Friday, October 12, 2007

An Inconvenient Nobel

The righties are none too pleased about Al's win. A sampling of the hysteria from around the blogosphere for those of you who like a nice breakfast of schadenfreude.
From irony-averse Right Wing Nut House
I can never decide whether Gore is being used by the Luddites, the one worlders, the NGO’s, the anti-globalists, and the anti-industrialists as a front man for the implementation of their political agendas or whether he actually agrees with many of their ideas. The fact is, it’s not about the science. It’s never been about the science.... Global warming is mostly about politics which is why Gore has probably done so well in promoting it. It has left the realm of science and entered the world of religion – a belief system with dogma, sacraments, and penalties for apostasy. [He goes on in this vein for a few more paragraphs.]

Pirate's Cove dips into the well of conspiracy theory
he Surrender Monkey is extremely pleased with today’s news. While it does not involve Liberal surrender to a violent extremist group, it involves the Goracle, Global Warming hysteria, AND the United Nations, who/which the Nobel Prize Committee has surrendered to [Al Gore]... I wonder how much Gore actually makes as one of the founders of the Alliance for Climate Protection, considering it is a organization that he himself started, and serves as chairman of the board. Perhaps someone out there in Blogo Land knows how to get ahold of their money filings.

Power Line, funny as ever
How about some recognition for the scientists of Laputa discovered by Gulliver in the course of his travels? Is it too late to recognize them for their fine efforts to extract sunlight from cucumbers? (Thanks to reader Anthony Ragan for his contribution.)
I will conclude with an example that inadvertently stands as a symbol for all the righty reactionaries, from the (never) reality-based:
Michelle Malkin
While envirozealots celebrate the Goracle’s coronation, Jim Hoft notes that University of Illinois has just reported that ice cap growth in the Antarctic is at its highest level in recorded history.
There is a meme in the rightosphere that Al Gore's science is tragically flawed and that the entire global warming phenomenon is built upon a hoax--all of these blogs (and on to infinity) repeat the meme and carelessly record non-science. It is no surprise that these are the same folks who argue against science on a raft of GOP initiatives; yet where global warming is concerned, they become experts.

Well, if you follow Michelle Malkin's cherry-picked fact (suggestive, in its isolation, of her flat-earth view) you find a journal recording the catastrophic loss of arctic ice on the other pole. See if the "fact" Malkin selected supports her theory after all (emphasis mine):

Just when you thought this season's cryosphere couldn't be more strange .... The Southern Hemisphere sea ice area narrowly surpassed the previous historic maximum of 16.03 million sq. km to 16.17 million sq. km. The observed sea ice record in the Southern Hemisphere (1979-present) is not as long as the Northern Hemisphere. Prior to the satellite era, direct observations of the SH sea ice edge were sporadic.

The NH sea ice area reached an historic minimum on September 16, 2007 (2.92 million sq. km), representing a 27% drop in sea ice coverage compared to the previous (2005) record NH ice minimum.

(No.)

Al won the Nobel, righties are apoplectic in defeat, and I am enjoying the view.

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Update: Okay, this one's a little too amusing to leave out. The National Review is apparently not taking it very well. Via Kevin Drum:

Who Else Should Al Gore Share the Prize With? [Iain Murray]

How about that well known peace campaigner Osama Bin Laden, who implicitly endorsed Gore's stance — and that of the Nobel committee — in his September rant from the cave.

2 comments:

cwilcox said...

What I don't get is why the wing-nuts don't embrace all of this and the new markets it would create for their money above all religiosity. You would think they would buy into global warming and the whole being stewards of God's earth thing. I think the only reason they hate recognizing the reality of climate change is because Al Gore is talking about it. Too bad William F Buckly didn't produce "An Inconvenient Truth."

Jeff Alworth said...

Too their credit, a great many Christians are totally on board with global warming. And I think a lot of business types are starting to realize that, "whoa, wait a minute, there are a million new markets for carbon-neutral products!"

In the end, everyone's gonna be on board.