Climate Change: What Do We Stand to Lose?

Last week I penned a blog entitled “Whatever Happened to Global Warming” that was promptly hijacked by two climate change apologists, Larry Lazar and Steve Mann.

Steve Mann appears to have posted locally and his only postings are the eight comments he posted to my "Global Warming" piece.

Larry Lazar, on the other hand, hails from Eureka, MO, and blogs on the Eureka-Wildwood Patch. According to his profile, Larry is devoted to “understanding climate change and its implications.” I find no fault in this endeavor and, in fact, commend Mr. Lazar for his part in attempting to work towards a better world for us all. By his own words, Mr. Lazar seeks to “promot(e) reasoned, honest and civil discourse in our public conversations,” apparently by “critical thinking applied to everyday issues.”

Mr. Lazar has been blogging and posting on the Eureka-Wildwood Patch since April of this year. In that time Mr. Lazar has been quite prolific in his comments on a number of subjects and has written 20 blogs with most of his attention turned towards climate change issues.

Why do I use the term "hijacked" when I refer to the responses of Messrs. Lazar and Mann? Because, for the most part, their responses were long-winded diatribes with quick pauses to come up for air before continuing their unremitting barrage of verbosity accompanied by long lists of hyperlinked “proofs” to substantiate everything they wrote as true beyond any reasonable doubt. There was no dialogue nor did it seem any dialogue was intended. Each of these individuals proceeded in their own inimitable fashion to take me, and anybody else paying attention, by the scruff of my neck and shake me silly while telling me how deluded and misled I had allowed myself to become.

My blog was derided as rubbish, and a giant pile of it. My writing was compared with attempts to debunk the theories of gravity and plate tectonics and associated with attempts to maintain a flat-earth theory. Additionally, I was accused of denying physics. After all, I was questioning “one of the most well established and universally accepted scientific principles in the history of science.” Well, excuse me for being such an ignoramus.

And the point is well made above that if you question global warming, now renamed to climate change because some of the phenomena associated with it just didn’t fit with warming, you are no better than a Holocaust denier. After all, the debate is over; isn’t that right Mr. Gore and Mr. Lazar?

Mr. Lazar’s comments appear to be a rehash of his earlier published blog posts and do not appear to be by any means spontaneous. I can somewhat understand rehashing what one has written before but I received no real answers to any question I raised short of, "I have no opinions of my own and rely upon and repeat only what I learn from expert consensus."  I, on the other hand, was informed by implication that I was relying on "anecdotal and highly suspect claims about 'ancient travelers’" and told my arguments were based "off" (I’m sure he meant to write "on") "completely debunked arguments from highly suspect sources" and that I was doing so with full knowledge of my deceit. So, my entire plan was to mislead people knowingly. I can only thank Mr. Lazar for revealing to me my innermost intention to knowingly serve as a stooge for the oil companies and intentionally mislead my fellow citizens. If only we all had the insight and intelligence of Mr. Lazar; the world would surely be a much better place.

Mr. Lazar is convinced the doubt instigated over climate change and its consequences is the result of a widespread conspiracy but seems to overlook the cover-ups going on within the climate change community itself. Mr. Lazar insinuates that there is big money spent trying to raise doubts about climate change but seems willfully ignorant of the billions of dollars that are changing hands in the climate change community. Who would have thought to come up with a scheme to sell carbon credits to you when you exceed some arbitrary level of carbon emissions and then to enrich the likes of Al Gore with the proceeds? This industry is fraught with corruption.

So, what do we stand to lose and have Messrs. Lazar and Mann taken such into consideration? America stands today as the number one industrialized nation in the world. In fact, if the U.S. economy fails the world economy fails. Suffice it to say, as goes America, so goes the world. America did not arrive at this place by accident. As Mr. Lazar rightly points out, America has always solved the problems she has been presented with and, if allowed, will solve its present energy problems. As the future evolves it is certain that new technologies will be discovered and put to use. That will take time. In the meantime we are an energy hungry country and our economy is dependent on affordable energy. Green energy technologies, in their present forms, are not quite ready for primetime and, frankly, I don’t consider $90 billion of subsidies out of the taxpayers’ pockets with almost 40 percent of it borrowed or printed a working solution. While we wait for new technologies to mature and come to market we need to continue to use what is available while newer energy sources are being developed and become viable alternatives to oil, gas, coal, and nuclear energy. In addition, third world countries are attempting to come into the 21^st century and do not have much concern as to how that is accomplished so we have to retain the ability to be competitive in the world without shackling ourselves to the use of technologies that cannot yet meet our needs and are not yet financially viable alternatives.

The climate change crowd is, in fact, intent on forcing American power levels to equal those of the early 1900s and would also like to see the U.S. pay reparations for “climate debt;” a debt that they think we’ve accumulated while building the world’s greatest economy. This is based on CO2 emissions that they think we have pumped into the atmosphere at the planet’s peril.

The internet is awash with all kinds of information on climate change. You could spend a lifetime reading it but there are always two sides to any story. Messrs. Lazar and Mann are certain that they have a leg up on what is true but there are many more who disagree; and they are not all idiots as Mr. Lazar tries to imply. The warming trend has stopped but that does not fit the model and it’s tough to give up on something in which one is so heavily invested.

I get it, Mr. Lazar. I just don’t see it your way.