Farrago Line

Samaritan Question

Question: What would the Good Samaritan have done had he come across his charge while the marauders were beating him?

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Feverish

Gore doesn't practice what he preaches. That's a sidebar reason, but a strong one, for why I don't buy the "we're killing the earth" scenario. Why, in fact, I think it a scam, a transparent one at that.

But Gore buys special dispensation global warming credits. Doesn't that count for something?

Of course it does: it counts as evidence that Gore doesn't believe the scam either. If he did, he'd downsize his energy usage, buy dispensation for what little CO2 emissions were left, and so would all his over-energized followers. But they don't.

And why should they? It's a scam. They don't want to save the earth. They want to reorder its inhabitants. The global warming scam is a mere tactic, as some guy named Jonah Goldberg points out here.

Take two aspirins....

Two more unbelievers, here and here, ignore the fire alarms being pulled by Al Gore.

Who, by the way, appears to be off the meds again:

"The planet has a fever," Gore said. "If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don't say, 'Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it's not a problem.' If the crib's on fire, you don't speculate that the baby is flame retardant. You take action."

Based on Gore's carbon footprint, is it fair to speculate that the action he would take is to throw gasoline on the burning crib?

Bible blog

David Plotz "blogs" the Bible here at Slate.

A blurb touting the contents of the blog: "What's really in the Good Book".

Oh good. I'm glad somebody finally figured that out.

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Fear Factor III

Love Global Warming offers a take on climatic climaxes and the "New World Order". The site cites, among other things, the fear factor and comments on its political value. Could they possibly be on to something?

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Fear Factor II

James Taranto weighs in with a great point on the fear factor issue.

He notes this line in the article:

"Before this century is over, billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic," predicted James Lovelock, a renowned environmental scientist.

And points out that:

This is a bit like predicting that tomorrow the sun will rise and a comet will strike Europe. The first part of the prediction is safe, the second is wildly far-fetched.

Thanks Mr. Taranto.

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Research Tool

Curious about the life expectancy in Belize?

Want to know Brazil's external debt expressed in percent of GNI?

Having trouble sleeping?

Check out key development data & statistics from the World Bank.

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Gored

Hello.

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Men cause global warming

Daniel Clark notices yet another cause of global warming: men.

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Fear Factor

Yet another float on the panic parade: We should be more afraid of climate change than nuclear warfare. And just because nuclear apocalypse never transpired doesn't mean the doomsayers aren't right this time.

Is it fitting the article begins by referencing fictional accounts of planetary doom?

Not everybody's caught climate fever.

Some don't buy any of this "climate porn", as a UK think tank recently described such talk. Al Gore's movie is "bullshit from beginning to end", according to Ray Evans, a former Western Mining executive and author of the Lavoisier Group's Nine Facts About Climate Change (2006). For Evans and many others, man-made climate change panic is a bugaboo, perhaps even a hoax.

Check out this next graf: The debate isn't about climate change (no debate, there: climates change) or the fantasy that humans cause catastrophic climate change. It's about something we can all yak about no end.

Either way, the debate over climate change is now about fear. How afraid should we be? It's a valid question, because a sensible reaction to any threat begins with fear. Fear can help propel us towards solutions, as it did in the case of ozone-depleting CFCs. But we don't want to respond to a threat with asymmetric alarm.

Is that a load of crap? "A sensible reaction to any threat (the existence of which in this case is entirely suspect if not patent nonsense) begins with fear?"

The article dismisses debate (whatever that is) on catastrophic climate change saying the "debate" (cough propaganda machine cough cough) has switched to how much fear and panic is needed to lead to proper solutions. And here's why we should be terrorized: "Just because it never happened before, doesn't mean it won't ever happen."

Very true. Utterly useless.

Here's the author's parting remarks, and yet another reason I don't buy the climate panicmongers.

What's really cheering about climate change anxiety is that it's about the deep future, a place the Bomb managed to obliterate without a single missile leaving its silo. This time, our fear means something because we can act on it.

Exactly what panicmongers love to see: people acting on their fear, which is always the only fear to fear.

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