MEMO: To Washington Post, circa 2008
FROM: Future Historians of America (FHA), circa [you wouldn't believe us if we told you]
RE: Historical Fact Checking

VIA: T-mail (Tachyon-Mail)

As we attempt to document the reasons carbon dioxide concentrations are currently 945 ppm and rising 5 ppm a year, the FHA has a few questions we hope you can answer for us. It seems like every time the United States contemplated legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you and other major media outlets allowed your — we believe you called them conservative columnists, but we call them Delayer-1000s — to ridicule any serious action using claims that would never have passed a ninth grade science teacher with access to Google.

[There is some controversy today at the FHA as to whether major media outlets of your time actually had access to Google, given the stream of disinformation you kept printing. Can you clear that up for us?]

Your most famous Delayer-1000s, are, of course, Charles Krauthammer and George Will. Please let them know they were among the original inductees enshrined in the “Climate Destroyers Hall of Fame” in 2045. We were especially amused that you printed Krauthammer’s claim that Newton’s laws of motion were overthrown, since we used those laws to launch a photocopy of all his columns into the sun in commemoration of his tireless contributions to raising average temperatures in the inland United States 15°F while claiming the warming was all due to sunspots. Do let Dr. Krauthammer know that thanks to people like him, we are not only rationing energy, but food, water, arable land, and dartboards featuring his face.

Of course, Dr. Krauthammer is hardly remembered today compared to Delayer-1000 George Will, perhaps because Will is now seen as an unappreciated humorist of your time. We know many readers of your time actually took his favorable review of Michael Crichton’s State of Fear seriously, but many in the FHA have concluded your newspaper never would have let somebody that uninformed publish regular serious columns. If you have information to the contrary, please let us know. You might consider having “categories” for columns that include “humor,” as we understand that was popular with certain of your time’s … we believe you called them climate bloggers, but we call them Cassandras.

In a June 1, 2008 column your website titled, “Keep your hands off my Carbon” [you guys kill us with your ironic headlines -- no literally, you kill us, as the carrying capacity of the planet is now down to 4 billion], Will began

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Part 1 discussed the odd anti-science part of Krauthammer’s screed, “Carbon Chastity: The First Commandment of the Church of the Environment.” I ended by asking, Why does he break faith with so many conservatives and worship at the altar of evolution science, but stick with them on climate denial? My book discusses this general question at length, and offers the answer:

The answer is that ideology trumps rationality. Most conservatives cannot abide the solution to global warming-strong government regulations and a government-led effort to accelerate clean energy technologies into the market. According to the late Jude Wanniski, Elizabeth Kolbert’s New Yorker articles [on global warming], did nothing more “than write a long editorial on behalf of government intervention to stamp out carbon dioxide.” His villain is not global warming, but is the threat to Americans from government itself.

George Will’s review of Michael Crichton’s State of Fear says: “Crichton’s subject is today’s fear that global warming will cause catastrophic climate change, a belief now so conventional that it seems to require no supporting data…. Various factions have interests-monetary, political, even emotional-in cultivating fears. The fears invariably seem to require more government subservience to environmentalists and more government supervision of our lives.”

[Note: Will also believes in evolution -- he actually called it "a fact." For a debunking (with links) of Crichton's laughable collection of disinformation, see "Global Warming, Tsunamis, and Michael Crichton's Big Blunder."]

As the NYT‘s Andy Revkin explained about the recent skeptic denier delayer conference in New York, “The one thing all the attendees seem to share is a deep dislike for mandatory restrictions on greenhouse gases.” What unites these people is their desire to delay or stop action to cut GHGs, not any one particular view on the climate.

It is nearly impossible to win an argument with a conservative or libertarian who hates government-led action. Yes, you can try to point out all the great things the government has done (the Internet, anyone?) and try to point out that they invariably support government-led action for military security, and, of course, government subsidies and regulations to promote energy security, at least as it applies to oil industry and nuclear energy pork.

I have a different argument — if you hate government intrusion into people’s lives, you’d better stop catastrophic global warming, because nothing drives a country more towards activist government than scarcity and deprivation. Interestingly, Krauthammer understand this point abstractly, but since he has no understanding of climate science, indeed he has no interest in learning about the subject at all, he gets the argument exactly backwards.

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