Ann Coulter on Global Warming

[Judith]

This article reminded me of Ayn Rand for two reasons, neither of which had anything to do with writing style: (1) her way of seeing deep into the implications of other people's ideas, and (2) the obvious analogy to Rand's statement in "Atlas Shrugged": They don't want to live: they want you to die."

Judith

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LET THEM EAT TOFU!

February 28, 2007

Even right-wingers who know that "global warming" is a crock do not seem to grasp what the tree-huggers are demanding. Liberals want mass starvation and human devastation.

Forget the lunacy of people claiming to tell us the precise temperature of planet Earth in 1918 based on tree rings. Or the fact that in the '70s liberals were issuing similarly dire warnings about "global cooling."

Simply consider what noted climatologists Al Gore and Melissa Etheridge are demanding that we do to combat their nutty conjectures about "global warming." They want us to starve the productive sector of fossil fuel and allow the world's factories to grind to a halt. This means an end to material growth and a cataclysmic reduction in wealth.

There are more reputable scientists defending astrology than defending "global warming," but liberals simply announce that the debate has been resolved in their favor and demand that we shut down all production.

They think they can live in a world of only Malibu and East Hampton — with no Trentons or Detroits. It does not occur to them that someone has to manufacture the tiles and steel and glass and solar panels that go into those "eco-friendly" mansions, and someone has to truck it all to their beachfront properties, and someone else has to transport all the workers there to build it. (And then someone has to drive the fleets of trucks delivering the pachysandra and bottled water every day.)

Liberals are already comfortably ensconced in their beachfront estates, which they expect to be unaffected by their negative growth prescriptions for the rest of us.

There was more energy consumed in the manufacture, construction and maintenance of Leonardo DiCaprio's Malibu home than is needed to light the entire city of Albuquerque, where there are surely several men who can actually act. But he has solar panels to warm his house six degrees on chilly Malibu nights.

Liberals haven't the foggiest idea how the industrial world works. They act as if America could reduce its vast energy consumption by using fluorescent bulbs and driving hybrid cars rather than SUVs. They have no idea how light miraculously appears when they flick a switch or what allows them to go to the bathroom indoors in winter — luxuries Americans are not likely to abandon because Leo DiCaprio had solar panels trucked into his Malibu estate.

Our lives depend on fossil fuel. Steel plants, chemical plants, rubber plants, pharmaceutical plants, glass plants, paper plants –- those run on energy. There are no Mother Earth nursery designs in stylish organic cotton without gas-belching factories, ships and trucks, and temperature-controlled, well-lighted stores. Windmills can't even produce enough energy to manufacture a windmill.

Because of the industrialization of agriculture –- using massive amounts of fossil fuel — only 2 percent of Americans work in farming. And yet they produce enough food to feed all 300 million Americans, with plenty left over for export. When are liberals going to break the news to their friends in Darfur that they all have to starve to death to save the planet?

"Global warming" is the left's pagan rage against mankind. If we can't produce industrial waste, then we can't produce. Some of us — not the ones with mansions in Malibu and Nashville is my guess — are going to have to die. To say we need to reduce our energy consumption is like saying we need to reduce our oxygen consumption.

Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. Stalin wanted to eliminate the kulaks and Ukranians, vegetarian atheist Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks, DDT opponent Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans (introduction to her book "Silent Spring" written by ... Al Gore!), and population-control guru Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans.

But global warming is the most insane, psychotic idea liberals have ever concocted to kill off "useless eaters." If we have to live in a pure "natural" environment like the Indians, then our entire transcontinental nation can only support about 1 million human beings. Sorry, fellas — 299 million of you are going to have to go.

Proving that the "global warming" campaign is nothing but hatred of humanity, these are the exact same people who destroyed the nuclear power industry in this country 30 years ago.

If we accept for purposes of argument their claim that the only way the human race can survive is with clean energy that doesn't emit carbon dioxide, environmentalists waited until they had safely destroyed the nuclear power industry to tell us that. This proves they never intended for us to survive.

