Thursday, October 18, 2007
John Stossel Exposes Global Warming Myths
"20/20” co-anchor John Stossel is going on the attack against “experts” who warn about manmade global warming – along the way berating Al Gore for saying the debate over climate change is over.
In a release from ABC previewing Stossel’s report on Friday’s “20/20,” the veteran newsman and Newsmax pundit – who won 19 Emmys exposing scammers and con artists – says:
“This week on ‘20/20’ (in our new 8 p.m. Eastern time slot) I say ‘Give Me a Break!’ to our Nobel Prize-winning Vice President.
“Mr. Gore says ‘The debate is over,’ and those who disagree with his take on global warming have been ‘purchased’ in order to create ‘the illusion of a debate.’ Nonsense. It's as if the Vice President and his allies in the environmental movement plan to win the debate through intimidation. I interview some scientists who won't be intimidated, even though one has had his life threatened for speaking up.
“The Vice President's much-applauded movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ claims warming is man’s fault and a coming crisis! While the earth has certainly warmed over the last century, plenty of independent scientists say scientists cannot be sure that man caused the warming or that warming will be a crisis.
“They say the computer models that are used to predict the disasters don’t include important variables because scientists don’t fully understand them. For example, warming may cause cloud formations that reflect sun and cool the earth. The computer models cannot know. These scientists call global warming activism more of a religious movement than science.”
Gore's film is filled with “misleading messages,” says Stossel.
“It suggests polar bears are disappearing and that ‘sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet.’ I interview children who are scared. They believe the polar bears are already going extinct and that the oceans will soon rise even higher than 20 feet, drowning them and their parents.
“But polar bear populations appear to be steady or increasing, and a 20-foot rise is a theoretical possibility that wouldn't happen for millennia. The IPCC, the group that shared last week’s Nobel Prize with the Vice President, says in 100 years the oceans might rise 7 to 24 inches, not 20 feet. Now a British judge has ruled that British schools must disclose to students nine inaccuracies in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ if they play the movie in class.”
Stossel said it’s “nonsense” for Gore to suggest that we can stop global warming by doing things like changing light bulbs and driving less.
“The only practical thing we can do today that would make a difference in CO2 output is to launch a major shift toward nuclear energy. But the environmental movement rarely utters the word nuclear.
“I suspect that next year's government boondoggle will be massive spending on carbon-reducing technology.
“It reminds me of George Mason University Economics Department Chairman Don Boudreax's suggestion that such schemes really mean ‘government seizing enormous amounts of additional power in order to embark upon schemes of social engineering - schemes whose pursuit gratifies the abstract fantasies of the theory class and, simultaneously, lines the very real pockets of politically powerful corporations, organizations, and “experts."’
“He is so right. The abstract fantasies of the theory class will soon send huge chunks of your money to politicians, friends, activist scientists, and politically savvy corporations.
“The debate is over? That makes me say GIVE ME A BREAK!”
"20/20” co-anchor John Stossel is going on the attack against “experts” who warn about manmade global warming – along the way berating Al Gore for saying the debate over climate change is over.
In a release from ABC previewing Stossel’s report on Friday’s “20/20,” the veteran newsman and Newsmax pundit – who won 19 Emmys exposing scammers and con artists – says:
“This week on ‘20/20’ (in our new 8 p.m. Eastern time slot) I say ‘Give Me a Break!’ to our Nobel Prize-winning Vice President.
“Mr. Gore says ‘The debate is over,’ and those who disagree with his take on global warming have been ‘purchased’ in order to create ‘the illusion of a debate.’ Nonsense. It's as if the Vice President and his allies in the environmental movement plan to win the debate through intimidation. I interview some scientists who won't be intimidated, even though one has had his life threatened for speaking up.
“The Vice President's much-applauded movie, ‘An Inconvenient Truth,’ claims warming is man’s fault and a coming crisis! While the earth has certainly warmed over the last century, plenty of independent scientists say scientists cannot be sure that man caused the warming or that warming will be a crisis.
“They say the computer models that are used to predict the disasters don’t include important variables because scientists don’t fully understand them. For example, warming may cause cloud formations that reflect sun and cool the earth. The computer models cannot know. These scientists call global warming activism more of a religious movement than science.”
Gore's film is filled with “misleading messages,” says Stossel.
“It suggests polar bears are disappearing and that ‘sea levels worldwide would go up 20 feet.’ I interview children who are scared. They believe the polar bears are already going extinct and that the oceans will soon rise even higher than 20 feet, drowning them and their parents.
“But polar bear populations appear to be steady or increasing, and a 20-foot rise is a theoretical possibility that wouldn't happen for millennia. The IPCC, the group that shared last week’s Nobel Prize with the Vice President, says in 100 years the oceans might rise 7 to 24 inches, not 20 feet. Now a British judge has ruled that British schools must disclose to students nine inaccuracies in ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ if they play the movie in class.”
Stossel said it’s “nonsense” for Gore to suggest that we can stop global warming by doing things like changing light bulbs and driving less.
“The only practical thing we can do today that would make a difference in CO2 output is to launch a major shift toward nuclear energy. But the environmental movement rarely utters the word nuclear.
“I suspect that next year's government boondoggle will be massive spending on carbon-reducing technology.
“It reminds me of George Mason University Economics Department Chairman Don Boudreax's suggestion that such schemes really mean ‘government seizing enormous amounts of additional power in order to embark upon schemes of social engineering - schemes whose pursuit gratifies the abstract fantasies of the theory class and, simultaneously, lines the very real pockets of politically powerful corporations, organizations, and “experts."’
“He is so right. The abstract fantasies of the theory class will soon send huge chunks of your money to politicians, friends, activist scientists, and politically savvy corporations.
“The debate is over? That makes me say GIVE ME A BREAK!”
