Gore Gored?

Last year my 1995 Chevvy Tahoe succumbed to the ravages of old age. The brake lines rotted away. I replaced two only to expose weakness elsewhere. It had been a good set of wheels, but its time had come. The price at the pump was still hovering up around the four dollar mark so I should be looking for one of the gas sipping little toys that you put on with a shoe horn and zip up the back, right? Not me. I came of age in the '50s when the coolest cars had fins that knifed through the sky like the tail of an F-16. Four barrel carbs and dual exhausts were the mark of a man. Cars that actually allowed rear seat passengers to have feet. I did, however, downsize a mite to a low mileage 2003 Ford Explorer. A V-6 instead of the Tahoe's V-8. Mind you my gas mileage improved from 16.5 mpg all the way to about 18. For that I had to give up the ability to tow my 24 foot travel trailer cross-country. In reality we haven't done any traveling with in the last few years, but now the dreams are gone too.

Even though I downsized my carbon footprint somewhat I still gets those looks. The looks that acuse me of destroying the planet with my gas guzzler. Every time I fill up at the pump I'm snatching an ice floe from the grasp of some fuzzy little polar bear somewhere. Now I normally drive less than 4000 miles per year, mind you, using about 200 gallons of fuel. Still I can imagine Mr. Gore scolding me from behind the tinted windows of his Escalade as he races to the airport on his way to another planet rescue meeting in some far away exclusive resort hotel complex. Maybe Dubai with its indoor ski hill on man made snow. Shit!

Now I'm not necessarily a global warming skeptic. I know the Earth is warmer now than a century or so ago when it was still coming out of the mini ice age. I also know it was warmer than today during the medieval warm period when the Vikings were growing crops and playing football in Greenland. What I am skeptical of is the hysteria and media hyperbole surrounding the anthropological contribution to climate change. I see the social and political elite telling the huddled masses they must huddle closer to save on heating fuel. Huddle tighter to fit into public transportation. Lose weight to fit into ever shrinking airline seats. Whether it's print media or television news they don't feel their job complete until we're filled with feelings of anxiety and guilt about what we're doing to planet Earth.

Consider for a moment the profit motive behind such hyperbole. Government research grants to study the "problem" and develop new methods to combat it. New industries to develop products to assuage the guilt ridden public. New opportunities to levy taxes and pass laws to control our lifestyle. That's a lot of incentive to keep this ball rolling. It's every futuristic science fiction movie all rolled into one big nightmare.

And then someone pulls back the curtain exposing the mighty Oz. Hackers broke into the computer system at Britain's University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit (CRU) and downloaded a potful of emails going back for years. Now from what I've been able to glean from the excerpts posted online the emails are no smoking gun of a deceitful plot to promote the myth of global climate change. They do, however, shed some light on conflict among scientists and how they work behind the scenes to discredit opposing views. Climate skeptic bloggers are having a hay-day with the news.

Now I'm no advocate of illegal computer hacking and cyber-theft in general, but maybe it's time that the public gets a look at how scientific consensus is built and promoted. I'm waiting to see how it all shakes out in the public spotlight. The scientists at the CRU are in damage control mode right now. The steps they take in that effort may tell a lot about comfortable they are with their dirty laundry. Personally I would like to see the paper trail behind the funding of much of the climate research done by both sides. I imagine it would be about as easy to decipher as the health care reform bill.

I think someone should tell Al Gore that the debate over climate change may be open again and it's still a long time before the fat lady sings.

11/28/09 Update:
Boy it didn't take long to hit the fan. The blogoshpere is tingling with electricity and the established media is finding it difficult to ignore. I look for the pendulum to swing the other way while some prominent researchers purge their computers and maybe freshen up their resumes. The whole climate change issue has become such a political football that the truth won't surface until the non-scientists have grown tired of kicking it around.

Note that I've added to the list of blogs that I follow.