"Global warming" is the liberal's stalking horse for their ultimate fantasy: The whole U.S. will look like Amagansett, with no one living in it except their even-tempered maids (for "diversity"), themselves and their coterie (all, presumably, living in solar-heated mansions, except the maids who will do without electricity altogether). The entire fuel-guzzling, tacky, beer-drinking, NASCAR-watching middle class with their over-large families will simply have to die.

It seems not to have occurred to the jet set that when California is as poor as Mexico, they might have trouble finding a maid. Without trucking, packaging, manufacturing, shipping and refrigeration in their Bel-Air fantasy world, they'll be chasing the rear-end of an animal every time their stomachs growl and killing small animals for pelts to keep their genitals warm.

COPYRIGHT 2007 ANN COULTER

DISTRIBUTED BY UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

4520 Main Street, Kansas City, MO 64111

http://www.anncoulter.com/cgi-local/welcome.cgi

[Chris Grieb]

Judith; Thanks for the article. The problem for me is Ann Coulter. She's very often but she has come to get people to stop thinking when she is talking. I and my whole non-Objectivist family love her but she is almost as big a turnoff to many as George H. Bush.

[Dragonfly]

Before anyone thinks Coulter is a rational person: see for example here, here or here. She's a raving lunatic.

[John Dailey]

~ I always read Coulter's on-line stuff come Thursday. She's hilarious. Yes, she's the Queen-of-smears in the Conservatives-always-Angels/Liberals-always-Demons category, and draws some distinctions 'twixt Conservatives and Republicans whilst never any 'twixt Liberals and Democrats. Re the latter two, she's more the Queen-of-Hearts (you know: "Alice...") O-t-other-h, who on the left doesn't evaluate the right the same way? She's just louder and more articulate (if not accurate) than the NYT.

~ I'd love to see her and Al Franken (or Jean Garofolo) on a panel; it'd probably be the best reality-TV ever done (certainly better than O'Reilly and Al)! Maybe even better than Don Rickles and Joan Rivers.--- Sigh; probably nevah happen.

LLAP

J:D

Edited March 2, 2007 by John Dailey

[Ellen Stuttle]

It would probably be better for the cause of getting truth about global-warming issues heard if Ann Coulter were on the other side. She is almost an automatic signal to many amongst the intelligentsia that whatever she's yammering about, she's wrong.

Ellen

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[Brant Gaede]

It would probably be better for the cause of getting truth about global-warming issues heard if Ann Coulter were on the other side. She is almost an automatic signal to many amongst the intelligentsia that whatever she's yammering about, she's wrong.

Ellen___

Best if she'd keep her mouth shut. Period.

--Brant

[Barbara Branden]

Brant: "Best if she'd keep her mouth shut."

On many issues, yes. But this is a brilliant article, and she points out things no one else does, that need saying. When she's good, she's very good indeed.

Barbara

[Ellen Stuttle]

Brant: "Best if she'd keep her mouth shut."

On many issues, yes. But this is a brilliant article, and she points out things no one else does, that need saying. When she's good, she's very good indeed.

Barbara

Barbara,

The problem is that having her say it just about ensures that it won't be taken seriously by exactly the people it would be really helpful to get something of the point she's making through to. The argument becomes tainted by her using it. Sure, it isn't "rational" to discredit an argument because of who is making the argument. But it's a fact of reality that this sort of thing happens all the time. And this global warming thing is becoming so dangerous. It's so important trying to reach scientific people who can understand the science if they can be gotten to listen. Having someone like Ann Coulter mouthing off diminishes the chances of their hearing, I'm afraid.

