Have you ever wondered who the real climate-change hysterics are?
Of course you have. They are the scientists who fudge the figures to attract loads of government research funding and send each other emails about how clever they are. They are the environmentalists who see an opportunity to make themselves really important and grab the headlines. They are the broadcasters who seize every opportunity to tell us how we're ruining the world and why don't we listen to them because they're celebrities and therefore know best. They are the politicians who know that the way to control the public is to keep them scared so they won't notice how governments are tightening their grip on society. They are the soppy hippies who paint their faces blue and leap aboard any bandwagon that offers them an excuse to feel morally superior. They are the people who want us to worry about our own CO2 emissions while they flock to Copenhagen in 140 private jets and 1,200 limousines, producing the same emissions as a town the size of Middlesbrough, each spending £650 a night on hotels.
Well yes, all of these. But the GOS thinks he may have found the most hysterical loonies of all.
The real, the most dangerous climate hysterics are journalists who know squit about science but carve themselves a cosy, lucrative little niche by peddling lies and misconceptions. And two of the worst are Rachel Morris and Julia Witty, who write for an American magazine called Mother Jones.
What makes them so dangerous? Well, for a start, there's no denying that they both write extremely well. This is not the usual verbal diarrhoea, complete with newly-invented words, that American politicians use to make themselves sound well-educationalised and eruditionateable. It's not that lame language beloved of the worst American writers who feel they have to use different words to everyone else: "I exited the vehicle, ideas free-falling as I ambulated across the sward ..."
No, this is literate, balanced, polished prose that uses a wide vocabulary and excellent grammar in a highly emotive way that is likely to influence profoundly any readers who don't realise that it's all based on the flimsiest of science, on the most sweeping of assumptions, on alarmist victim-speak, and on very little actual fact at all.
Take, for instance, their recent reporting on the island of Tuvalu, which has made quite a splash in Copenhagen.
The Tuvaluans claim that their island is being overwhelmed by rising sea-levels, that many inhabitants have already left to live in New Zealand, and that before long the entire archipelago will be uninhabitable and what is the rest of the world going to do about it? They leave nothing out - not only is the sea rising, but tsunamis, cyclones and freak tides are constantly menacing the helpless islanders, and all are presumably our fault because we keep leaving our central heating on. Both the lady writers have written pages about it - see for yourselves, here and here.
See what we mean? Very appealing writing, indeed. If we didn't know better, we might well believe that these tiny islands are doomed to extinction and perish the thought that the inhabitants might themselves be responsible for the disappearing beaches, because rather than the sea rising and encroaching on the land, they themselves have dug up and carted away the sand to make concrete foundations.
Trouble is, though, Julia and Rachel, it's all bollocks. You see, we weren't entirely taken in by your dishonest, fraudulent propaganda. We had just enough will power left to look up the formation of coral islands (because that's what Tuvalu is) on the internet. And what did we find?
Well, we found this, which explains that one of the strongest requirements of healthy coral reefs is warm water, not cold. And we found this, which explains that coral islands are formed when a mountain pokes its head above the sea to form an island. The coral grows round it near the surface. After a while the island sinks a little, either through erosion or through its own weight, so the coral grows upwards. After a while the island has sunk so much that there's just a little peak in the middle, surrounded by a lagoon, surrounded by the top of the coral reef. Eventually the island slips beneath the waves and only the coral is left.
Got that, Tuvalu? It's not the sea that's rising - it's your island that's sinking. And that's a natural process, and nothing to do with Jeremy Clarkson's 4x4. It's called the Darwinian theory of coral reef formation, now widely accepted. There is another theory, actually, which is that the formation of reefs and atolls is due entirely to sea level rise. How ironic would that be?
And we have a third theory of our own, which is that the people of Tuvalu have got the whole thing round their necks and are using the global warming lie to blag themselves some cushy council houses with good TV reception and broadband in New Zealand. There is a tide gauge record on Tuvalu going back to 1978. This record shows no rise in sea level, only variability around a zero level and three deep lows due to the periodic El Nino Southern Oscillation. All right, Tuvalu? No dispute, the science is clear. The sea isn't rising and that's all there is to it. You're making it up.
And it's not just ignorant people on tiny coral atolls that are wallowing in victimhood. We read an article recently by a woman who lives in Worcester and has had her house flooded twenty times, and why isn't the government doing anything about it? She's chosen to live in the middle of a swamp and she expects the rest of us to literally bail her out (pun intended. bail ... bale ... get it?). Look, Mrs.Woman, that's not the way it works. It's not the government's job to save you from the mistakes you make yourself.
In fact, it's obviously the other way round: when the government fails to regulate greedy bankers and the whole economy grinds to a halt, it's us that have to bail them out. When they make stupid decisions and get us entangled in a pointless war in some far-flung corner of the globe, it ain't them in the firing line. But when some of us behave foolishly and get ourselves captured by Somali pirates, their job is to stand by and twiddle their thumbs. That's the way it works.
Another thing that makes Rachel and Julia dangerous is that they are incredibly prolific - they churn this garbage out by the yard. There's a long list of Rachel's vomiting here, and an even longer list for Julia here. And just look at some of the topics: we're poisoning polar bears, Jeremy Clarkson's 4x4 is causing civil wars in Africa, the Australians are polluting the world, some endangered Amazonian tribe are dying of Swine Flu, whole continents are turning to mush and there's worse to come as temperatures skyrocket.
Not much panic there, then.
So, for their leadership and indefatigable energy in stirring up worldwide alarm and despondency, Julia and Rachel, you are our Wankers of the Week. Congratulations.
The GOS says: Julia is also responsible for a film (well, she calls it a dynamic multimedia presentation, but it sounds like a film to me. She's made 70 of them before) about how 40 percent of Earth's examined species are in danger of oblivion (that's easy, if true. Stop examining the poor buggers). Apparently she "illustrates the problem that seven of ten biologists believe to be a more serious threat to life on earth than global warming: the sixth great extinction currently underway. Best of all, she presents a blueprint for saving nature and ourselves."
Oh, well, that's all right then. There's something even worse than global warming, but she can tell us how to get out of it. God, she's clever. What's she doing writing on some obscure American website, then? Why isn't she running the world?
Oh dear, I've just thought of something. Perhaps she is!
either on this site or on the World Wide Web.
Copyright © 2009 The GOS