Global Warming Inc. II

This morning a feature article in the Seattle Times asks us, "Should Toll Roads Help Fight Global Warming?" Notice that the Times article assumes that our globe is, well...warming. However, this morning I asked Strauss-the-weather-dog what he thought about recent temperature trends, and he barked twice, indicating "definitely colder." And, lest you are tempted to dismiss this doggy-data as frivolous and unscientific, Strauss's opinion does indeed comport with the latest temperature information (see below.)

So in answer to the Seattle Times' question. Here are three quick jabs at the fear mongers at Global Warming Inc.

"Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health and comfort. Average life spans increased 50 percent in the last century. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, disease, of crime, of the environment. They are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see - germs, chemicals, additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable! Like the belief in witchcraft, it's an extraordinary delusion - a global fantasy worthy of the Middle Ages. Everything is going to hell, and we must all live in fear." (A fictionalized academic in Michael Crichton's novel, State of Fear)

According to at least four different sources, our supposedly over-heating planet cooled significantly last year. You can view the data yourself here. (Yikes, talk about an inconvenient truth...)

"Lest you doubt the left's pieties are now a religion, try this experiment: go to an environmental activist and say, 'Hey, how about that ozone hole closing up?' or 'Wow! The global warming peaked in 1998 and it's been getting cooler for almost a decade. Isn't that great?' and then look at the faces. As with all Millenarian doomsday cults, good news is a bummer." (Mark Steyn)