Ellen

PS: I'm talking on the basis of experience with how people in the scientific community are processing. I hear about what's happening almost every day, since Larry is up to above his eyebrows involved in trying to get good science on the subject heard. This is the sort of thing which will happen: Say he tries to point out the disastrous results for quality of existence if energy bans were put into effect, he's likely to be responded to with, "You're sounding like Ann Coulter," and they're likely to start tuning him out. You know the saying: With "friends" like that....

___

Edited March 2, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Chris Grieb]

Ellen; Thanks for making the point I was trying to make in my post. Ann Coulter is a turnoff for many people and some of them we should be trying to reach. Ellen; Thanks for the examples of fellow scientists your husband talks too.

[Dragonfly]

The problem is that having her say it just about ensures that it won't be taken seriously by exactly the people it would be really helpful to get something of the point she's making through to. The argument becomes tainted by her using it. Sure, it isn't "rational" to discredit an argument because of who is making the argument. But it's a fact of reality that this sort of thing happens all the time. And this global warming thing is becoming so dangerous. It's so important trying to reach scientific people who can understand the science if they can be gotten to listen. Having someone like Ann Coulter mouthing off diminishes the chances of their hearing, I'm afraid.

She is a goddamn creationist for chrissake! How can you expect that any rational person will take her opinions on any scientific matters seriously? How credible are her statements about global warming when she dismisses evolution for religion? We shouldn't touch this woman with a 10 km pole, even when this blind hog may find an acorn now and then. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend!

[Danneskjold]

Dragonfly,

She wasn't talking about (natural) science. Might be why she's right.

[Dragonfly]

She wasn't talking about (natural) science. Might be why she's right.

Even a blind hog...

The point is that you should shun anyone telling us what's wrong about global warming issues if that same person is denouncing evolution as unscientific, Darwin as a kind of devil and promoting creationism as a science. To associate with such people is to reduce your credibility with people who might be open to a rational argument to the absolute zero. You have been warned.

[Matus1976]

Even though I dislike Ann Coulter I have to acknowledge this is an excellent article

[Dragonfly]

Here is Coulter talking about biology (from this site) :

Their grandiose self-conceptions to the contrary, the cult [the "evolution cult"] members are rarely scientists at all.

and

They're almost always biologists—the "science" with the greatest preponderance of women. The distaff MIT "scientist" who fled the room in response to Larry Summers's remarks was, of course, a biologist. While I'm sure there have been groundbreaking discoveries about the internal digestive system of the earthworm, biologists are barely even scientists anymore. They're classifiers, list-makers, like librarians with their Dewey decimal system. Except librarians don't claim the Dewey decimal system holds the Rosetta Stone to the universe. There were once great biologists, but the morally vacuous ones began to promote their own at the universities. It was sort of intelligently designed devolution. Like Marxists gradually dominating the comp lit department, biologists will only be given tenure today if they foreswear any doubts about the evolution pseudoscience. Consequently, "biologist" almost always means "evolutionary biologist," which is something like an "ESP biologist."

Well, if that is supposed to be your ally in the battle against pseudoscience...

[Ellen Stuttle]

How credible are her statements about global warming when she dismisses evolution for religion? We shouldn't touch this woman with a 10 km pole, even when this blind hog may find an acorn now and then. The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend!

Yeah. It's bad enough already trying to keep scientists who aren't specialists in the field listening on the subject and to argue past such replies when John Christy's or Dick Lindzen's name comes up as, "Christy was a missionary in Africa; Lindzen is in the pay of the oil companies." (Christy indeed was a missionary in Africa. Lindzen has never gotten a cent from any oil company, but a prominent person mistakenly said he had in a book about environment and counteracting the mistake is difficult.) Thus my reaction when I read the Ann Coulter article was OH, DAMN!! Things aren't difficult enough without her chirping up? She is such a total laughing stock -- deservedly -- among scientists. Echoing Dragonfly, Be warned if you're going to attempt using her article as a help in arguing the case. The result will likely be a boomerang one to the discredit of not the assistance of the points you're trying to make.

