the research articles he quotes and the arguments that follow throughout the story are grounded in actual scientific results that, if anything, corroborate exactly what James said above. Very eye-opening to the real nature of the issue.
The "State of Fear" Crichton refers to is the near panic-state that people in the population develop as they slowly and mindlessly absorb things popularized by politicians, the media, and even celebrities. One huge past 'state of fear' is the "Red Scare" (communism) that caused people to build bomb shelters and and do bizarre things like root out potential communits in Hollywood or other circles.
When it comes to global warming, people have blindly accepted the 'threat' as it is deliberately perpetuated by politicians, the media, and scientists making global generalizations about our climate based on regional, cyclical, or inconclusive data. Over time, fear sets in. Fear that moves people to make quick, rash decisions. Fear that overrides the truth. Sure, we should be environmentally responsible, but even knowing how to do that takes research.
When I saw that Time headline, "Be worried. Be VERY worried," the warning sirens went off in my head alerting me not to let a headline scare me without knowing all the facts or blindly accepting the cited facts in such an article.
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