Friday, May 29, 2009

The Big Lie

One of the hallmarks of Nazi propaganda in the 1930's was The Big Lie. Unlike American politicians, whose lies are nearly believable because of the occasional snippet of truth inserted into their "spread" every so often, the Nazis went whole-hog to the extreme of telling whoppers so audacious that they were almost believable. Propagandists like those are a breed apart.

Guess what? They're B-A-A-A-A-A-A-C-K.

Climate change kills about 315,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, and the annual death toll is expected to rise to half a million by 2030, a report said on Friday.

The study, commissioned by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum (GHF), estimates that climate change seriously affects 325 million people every year, a number that will more than double in 20 years to 10 percent of the world's population (now about 6.7 billion).

Economic losses due to global warming amount to over $125 billion annually -- more than the flow of aid from rich to poor nations -- and are expected to rise to $340 billion each year by 2030, according to the report.

"Climate change is the greatest emerging humanitarian challenge of our time, causing suffering to hundreds of millions of people worldwide," Kofi Annan, former U.N. secretary-general and GHF president, said in a statement.
Holy crap! Where's my shovel?

This isn't just a pack of lies, or a well-packaged shipment of manure. This is 100% USDA Prime bullshit.

For starters, warming - if it were still ongoing - is a net benefit to mankind. Don't take my word for it, check out this excellent Vin Suprynowicz article. Suprynowicz (one of my favorite columnists; if you're not currently reading his blog, start!) cites several scientific studies that present evidence that warming is a net boon to mankind because it significantly decreases cold weather-related deaths (which, contrary to the official propaganda, outnumber heat-related deaths by about 7-to-1 in the US and 9-to-1 in Europe) and also makes for an extended growing season for crops.

Don't just take my word for it!
“The data from the Eurowinter Group (Lancet 1997) on mortality versus temperature can be used for a quantitative estimate of mortality benefits from warming,” DDP conclude. “This would lead to an estimated 25,000 to 50,000 fewer deaths in the U.S. per year for a 1 C temperature rise. This can be compared to 30,000 deaths per year from breast cancer, 30,000 for prostate cancer, or about 40,000 from motor vehicle accidents.”

Furthermore, “Heat deaths often represent “displacement” (i.e. weakened people die a few days or weeks before prior expectation), but deaths due to cold usually result in months to years of life lost,” the newsletter points out. “Thus the benefits in life expectancy from warming in cold periods may be much more than nine times greater than life span lost in warm periods.”

And that’s before we even look at the advantages of being able to grow food closer to the Arctic circle.
The Big Lie is alive and well. The press release I cited above is meant to excite the sheeple and to generate support for whatever kind of draconian wealth-transfer nonsense the political class chooses to foist upon us in order to "save the Earth".

We would do well to remember how things turned out the last time propaganda of this quality was in vogue.

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