
 |
|
May 24, 2013
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
May 13, 2013
Rabbi Nathan Lopes Cardozo: Why the giving of the document that would permanently change the world could only be done in desolation
David G. Savage: Church-state, literally? Supreme Court weighing public school graduation in a church
May 10, 2013
Rabbi Berel Wein: Be all that you should be
May 8, 2013
Peter Ford: Why China is welcoming both Israel's Netanyahu and Palestinians' Abbas
Warren Richey: Obama administration quietly backs out of appeal over new contraceptive mandate
Fred Weir: At Kerry-Putin meeting, US-Russia relations thaw --- a tad
The Kosher Gourmet by Leela Cyd Ross : Almost too pretty to eat, this colorful salad with Sicilian inspiration will tickle the taste buds and delight your visual sensibility
May 6, 2013
May 3, 2013
Kids, kittens the Same? With employee perks at struggling Internet pioneer Yahoo! it's hard to tell
Sandy Kleffman: Artificial kidney offers hope to patients tethered to a dialysis machine
April 29, 2013
Roy Gutman: Poland's new Jewish museum celebrates life, doesn't revisit Holocaust
Mark Clayton: Terrorism in America: Is US missing a chance to learn from failed plots?
Kim Murphy: Boston Bomber's 'Svengali' Revealed
Pete Spotts: Tiny satellites + cellphones = cheaper 'eyes in the sky' for NASA
April 26, 2013
Clifford D. May: Defense in the Age of Jihadist Terrorism
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: How to feel your best -- with plenty of energy, a healthy weight and optimal mental and physical function -- without driving yourself batty
April 24, 2013
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 2, 2011
/ 29 Iyar, 5771
Cooler heads contend with climate panic
By
Jeff Jacoby
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
THE MAY 21 APOCALYPSE foretold by the fundamentalist minister Harold Camping may not have materialized, but end-of-the-world doomsaying goes on as usual among the global warmists.
"Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink," a story in The Guardian was breathlessly headlined over the weekend. It reported -- hyperventilated might be a better verb -- that greenhouse gas emissions increased in 2010 "to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach." The Guardian attributed word of this "shock rise" to the International Energy Agency, whose chief economist is "very worried" because "this is the worst news on emissions" and the climate outlook "is getting bleaker." It cites another expert's "dire" warning that if carbon dioxide isn't drastically reduced, global warming will "disrupt the lives and livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people across the planet, leading to widespread mass migration and conflict."
All that is nothing, however, to the climate fearmongering in Newsweek, which insists the global-warming Rapture is already underway.
"Worldwide, the litany of weather's extremes has reached biblical proportions," Newsweek intones, pointing to tornadoes in the US, floods in Australia and Pakistan, and drought in China. "From these and other extreme-weather events, one lesson is sinking in with terrifying certainty. The stable climate of the last 12,000 years is gone." This is what comes of burning fossil fuels for energy, which has increased atmospheric CO2 levels by 40 percent above what they were before the Industrial Revolution. "You haven't seen anything yet," Newsweek preaches. "Batten down the hatches."
By now, of course, few things are more familiar than predictions of the environmental catastrophe to which the use of carbon-based energy has supposedly condemned us. In 1992 Al Gore claimed that "evidence of an ecological Kristallnacht is as clear as the sound of glass shattering in Berlin;" nearly 20 years later he is still warning of "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale, preventive measures to protect human civilization as we know it." Like Camping, Gore and other climate alarmists keep forecasting a Day of Doom that never arrives. And like Camping -- who now says the world will end on Oct. 21 -- they continue to be sure that disaster is just around the corner.
But hyperbolic climate rhetoric doesn't scare as many people as it used to. Gallup reported in March that of nine leading environmental issues, global warming is the one Americans worry about least. In Britain too, as The New York Times noted last spring, fear of climate change has receded, as more and more people conclude that the dangers have been over-hyped.
Take the recent increase in global CO2 emissions. Is the Guardian's panicked anxiety -- Climate on the brink! -- really a sensible response? Writing in the journal First Things, the distinguished Princeton physicist William Happer makes a compelling case that rising carbon-dioxide levels are neither unprecedented nor anything to fear.
"Carbon is the stuff of life," he points out. "Our bodies are made of carbon." Yes, atmospheric CO2 is higher today than it was before the industrial age -- 390 parts per million now vs. 270 ppm then -- but there was a time when "CO2 levels were several thousand ppm, much higher than now. And life flourished abundantly." Indeed, greenhouse operators artificially boost CO2 concentrations in order to grow better flowers and fruit.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Jeff Jacoby is a Boston Globe columnist. Comment by clicking here.
Jeff Jacoby Archives
© 2010, Boston Globe
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Ben Stein
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
ZeitGeist
Mort Zuckerman

Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
John Cole
J. D. Crowe
Matt Davies
John Deering
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Mallard Fillmore
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Jack Ohman
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Dan Wasserman

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|