I watched ABC News' special report on seven ways the world could end last night. The first six were entertaining. The gamma burst scenario was spooky; the idea that the closest object that could do this is 8000 light years away, and that's more than close enough to end all life on earth was startling. Less convincing was the rogue black hole eating the solar system, although the description of being sucked into a black hole given by their astro physicist while he all but drooled in anticipation was, shall we say, different.
Then came supervolcano eruption, asteroid strike, nuclear holocaust, pandemic disease and biowar, and finally, number one on the list of top ways to end the world:
Global Warming.
They started this segment with impeccable scientific evidence of human caused warming: a trucker who said he is seeing armadillos (ARMADILLOS?!!??!?) in places he's never seen them before (where? in truck stop men's rooms?), and a lady who is disturbed that her Japanese anemones aren't blooming at the right time any more (maybe you over/under fertilized them, dearie? maybe a tree has changed the light exposure they get? maybe you're off your meds and think Truman is still president?). Continuing this scintillating display of pure science, they had exactly two scientists(?) on before they turned the show over to the biggest GW huckster on the freaking planet, Al (it's getting warm in here) Gore, who said outright that any scientist who was sceptical about human origins of climate change had been paid off by fossil fuel interests to lie. It went down hill from there.
So an interesting hour and forty-five minutes was just a run-up to a purely propagandistic segment of corporation bashing and enviro-whoring, starring the biggest enviro-whore of all.
I turned it off, regretting missing the reruns on NBC.
But hardly anyone disagrees that global warming is occurring.
Posted on August 31, 2006 07:56 AM