Now you see it….
Published March 21, 2014
Editorial by Greensboro News-Record, March 20, 2014.
Once described as a “fierce urgency” and a major priority, the subject of climate change is slowly disappearing from state environmental agency websites.
Now you see them, now you don’t, scrubbed away. Forever. Without a trace.
As WRAL.com has reported, the Division of Air Quality website once prominently displayed climate change information on its front page as recently as two months ago. Today it features none.
That division’s parent agency, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, began deleting climate change references even earlier, in 2013. Once a key component of the agency’s strategic plan, climate change does not even merit “Important Issues” status on the today’s DENR website.
We probably should have seen this coming. From day one, DENR’s secretary, John Skvarla, has approached climate change with tactful skepticism.
“I think climate change is a science and I think science is constantly in need of scrutiny,” Skvarla said in a 2013 interview with WRAL. Skvarla added that there is still “a great divergence of opinion on the science of climate” that needs more dialogue.
But how does erasing any evidence of that school of thought, which is widely accepted in the international scientific community, promote the interest of “more dialogue”?
A spokesman explained this week to the News & Record’s Susan Ladd that climate change is no longer a focus of DENR. But it seems odd that a state environmental agency, of all entities, would disavow its very existence. And it appears neither rational nor scientific to think you can wish something away by simply pretending it’s not there.
Even accounting for the staunch resistance and even outright hostility toward climate change science among many state Republicans, who control both houses of the General Assembly, as well as the governor’s mansion, this is a shortsighted way to govern.
In 2013, Skvarla wasn’t so shy in notifying DENR employees of an opportunity to hear a climate-change science opponent speak in Raleigh. “Secretary Skvarla asked that I pass this along to you for your consideration as an ‘optional’ event,” read an email to DENR division heads from his executive secretary.
That speaker, John Droz, is a wind-power opponent and global-warming skeptic who cited in his presentation such sources as Whistleblower magazine, which is affiliated with WorldNetDaily, a website that challenges President Obama’s citizenship, and the Institute for Creation Research, which rejects the theory of evolution.
So far as we know, no such invitations (“optional” or otherwise) to talks by climate change science proponents have been emailed by Skvarla or his secretary (for the sake of “dialogue”).
Add to this trend the move by state lawmakers in 2012 to ignore predicted sea-level increases, which was just plain dumb, and you have to wonder. And worry.
That sea-level business, you may recall, involved a law that forbids using scientific research to project rising ocean levels. Only historic data could apply.
Comedian Stephen Colbert couldn’t resist.
“If your science gives you a result you don’t like,” he quipped, “pass a law saying the result is illegal. Problem solved.”
Or simply make it go away (presto change-o!) with the “delete” key.
March 21, 2014 at 10:32 am
Norm Kelly says:
Of course, the flip side of climate change theory has also proven to be true. When the science doesn't support your idea that climate change is real and man-made, simply ignore the science and claim it's true anyway.
Science is NOT a consensus business. At least it wasn't until libs caught onto 'climate change'. I'm old enough to remember when 'climate change' was predicting the next ice age was around the corner. After that didn't happen, 'climate change' became global warming. When that proved false also, which it has, then it became 'climate change'.
There are enough global warming nuts out there shouting about it for everyone and anyone to know about it. Every 'news' organization covers global warming and carries every story about it. Every school kid in the country is being indoctrinated into global warming. Algore is practically a saint for 'news' people and too many educators. So when DENR doesn't have special invitation presentations for global warming proponents, it's probably because it's not necessary. The only people who don't know about Algore and his kind actually do live in caves, and even those in caves in Afghanistan have probably heard about global warming. The opposite can't be said about opponents to this theory. And it is truly only a theory still.
How much money should government agencies be spending on global warming when it's still unproven? How much money should be taken out of MY wallet by government agencies to support this theory? How much should government force businesses costs to go up that are simply passed on to me, stealing even more money from my wallet, to support this theory? How much effect on global warming theory would a single state like NC have on the entire globe anyway? If NC chooses not to participate in this fiasco, chooses instead to spend money where it's worthwhile, how much worse will global warming be? How much affect does Tennessee Valley Authority have on western NC versus the affect of our state passing some new regulation on cow flatulence?
Some things probably make sense outside of the discussion about global warming theory. Like should coal plants be allowed to simply dump coal ash into huge ponds located next to ground water sources? Is there something better that can be done with coal ash? Like should hog farms be allowed to simply create huge ponds of waste? Is there a better way to handle hog waste? Perhaps, since our state actually does make money off both electric generation as well as hog farming, the state could spend some of the people's money on aiding businesses in finding alternatives.
But for the state to waste money on a tea cup museum or global warming theory is foolish, wasteful, pointless, time consuming, multiple other adjectives apply. Both the tea cup museum and global warming theory fall into the same bucket of 'wasteful spending' of other people's money. Some of it MY money that I can definitely spend better than this! And if global warming nuts get their way, like Obama, my costs will go up so I'll need that money in MY wallet to pay for them causing the price of EVERYTHING to go up!
March 21, 2014 at 12:12 pm
TP Wohlford says:
Another stupid attempt to lie about the truth.
The truth? That "climate change" has always been with us. That there is no "catastrophic" climate change happening. That the sea shore used to be miles east at one time, and at the sandhills in another era, and it constantly changes.
The truth is that 100 cm of sea level rise was a naked power and money grab of costal areas, and the people who lived there saw it for what it is. This is over 3x the historical rate of increase, and had NO basis in any scientific fact, and certainly is NOT supported even by the IPCC (the "Bible" of the global warming crowd).
For the record, "Global warming" stalled out around 1998, with temps either stagnant or declining since then (HadCRUT et al).
