http://www.humanevents.com/
11/21/2008
What admirable timing for the release of Christopher Horner’s latest book, Red Hot Lies. In this hefty -- 406 pages -- meticulously researched (65 pages of notes and references) volume, Horner argues his case against global warming and its supporters passionately, angrily and, yes, most persuasively. The subtitle lays out neatly and utterly accurately what readers are in for: “How Global Warming Alarmists Use Threats, Fraud, and Deception to Keep You Misinformed.”
Actually, it is in the very last pages of this book that the author spells out the reason he chose to produce this particular work at this particular time in history:“And as I discovered writing this book, a school denying me access to its broadcast facilities [details of the incident are given earlier at length] was child’s play compared to the depths to which so many now willingly sink, including calls for imprisonment, violence and even death for the supposed ‘crime' -- though, in fact, heresy -- of refusing to accept a dogma that stands on the weakest of premises.
“These changing norms of behavior we are witnessing are in the cause of an ideological and political agenda threatening great cost to our individual and economic liberties. That doesn’t seem to matter. It is clear that dissent can no longer be tolerated, and no one is above using their position -- be it academic, governmental, political or otherwise -- to stifle thought that frightens them or threatens to upset the gravy train.”
It is with his ultimate paragraph that Horner brings forth forcefully why he has written this book, timing its publication to coincide with the expected election of Barack Obama to the presidency. “As the United States prepares to elect a President vocally in thrall to the global alarmist agenda, the question confronting us is what we are willing to do, in response, to fight back.” In short, he has written a forthright call to action against the global warming zealots of the earth and above all, those of the United States.
Written soberly, thoughtfully, yet even with an occasional appealing dash of wit, Mr. Horner’s book nonetheless will send a serious chill down most readers’ spines unless they are extremely well versed in the issues of global warming. By this, I am not referring to those issues that former Vice President Al Gore has been hyping so diligently for quite some years, thereby earning himself a Nobel Prize along with an Academy Award in the process.
To telling effect, Horner shows what he sees fundamentally as the very real threat that global warming offers the world by quoting what Czech President Vaclav Klaus remarked so succinctly at a conference in Italy in September 2007 on “Global Warming Hysteria or Freedom and Prosperity?”
“The threat I have in mind is the irrationality with which the world has accepted the climate change (or global warming) as a real danger to the future of mankind and the irrationality of suggested and partly already implemented measures because they will fatally endanger our freedom and prosperity, the two goals we consider -- I do believe -- our priorities.
“We have to face many prejudices and misunderstandings in this respect. The climate-change debate is basically not about science; it is about ideology. It is not about global temperature; it is about the concept of human society. It is not about nature or scientific ecology; it is about environmentalism, about one -- recently born -- dirigistic and collectivistic ideology, which goes against freedom and free markets. I spent most of my life in a Communistic society which makes me particularly sensitive to the dangers, traps and pitfalls connected with it.”
If Horner has been admirably prescient in his concern about the potential risks to our country from a President “in thrall to a global warming agenda,” consider for a moment that this book of his went to press just as an economic crisis was suddenly sweeping around the globe and what the impact this will assuredly have upon the climate alarmists and their ilk.
Time and again throughout his book, Horner details the errors and even frauds committed in the name of global warming, reproducing charts and even photographs that are certainly revealing even to those not passionate about scientific minutiae.
By a singular coincidence reported in the London Daily Telegraph of November 16 and described therein as truly a “surreal scientific blunder,” Dr. James Hansen, Al Gore’s chief scientific ally and much and seemingly justly criticized by Horner, had gone on record that last month was the hottest October ever recorded.
But what do you know? The reason for freak figures from around the globe based on Dr. Hansen’s readings were not based on October readings at all, but were figures from the previous month that had simply been carried over and repeated two months running. Dr. Hansen and his institute had to scramble desperately to revise their figures.
Horner could hardly have wished for such on-the-mark public support timed with the publication of his Red Hot Lies. The data in his book are difficult if not impossible to refute, and certainly give a reader bountiful material to win many an argument with greens and global alarmists. Definitely a book for our times, now, as we head into the Barack presidency, more than ever.
As Horner devotes considerable space and detail in his book to detailing the many errors and shortcomings of Hansen and Gore in regard to global-warming statistics, you can imagine Horner is already busily documenting this latest scientific blunder in press releases to coincide with the arrival of his work in bookstores.
- Cynthia Grenier, and international film and theatre critic, is the former "Life" editor of the Washington Times and acted as senior editor at The World & I, a national monthly magazine, for six years
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