Ellen

Edited to correct the spelling of John Christy's last name. I'm always forgetting whether his last name is or isn't spelled like Agatha's.

___

Edited March 4, 2007 by Ellen Stuttle

[Brant Gaede]

Brant: "Best if she'd keep her mouth shut."

On many issues, yes. But this is a brilliant article, and she points out things no one else does, that need saying. When she's good, she's very good indeed.

Barbara

Can't agree with you on this. She discredits all her arguments, even the good ones. She thus discredits the qualified opposition who get conveniently lumped with her. Man caused global warming is a pillar of the green religion, even more so than recycling. She gives its adherents reason to say, to the contrary, that what she represents is religion, which it basically is. Paul Krugman now gets to say the debate is over, which he has, except, of course, for the freaks and nutcases, which is a Big Fat Lie.

--Brant

[Mikee]

Is this one of those instances where the stopped clock is right twice a day?

[Mike Hardy]

On Ann Coulter:

The problem is that having her say it just about ensures that it won't be taken seriously by exactly the people it would be really helpful to get something of the point she's making through to. The argument becomes tainted by her using it.

Sometimes I've wondered if Ann Coulter is putting on an act---parodying those

she claims to agree with to make them look ridiculous.

Here's an odd thing: The first time I saw Ann Coulter on TV---and all subseqent

times---I was struck by the fact that her in physical appearance, her voice, her

vocal mannerisms, she was a dead ringer for a woman I know who has a PhD

in statistics and I think considers herself a liberal. Is Ann Coulter her evil twin? -- Mike Hardy

[Judith]

On many issues, yes. But this is a brilliant article, and she points out things no one else does, that need saying. When she's good, she's very good indeed.

I agree with Barbara, which is why I posted the article. Ann gets a wide audience, and this time she said something worth hearing.

There are a number of pundits out there whose stuff I similarly find a mixed bag; some of it is junk, some of it is so-so, and occasionally I find something they write really worthwhile; in the latter cases, I pass it on.

Wow; I never expected such a reaction to my posting of this piece!

Judith

[Chris Grieb]

Judith; No good deed goes unpunished. I was watching CPAC and at the end of one talk they announced Ann Coulter was to be the next speaker. The reaction was hugely favorable.

[Barbara Branden]

It's true that msny people care more about who said something than whether or not the "something" is true. But so what? I'm not nominating Anne Coulter for sainthood, and her views on religion are downright embarrassing -- but that shouldn't stop us from recognizing an intelligent and valuable argument when we see it. There are people who won't name Rand as the source of some of their ideas because many people won't take them seriously if they do. That doesn't mean they shouldn't give credit where it is deserved. I'd have no hesitation in sending this article to friends; I'd say, of course, that I very often passionately disagree with the writer, but in this case she's worth reading.

Barbara

[Michael Russell]

Ann loses me right about here:

Liberals have always had a thing about eliminating humans. Stalin wanted to eliminate the kulaks and Ukranians, vegetarian atheist Adolf Hitler wanted to eliminate the Jews, Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger wanted to eliminate poor blacks, DDT opponent Rachel Carson wanted to eliminate Africans (introduction to her book "Silent Spring" written by ... Al Gore!), and population-control guru Paul Ehrlich wants to eliminate all humans.

I'm sorry; comparing liberals to Stalin and Hitler is patently absurd. Ann Coulter, LaRoucheite.

[Ellen Stuttle]

It's true that msny people care more about who said something than whether or not the "something" is true. But so what? I'm not nominating Anne Coulter for sainthood, and her views on religion are downright embarrassing -- but that shouldn't stop us from recognizing an intelligent and valuable argument when we see it. There are people who won't name Rand as the source of some of their ideas because many people won't take them seriously if they do. That doesn't mean they shouldn't give credit where it is deserved. I'd have no hesitation in sending this article to friends; I'd say, of course, that I very often passionately disagree with the writer, but in this case she's worth reading.

