Rob Schofield, ever one to drop hyperbole bombs on fact and rational argument, doesn’t get through the first paragraph of this "reality check" before offering us names David Duke and John Birch. Not surprising from the camp that accuses reasonable anthropogenic climate skeptics of being "holocaust deniers" and "flat earthers." (The level of groupthink has reached a fever pitch, and the complicit media are marching in lockstep. It’s the "if it’s on NPR, it must be true" level of reflection.) Here’s a slice of Schofield’s vacuity:
Lately, as the evidence has mounted [has it?], the right has favored the “nothing we can do” [without dismantling civilization] argument: “Well, global warming may be taking place and humans may be playing a role, but it’s not really that big of a deal and, anyway, there’s nothing we can do about it.” Mix in a little of the “nothing we can do” [four Nobel Laureate economists and many more agree] take with the “environmentalist conspiracy” [watermelon groupthink] argument (as in, “the whole global warming thing has been trumped up my meddling tree huggers who just want us to abandon modern capitalism and move back to the stone age”), and you’ve got a pretty good idea of the Locke line in 2007.
At the heart of all of this nonsense, of course, is the right’s messianic [if you call understanding economics messianic] obsession with the genius of “the market” – their notion that when society does anything intentionally or collectively [read: coorcively or bureaucratically] to control the unfettered pursuit and possession of “property,” [or time, or services, or family fun, or philanthropy] it is somehow altering the divinely ordained [no] rules of the universe [yes, laws of organization complex systems].
We can only awe at Schofield’s firm grasp on economics and climatology. He drafts his most recent diatribe with all the verve of a college freshmen who’s just joined Earth Club. It’s no secret that the left’s only instruments of persuasion are smart-assedness and fear-fongering. Schofield, heavy on the former, polishes it off with a little hyperbole and a lot of guilt-by-association allusions verging on the absurd. For those unreflective greenie hoards to whom Schofield provides fodder, real "public policy" would fry their neural circuitry. But if Schofield ever decides to think critically about the issue, there are some places he can go.
-Max Borders
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