Junk Science

As most of you have probably seen by now since this news topics is a couple days old, the CDC says they overestimated the number of deaths caused by obesity. Actually, back in the fall of 2004, there were reports that their estimates were too high, and deaths may be 20 percent fewer than their original "data" indicated.

And now, they say it is around 25,000 per year instead of 400,000. That's some discrepancy folks. Now, to shift gears somewhat to a matter unrelated to obesity, but nonetheless interrelated thru junk science, I pose this question:

"If our scientists and researchers are this far off on their experiments/studies/research/data analysis on deaths related to "obesity" ( i.e. "more than average fatness"), how in God's green earth ( sorry, it's Earth day - had to use it) can anyone believe that our scientists can study/research/analyze data/understand/predict what is really happening in the "realm of global warming"? Undoubtedly this is a vastly more compilcated area of science.

I would like to submit this piece of information to you:

"The surface of the planet has warmed one Fahrenheit degree over the past century. If that warming had been caused by a blanket of CO₂ trapping heat and transferring it back to Earth, the atmosphere should heat up first, then the surface.

Is that what actually happened? At the end of the 20th century (1976-2000), the surface of the planet was heating up 0.27 degrees Fahrenheit per decade. To warm the earth at that rate, the atmosphere should have been heating up even faster, at 0.41 degrees per decade.

But according to independent readings from weather satellites and weather balloons, the atmosphere warmed more slowly than the surface, at 0.13 degrees per decade. The model is off by a mere 200 percent." (Emphasis added - H.H.)

If it is all junk science, then the "Henny Penny - The sky is falling" fear mongerers out there must have a reason - an agenda. Don't they?

Via Jeffblogworthy, a little insight on todays' "eco-wackos" from Dr. Patrick Moore, founding member of Greenpeace:

By the mid-1980's... we had won over a majority of the public in the industrialized democracies. Presidents and prime ministers were talking about the environment on a daily basis.

For me it was time to make a change. I had been against at least three or four things every day of my life for 15 years; I decided I'd like to be in favor of something for a change. I made the transition from the politics of confrontation to the politics of building consensus. After all, when a majority of people decide they agree with you it is probably time to stop hitting them over the head with a stick and sit down and talk to them about finding solutions to our environmental problems.

Compromise and co-operation with the involvement of government, industry, academia and the environmental movement is required to achieve sustainability [of the environmental movement.] It is this effort to find consensus among competing interests that has occupied my time for the past 15 years.

Not all my former colleagues saw things that way. They rejected consensus politics and sustainable development in favor of continued confrontation and ever-increasing extremism. They ushered in an era of zero tolerance and left-wing politics. Some of the features of this environmental extremism are:

Environmental extremists are anti-human. Humans are characterized as a cancer on the Earth. To quote eco-extremist Herb Hammond, "of all the components of the ecosystem, humans are the only ones we know to be completely optional". Isn't that a lovely thought?

They are anti-science and technology. All large machines are seen as inherently destructive and unnatural. Science is invoked to justify positions that have nothing to do with science. Unfounded opinion is accepted over demonstrated fact.

Environmental extremists are anti-trade, not just free trade but anti-trade in general. In the name of bioregionalism they would bring in an age of ultra-nationalist xenophobia. The original "Whole Earth" vision of one world family is lost in a hysterical campaign against globalization and free trade.

They are anti-business. All large corporations are depicted as inherently driven by greed and corruption. Profits are definitely not politically correct. The liberal democratic, market-based model is rejected even though no viable alternative is proposed to provide for the material needs of 6 billion people. As expressed by the Native Forest Network, "it is necessary to adopt a global phase out strategy of consumer based industrial capitalism." I think they mean civilization.

And they are just plain anti-civilization. In the final analysis, eco- extremists project a naive vision of returning to the supposedly utopian existence in the garden of Eden, conveniently forgetting that in the old days people lived to an average age of 35, and there were no dentists. In their Brave New World there will be no more chemicals, no more airplanes, and certainly no more polyester suits."