Still, it would be interesting to glimpse what future generations will say about these times and those of us who are living them.
Here's another one for the "I think this might make good reading in thirty years" file:
Climate-cult con is hard to 'bear'
by Andrea Peyser
When did global warming turn into a forced religion?
My daughter came home from school recently with a spring in her step and a song on her lips. With no foreshadowing -- or time to call an exorcist -- out came this chilling refrain:
" . . . You can hear the warning -- GLOBAL WARMING . . . "
By the time her father and I removed our jaws from the floor, we had learned that:
A) All the kids had been coerced into singing this catchy ditty, which we called "The Warming Song," at a concert for parents.
B) Further song lyrics scolded selfish adults (that would be us) for polluting our planet and causing a warming scourge that would, in no short order, kill all the polar bears and threaten the birds and bees.
C) There was no deprogramming session on the menu. And no arguing allowed.
The international "Climategate" scandal is now moving into its third week. And reaction from folks on the scientific and political left -- or is that redundant? -- who treat global warming as a cult in which naysayers must be crushed has been depressing:
Total denial.
The scandal began when someone hacked into the server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, and uncovered a cache of messages between leading warming gurus. These e-mails revealed guys deeply frustrated by planetary temperatures that, stubbornly, had refused to rise in some time. Were they afraid of losing their scientific juice? Or their funding?
So, as the e-mails prove, the scientists did something about it. They cooked the books to exaggerate global warming.
Of course! How can you scare the bejeezus out of little kids and small animals if you can't make the mercury move a millimeter? Simple. You lie.
But while one rival scientist predicted the shocking revelations would blast a "mushroom cloud" over theories of climate change, that has not come to pass.
The Obama administration's "climate adviser," Carol Browner, totally ignored the smoking e-mails, and attributed the scandal to "a very small group of people who continue to say this isn't a real problem, that we don't need to do anything."
"What am I going to do?" asked Browner. "Side with the couple of naysayers out there, or the 2,500 scientists?" -- who've drunk the Kool-Aid. "I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists."
No less an authority than The New York Times sought to explain away the most damning e-mail, sent by scientist Phil Jones, who said he employed a "trick" to make temps appear higher than they were.
The paper quoted Dr. Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University as saying he often used the word "trick" to refer to a good way to solve a problem. "And not something secret."
Is anyone home?
Our children are on the front lines of the warming hysteria, a place where "experts" from Al Gore to the president leave no room for dissent or even the slightest skepticism, despite claims that are no more provable than the Earth is flat.
Children were the targets of a book co-written by the producer of Al Gore's star-making vehicle, "An Inconvenient Truth" -- a fantastical view of global warming that should have been called a fiction, not a documentary.
Producer Laurie David told Publisher's Weekly that she wrote the kids' book, "Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming," because "kids also are the Number 1 influence on their parents, so if you want to reach the parents, go to the kids." She knows of which she speaks.
It may come to pass that global warming is real. Or not.
But your children won't get the truth from Al Gore, the president or the scientific community. Or sadly, from school.
Neither will you.
A comment someone left after the story grabbed my attention. Here's part of it:
My children came home from school with a carbon footprint survey. The intent is that we as a school attempt to reduce our carbon footprint over the course of the year. The survey asks you questions about how often you flush the toilet, or if you wear clothing made from hemp. Your carbon foot print is decreased if you answer the questions "appropriately". My personal favorite is they ask if you have non-family members living in your house. Your carbon foot print decreases if you invite strangers to stay in your home.
Just something that might be worth reading again in a decade or three. . . Assuming that Earth hasn't succumbed to spontaneous combustion by then, that is. ;o)
