In our 39th episode of Madness Chronicles, we’ll take a look at the madness of climate change. Remember, insanity is a state of serious mental illness, extremely foolish behavior, and a frantic or chaotic form of activity. Let’s take a look at the folly of believing what these people predict.
We are approaching the hour of a new president in the United States who miraculously won an unlikely election, reopening us to the excellent climate debate once again. The United Nations is already suddenly asking every nation in the world to declare a ‘climate emergency’. A reasonable person might ask, ‘based on what?’ The answer is always ‘look at the science’.
Well, science comes from scientists, so what have they said? The Los Angeles Times reported in 1967, a warning from renowned Stanford University scientist Paul Ehrlich. He warned that it was already too late to prevent a disastrous famine that would occur in 1975. Based on current obesity statistics in the country, must we have dodged a bullet? Ehrlich, a demographic biologist, predicted in 1969 that by 1989 the entire world would disappear in a cloud of blue smoke. I guess he dodged the bullet this time when we all had to quit.
Moving forward, in 1970, we had a couple more beauties to worry about. The New York Times reported that pollution expert James P. Lodge Jr. said a new ice age would be upon us in the next five to ten years. Backing Lodge was NASA’s SI Rasool, who predicted that the massive drop in temperatures would be severe enough to trigger an ice age. We could use some of that ‘ice’ here in 2020, experts say anyway.
Since I was alive back then, I can attest that I was no colder than usual. However, scientists at Brown University wrote to President Nixon in 1972. After looking at the data on the ocean floor, they told the president that the next global cooling would be an order of magnitude greater than anything the world had ever seen. ever seen. That sounds like a lot of ice, and Nixon had his own problems to deal with, so he ignored them.
Things weren’t cooling off yet, but in 1974 the London Guardian promoted the ice age with an article proclaiming that “the ice age is fast approaching”. The New York Times picked up in 1976, reviewing a book by Stephen Schneider of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Schneider warned that there were not enough food reserves to make up for upcoming famines. While Schneider didn’t say this, I can only assume that the famines will be caused by the ice age? And my guess must be correct because two years later, in 1978, the Associated Press reported that the end of the ice age was not in sight.
Without ice, the predictions disappeared until a voice was heard from the Maldives. The ever-reliable Lansing State Journal warned people to prepare for ‘long, hot summers.’ They then reported that Hussein Shihab, no relation to Saddam, the Maldives Director of Environmental Affairs, claimed that the island nation would be underwater by 2018. While not confirmed, it is believed that reporters were struggling to find out where the hell the Maldives and what would put them underwater. Melting ice, maybe.
In 1989, the Associated Press again warned Americans. They reported that New York City’s West Side Highway would be totally underwater by 2019. Yet in another Festivus miracle, I think it’s still there and it’s not even wet unless it rains. As much as I searched, even with the mighty Google, I couldn’t find an AP retraction of that ‘the ice age has no end’ article from eleven years earlier.
Then we have Al Gore’s colossal pile of predictions that went nowhere. We’d forgive Al because he’s not a scientist, but he ripped us off and he became a billionaire. Lately, we have the irascible Alexandria Ocasio-communist who is sure that we will all be fried, literally, in ten years at the most. But, she might have heard that at the bar, who knows?
I don’t know about you, but call me a climate skeptic because this, my friends, is the kind of ‘science’ I could have done in high school. On the other hand, I skipped fifty-five days of school my senior year; that couldn’t have been me.
Let’s wake up from this madness before it’s too late. I wish you all good health and until next time, have fun, enjoy life and beware the craziness among us. It’s 2020, look around you; It is scandalous