Barbara,

I have to disagree even that it's "an intelligent and valuable argument." The one point she makes which is important to try to make is that if the energy restrictions desired by the AGW (anthropogenic global-warming) proponents are instituted, this would mean severe consequences for the quality of living of multitudes, and literal death for many -- the exact consequences and figures are speculative, but they'd certainly be draconian. However, she goes so far over the top in her demonizing of liberals, she loses credibility even on the nugget of truth in what she's saying. And I think "embarrassing" isn't the word for what her views on evolution make her look like in scientific circles. There's no way I'd even bring up that article, let alone recommend it as "worth reading," to any of the scientific types I know. And the problem it presents from Larry's standpoint is that the scientists he's trying to persuade to look more carefully at the scientific issues pertaining to AGW are only too likely to hear of the article (not from him) and to bring it up in just the vein Brant described, as indicating that only "the freaks and nutcases" are taking the anti-AGW side.

Ellen

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[reason.on]

Ellen,

Since you've mentioned that Larry is studying the scientific literature surrounding AGW, I'm curious to know if he finds value in the prominent alternative theories like that of of Roy Spencer, who claims that the majority of (if not all) current models used for predicting "global warming", are completely devoid of any physics which describe the effect of precipitation systems (or clouds) on the overall temperature of the earth. Obviously, he believes the cooling effect of these systems is substantial...and that AGW is an unsubstantiated hypothesis.

Other non-AGW theories I've encountered include solar activity as another missing or at least poorly understood factor in the overall temperature of the earth.

Also, just to add a bit of weight, in general, to the skeptical point of view, I think it is important to remember that all predictions of catastrophic global warming are based upon predictive climate models...a basic point to remember in the debate is that any conclusion drawn is only as good as the model, and the model is only as good as it reasonably represents all of the relevant factors in determining the nature and subsequent behavior of the given dynamic system...in other words, how well it represents reality, which should determine its predictive abilities.

http://ff.org/centers/csspp/pdf/20070201_monckton.pdf

Computer models heavily relied on by the UN did not predict the considerable cooling of the oceans that has occurred since 2003 – a cooling which demonstrates that neither the frequency nor the intensity of the hurricanes in the year of Katrina was attributable to “global warming”.

The UN’s models also failed to predict the halt to the rise in methane concentrations in the air that began in 2001. And they did not predict the timing or size of the El Nino which hiked temperature in 1998. Without it, the satellite record shows little or no greenhouse warming. Landbased temperature records may accordingly overstate the problem.

Likewise the UN’s models have recently been found to have over-projected the observed rise in sea temperatures, which has had to be corrected downward to allow for over-reading by incorrectly-calibrated instrumentation.

The UN’s draft Summary for Policymakers contains no apology for the defective and discredited “hockey-stick” graph that erroneously abolished the warm climate of the Middle Ages, arousing in some minds the suspicion that the intellectual honesty of the IPCC process is deficient.

Ambiguities in the report, and considerable discrepancies between it and its predecessor, show that there is no scientific consensus on many points for which consensus is often claimed. Overall, however, the report is drafted so as to allow environmental extremists to cite its high-end projections as evidence of the need for urgent action.

RCR

Edited March 3, 2007 by R. Christian Ross

[Judith]

There's no way I'd even bring up that article, let alone recommend it as "worth reading," to any of the scientific types I know. And the problem it presents from Larry's standpoint is that the scientists he's trying to persuade to look more carefully at the scientific issues pertaining to AGW are only too likely to hear of the article (not from him) and to bring it up in just the vein Brant described, as indicating that only "the freaks and nutcases" are taking the anti-AGW side.

One has to use one's ammunition selectively. I'd never mention that article in a debate with a scientist or a liberal. But I would definitely mention it to an admirer of Coulter, who might want to use the arguments in it in debate with people he/she knows for further argument. And I'd definitely mention it to an admirer of Coulter who was on the fence about global warming.

Judith