Global Warming Skeptics: Witch-Hunts in the 21st Century
It seems only human nature to blame someone or something when things go awry or can't be explained. Worse, we tend to ascribe human characteristics to non-human events, animals, objects, even god. We call this anthropomorphism.
We do this with our pets, places we visit, weather anomalies, and of course the planet's climate. It's no longer fashionable to say the climate is unstable—always has been and always will—it's that we now refer to it as being sentient: the earth is fighting back, Mother Nature has had enough, or calling it the "The Revenge of Gaia."
On top of this rampant anthropomorphizing, we also have scientists, evangelical leaders, laypersons, and a willing mainstream media blaming everything from mental illness to drought to volcanic eruptions to declining sea turtle populations on global warming.
There is actually a website with links to media articles, journal reviews, press releases, and more that keep track of all the things caused by global warming. It's called NumberWatch and is definitely worth a visit.
Now a warmist looking at the list may remark, "See, this only proves my point. Global warming is a global problem and therefore affects everything." A luke-warmer will probably say, "Yeah, seems like this whole global warming thing is getting a bit overblown. But where there's smoke…" And a climate realist will likely think, "Dear god, this is nothing more than using global warming as a way to find an ambiguous link to mankind's hubris and cause mass hysteria."
Since hundreds of years before Christ, humankind's other scapegoat had been witches (sorcerers, warlocks, etc…). It was brought to the New World and flourished as a means of having someone to blame for poor crop yields, droughts, mental illness, untimely deaths, or simply not liking your neighbor. Call her a witch, put her on trial, and proceed to burn her.
We've come a long way since the 18th century. And we have a new scapegoat for all the aforementioned, with "real" science to back it up, and "real" environmental lawyers to bring the offenders to trial, and "real" penalties to pay when judges rely on finger-pointing computer models.
We now call it global warming, or climate change, or any combination thereof, and when someone stands up and says, "This science is just not right," they're called accomplices to the planet's murder, or worse, deniers of science (a blatant attempt to link them to Holocaust deniers).
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1. Frightening themselves to death
2. Frightening other's to death
3. Making lots of money
4. Wanting to present more moral than others.
5. Punishing themselves for anything
6. Pretending not to enjoy food, booze,driving or anything luxurious.
7. Feeling guilty.
8. Listening intently to anyone who makes them feel any of the above.
The more modern form of witch-hunting (and persecution) is of course the Anti-semitism that is generally reduced from where it was 80 years ago, but still goes on.
It has become easy nowdays to shift this blame to industrial giants who are cast as being run by over-weight, cigar-smoking big-wigs sitting around a burled walnut conference table laughing at their exploits. Building upon this archetypal image of big-business nonchalance, the liberals find it easy to direct public wrath toward them as willing to kill the environment for the sake of profits and growing markets. It is so absured. Intelligent people know better.
The question we must ask is: How many intelligent people are there?