For several decades, we’ve been harangued by left-wing harbingers of doom, screeching at 140 decibels that global warming — i.e., the gradual heating of Earth’s surface, oceans, and atmosphere — is caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels that pump carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. They lecture us about the long-term rise of the planet’s temperature, caused by our shameful carbon footprints, which we selfishly use to drive our cars, air-condition our homes, and generally enjoy comfortable lives. “How dare you?” They want us to believe that the planet Earth, one of millions of planets in millions of galaxies, spinning around the Sun at a thousand miles an hour, is going to be destroyed if those darned cows don’t stop their terrible habit of emitting malodorous flatulence while enjoying a vegan diet.
As proof of their hysterical assertions, they point to recent natural disasters such as earthquakes, hurricanes, floods, and every other snippet of “evidence” they can hang their hat on. I’m wondering when they’ll blame COVID-19 on oil and gas drilling and coal mining.
The environmental lobby is perhaps the most active and powerful influence in the federal government, spending countless millions to sway legislators to implement laws against fossil fuel use. To assist them in their indoctrination ploy, they use the greatest motivator of all time: fear. If you scare people into believing that the sky is falling, they’ll start wearing helmets when they leave home. What better way to increase the size of government than to frighten the population into paying more taxes for “programs”?
You begin to realize that government is a hungry, relentless entity, which, although it has validity in many areas, is always on the prowl for more ways to build and fatten its insatiable appetite for power. Like the mass of gelatinous substance in the movie The Blob, bureaucratic agencies will seek out and absorb all organic matter in their orbit. However, it can’t be done without the robust compliance of a majority who have been terrorized into thinking their world will end in (pick a number) years.
During the 1970s, the fear was of “global cooling.” When several sizzling summers occurred, that idea was abandoned as we entered the ’80s with the notion of “acid rain,” chemical droplets with elevated levels of hydrogen ions. Soon, the “ozone hole” became part of our climate awareness vernacular. That was followed by “global warming” in the ’90s. (Keep in mind that that was a mere twenty years since the globe had been cooling.) Less than twenty years after that tactic was exhausted by facts on the ground, the creative minds of left-wing orthodoxy arrived at a term they felt would encompass anything that happened on this huge ball of mud. “Climate change” was unveiled like a marble masterpiece in a Grecian gallery. Now they could point their accusatory fingers at every clap of thunder and feel vindicated.
Nevertheless, history is their worst enemy because it draws the curtain on their specious reasoning.
For example, the Great September Gale of 1815 (the word “hurricane” was not in American English yet) hit the northeast part of the country, destroying thousands of homes and 35 ships when it surged into Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island. Dozens of ships were lifted and dropped onto the streets of Providence. The Gale also sacked New York’s Long Island and Connecticut, leaving a devastating trail of destruction.
Then there was the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the single deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history. according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association, it resulted in a massive 6,000–12,000 casualties.
If we look back in history to the 18th century, we’ll discover that in 1727 a massive earthquake killed about 77,000 people in Tabriz, Iran. In 1755, in Lisbon, Portugal, more than 10,000 people were killed in an earthquake.
In 1776, on the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S., from North Carolina to Nova Scotia, at least 4,100 people were killed during a storm called the Hurricane for Independence.
In 1780, in Barbados, West Indies, a hurricane killed about 22,000 people.
These are just a fraction of the natural calamities that occurred before we highly advanced Homo sapiens created a carbon footprint. There weren’t any cars, airplanes, mass transportation, fossil fuel combustion, or other forms of “greenhouse gas emissions.” There were undoubtedly a lot fewer cow farts, too.
