Rosen: Warming 'watermelons'

Published July 7, 2006 at midnight

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'If all the green things that grow were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all the four-legged creatures were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all the winged creatures were taken from the Earth, there could be no life. If all our relatives who crawl and swim and live within the Earth were taken away, there could be no life. But if all the human beings were taken away, life on Earth would flourish."

- G.W. Eastman, in a March 29, 2006, letter to the editor in The Orlando Sentinel

That's a telling insight to the radical environmentalist mentality that regards humankind as a cancer on the Earth. These are ramblings of an abstract Earth worshipper. Call me human-centric if you like, but in the final analysis, the only reason to preserve the balance of nature is to sustain human life. In the absence of humans, what would it matter if the Earth existed?

Global warming hysteria is a convenient vehicle for the radical enviro political agenda which regards conventional energy use and economic growth as inherently "bad," along with their byproducts: cars, SUVs, suburban "sprawl," materialism in general, and its enabler, capitalism.

Leftists who have had limited success promoting utopian communism as their preferred form of political economy have seized on environmentalism as a means to achieve many of the same ends. Of course, that's not to label all environmentalists as stealthy communists but, to use David Horowitz's metaphor, within their midst are "watermelons," Reds who have become Greens: green on the outside, red on the inside. They substitute ecological arguments for ideological ones designed to regulate human behavior toward the same end. Hence, we must simplify our lives and return to nature. If that's the goal, then an exaggerated crisis, like global warming, is better than no crisis at all.

Environmental alarmism has been in vogue for decades even among supposedly objective scientists who can exploit the latest crisis to obtain government research grants. We had the cranberry scare of 1959, red dye No. 2 in 1976, Tris in 1977, Love Canal in 1978, Times Beach in 1982, Alar in apples in 1989; benzene in Perrier in 1990, and cellular phones and cancer in 1993, to name a few. When the little boy cries wolf too often, it breeds skepticism.

Stephen Schneider, an atmospheric scientist at Stanford and a darling of the liberal media on global warming, may have been too candid in a Discover Magazine interview in 1989. Addressing the need for concerned scientists like himself to "capture the public's imagination," Schneider said, "That, of course, entails getting loads of media coverage. So we have to offer up scary scenarios, make simplified, dramatic statements, and make little mention of any doubts we might have. This 'double ethical bind' we frequently find ourselves in cannot be solved by any formula. Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective and being honest. I hope that means being both."

Schneider's noble "hope" notwithstanding, too many "political" scientists have fallen short of his ideal of the right balance and sacrificed honesty for "effectiveness." Not surprisingly, activist journalists are even more flagrant in their bias:

"I think the environment may be the one area where you can say advocacy journalism is appropriate, indeed vital . . . Now does seem to be the time for rethinking some of our journalistic canons. The 'balanced' report, in some cases may no longer be the most effective, or even the most informative. Indeed, it can be debilitating. Can we afford to wait for our audience to come to its conclusions? I think not." - Teya Ryan, senior producer of Turner Broadcasting System's CNN-produced Network Earth series and vice president of the Society of Environmental Journalists, in the Summer 1990 Gannett Center Journal.

Ryan's arrogant point is that the audience can't be trusted to reach its own conclusions on environmental issues but should, instead, be manipulated to reach her conclusions, because hers are indisputable.

And here's another gatekeeper of the public's right to know:

"I guess I switched from being an objective journalist, in quotes, to an advocate . . . in July 1980, when the Carter administration released a report called the Global 2000 Report to the President . . . I feel that I'm here on this planet to work in television, to be a little subversive person in television. I've chosen television as my form of activism." - Barbara Pyle, TBS vice president of environmental policy speaking at an Utne Reader symposium in May 1990.

Perhaps that explains why dissent from respected scientific experts is largely ignored by the liberal media. The science is most definitely not settled and the debate over global warming will continue - as well it should.

Mike Rosen's radio show airs daily from 9 a.m. to noon on 850 KOA. He can be reached by e-mail at mikerosen@850koa.com.

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