Junk Science

This morning the foot doctor promoted me from ski boot with crutches to ankle brace with cane. I can finally drive my car!! (I almost kissed the Doc.) The first thing I did was drive to Starbucks, then got the Boxter washed. Lori (Jazzboo) emailed: It’s almost like being 16 again and getting your license!! Freedom!!! Congrats!!!!

Lori was one of the many friends (I counted at least eighteen of you) who carted me around when I needed to get to Starbucks or the Library or Church or dinner. I'm very lucky to have such friends.

The Doc is a good guy. He looked at the X-Rays and said “Hmmm… How does it feel?” I immediately exclaimed “Great! Really fine!! Can I drive now?” He took the foot in his hands, gave it some tugs and prods and when I said “Ouch” he proclaimed it stiff from the ten weeks in the ski boot. But it was healing, so I was instructed to wear the boot another week and come back to see him. Well, that was not what I wanted to hear, since I can’t drive in that damn boot.

Unashamedly I pled for another solution so the Doc relented and said I could wear an ankle brace thingy that laces up tight with crisscrossed straps and provides great support. I nearly kissed the Doc. On my way out I asked if I should come back in a week to get it officially removed but he informed me that it was a one month deal, unlike the one week boot. Who knew? I call it “junk science.”

Not really, I just used that as a setup for this piece on my favorite recovery topic, debunking the “science” of global warming. I receive a daily email newsletter from Steven Franks that is always a good read. Today Steve discussed the “Three Great Junk Science Scams of Our Times.” The first two are egregious scandals, beginning with Rachel Carson and her "Silent Spring" scam against pesticides. She claimed that DDT was bad for our health. Carson and other Leftists wanted to stop the use of DDT, a pesticide, in order to control the "wrong" population. Just like Marget Sanger (founder of Planned Parenthood) used abortion to promote the killing of non-whites (she was a KKK type racist) Carson and her ilk were targeting the over-population: of Africa by blacks. So, we ended the use of DDT and an epidemic of malaria hit Africa, killing millions.

The second science driven scandal was the "over population" scam. Paul Ehrlich in his 1968 book, "Population Bomb" predicted that by the beginning of the twenty-first century hundreds of millions would starve to death. In the prologue to The Population Bomb he wrote, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over.”

The third scam history will note from our unenlightened, politically correct era, will be that of "global warming". The very same folks who thirty years ago said we were moving into an "Ice Age" have now concluded we are quickly burning up the Earth. Some of these radicals, the PETA crowd, are working hard to outlaw cows (meat) by claiming that cow farts cause global warming.

In California, Governor Schwarzenegger created a "California Climate Action Team" that recommended $7.9 billion in mandated retro-fitting of California businesses and a "public goods service charge" (a new tax) on oil products (gasoline).

But, What about the facts? Do they even matter? Professor Bob Carter, a geologist at James Cook University, Queensland, engaged in paleoclimate research wrote today that “There IS a problem with global warming... it stopped in 1998.” Carter reported that the official temperature records of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, show that for the years 1998-2005 global average temperature did not increase, there was actually a slight decrease. Did we stop burning coal and driving SUVs during that eight year period?

Greenhouse gas concentrations have been increasing continuously since the industrial revolution, but global temperatures go up and down. In the last century, warming occurred between 1918 and 1940, prior to the greatest phase of world industrialization, but cooling occurred between 1940 and 1965, at precisely the time that human emissions were increasing at their greatest rate. Honest scientists know that such short-term climate fluctuations are chiefly of natural origin. (See sunspots, volcanoes, etc.)

The reality of the climate record is that a sudden natural cooling is far more to be feared, and will do infinitely more social and economic damage, than the late 20th century phase of gentle warming.

Fortunately the public in the Americas is unconvinced. In a recent story from Editor and Publisher, the headline read "Gallup: Most Americans Don't See Global Warming as Urgent Issue." Gallup reports that only one in three Americans predict global warming will pose a serious threat in their lifetimes.

In Canada, the new Conservative Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has been urged by more than 60 leading international climate change experts to review the global warming policies he inherited from his predecessor. "Global climate changes all the time due to natural causes and the human impact still remains impossible to distinguish from this natural 'noise'. Much of the billions of dollars earmarked for implementation of the protocol in Canada will be squandered without a proper assessment of recent developments in climate science," they wrote in the Canadian Financial Post last week.

Global warming is just the latest “junk science” unlike podiatry which fixed my foot. Thanks, Doc.

Dori emailed: Well done, my friend. Now I look forward to the time you’re saying, "I’m back at the gym." Tomorrow, friend! Vroom-Vroom!!