Filed under: Developing Nations, Global Warming, Science/Technology | Tags: Environment, Junk Science, Liberalism is a Mental Disorder
Happy Earth Day! Steve Hayward, author of the Index of Leading Environmental Indicators (14th edition) which mostly consists of the good news. Today, at NRO, he points out his favorite tidbit from this year’s edition:
Elizabeth Rosenthal reported in the New York Times of a recent estimate from the Smithsonian Institution research in Central America suggesting that “for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster… The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species.” The next sentence, however, has a drearily predictable beginning: “The idea has stirred outrage among environmentalists,” not because it might be untrue, but because it might blunt support for “vigorous efforts to protect native rain forests.”
Mr. Hayward adds: “Imagine, Environmentalist outrage over potentially good news.” But then they have a lot of outrage over good news. The news that the globe is cooling, not warming, has sent them into paroxysms of fury. Suggest, correctly, that the Arctic and Antarctic have the normal amount of sea ice, or that polar bears are just fine and adapting to cooler and warmer weather just as they have done for at least 130,000 years, and you have a berzerker on your hands. They are not interested in good news — or perhaps it’s just that their definition of what is good news is different.
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