Sherry Chandler » Chicken Little and the Ostriches
Chicken Little and the Ostriches
Here’s one from John Cheves at Pol Watchers:
FRANKFORT — Global warming is a myth concocted by former Vice President Al Gore, the United Nations, Hollywood and the news media, Kentucky lawmakers were told yesterday.
The interim joint Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing to dispute the idea that the Earth is warming, at least in part because of carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere produced by industrial activity.
Chairman Jim Gooch, D-Providence, a longtime ally of the coal industry, said he purposefully did not invite anyone who believes in global warming to testify.
“You can only hear that the sky is falling so many times,” said Gooch, whose post makes him the House Democrats’ chief environmental strategist. “We hear it every day from the news media, from the colleges, from Hollywood.”
Neither of Gooch’s invited panelists was a scientist.
So, Al Gore may be screaming like Chicken Little but Jim Gooch seems determined to bury the collective heads of our Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee in the sand.
One of the speakers, the Viscount Monckton (!), in addition to denying global warming, recommends that people with HIV and AIDS be locked up for life. Gooch really does seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel.
Chives says:
Survey USA reported in September that 69 percent of Kentuckians believe in global warming.
I love that “believe in.” As though it were the difference between being a Baptist or a Methodist.
As one of the commenters at Pol Watchers points out, my tax dollars paid for this nonsense.
P.S. Clean coal is sponsoring tonight’s Democratic presidential debate.
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5 Comments
1. Rosalie replies at 15th November 2007, 7:36 pm :
Clean coal is my new favorite oxymoron. I haven’t decided yet if I believe in it or not……Ro
2. Poppysmatus replies at 16th November 2007, 7:38 am :
What, Goooch couldn’t dig up a real expert? Screaming Lord Sutch hasn’t done much lately, but he suregod had as many qualifications as any sudoku expert/shill for ExxonMobile/Thatcher whore. Monckton is not a member of the house of Lords, by the way, despite his claims to the contrary– he apparently has trouble with unvarnished truth.
3. sherry replies at 16th November 2007, 11:29 am :
I’ve got it, Ro and Poppysmatus! This is Gooch’s evil plot to further the cause of global warming by inviting opposing experts so far out on the idiot fringe that they will actually cause people to “believe in” global warming after all. Who says irony is dead?
4. jack lindus replies at 20th November 2007, 2:24 pm :
hi sherry
I just read your article and the cartoon reference caught my attention
it would appear chicken little is now the voice of dismissal and derision
it may well have first been used by a Mr. van jolissaint
this article was printed in the guardian newspaper last year .
chrysler’s chief economist has launched a fierce attack on “quasi-hysterical Europeans” and their “Chicken Little” attitudes to global warming.
His attack is in sharp contrast to the green image that the US car companies have been trying to promote at this year’s Detroit motor show.
was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief economists of the “Big Three” US car firms presented their forecasts for auto industry sales this year.
Most of the audience - which was mainly made up of parts suppliers - seemed to nod in agreement with Mr Jolissaint.
Neither Ford’s chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, nor General Motors’ chief economist Mustafa Mohatarem, who were on the panel with Mr Jolissaint, questioned his assertion.
Uncertain magnitude
Mr Jolissant, who was recently appointed the chief economist for the German-US D In response to a question from the floor, he said that global warming was a far-off risk whose magnitude was uncertain.
aimlerChrysler Group, said that since he started spending more time at the
He said that from an economic point of view, it would be more rational to spend lots of money on today’s other big problems, and only make small and limited changes in policies relating to global warming, such as a slight increase in gasoline or carbon taxes. Mr Jolissaint was particularly scathing about the Stern Report, which was recently published by the UK government.
The report urged governments to take urgent action now to tackle climate change, arguing that it would be much cheaper to act, rather than face the $10 trillion cost of not doing anything until later.
Mr Jolissaint said the report was based on dubious economics, did not include a discount rate, and was written by an informal adviser to Gordon Brown - in fact, at the time of the report, Mr Stern was the Second Permanent Secretary at the UK Treasury.
He said that he had been surprised by how much support there had been in the Daimler office in Stuttgart for these “quasi-hysterical” policies that smacked of “Chicken Little” politics - referring to the US children’s story in which Chicken Little runs around in circles saying “the sky is falling”.
If nothing else, Mr Jolissant’s remarks illustrate the yawning gap between mainstream opinion on climate change among the educated elites of Europe and America.
But they are also consistent with the cynical view held by some in the US environmental lobby that announcements by car companies about the future development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing. …….
jack
5. sherry replies at 20th November 2007, 3:12 pm :
Thanks, Jack. Poor old Chicken Little, he gets hauled out whenever the speaker has no real argument. No longer able to absolutely deny global warming, the latest ploy seems to be to say that we can’t afford to fight it. That’s the argument that Mr. Gooch uses in his appearance on Good Morning America this last weekend. He didn’t come across as a man I’d buy a used car from.
Thanks to Mark Hebert for the link.
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