Global Warming, plus the Academy Awards' Worst Acting

I have a feeling that global warming advocacy - "the world is gonna end soon unless we do something now" - is going to become like all those New York shops that are perpetually "going out of business".

Most such businesses have been "going out of business" for six, seven, even ten years or more. Moreover, I think it is particularly ludicrous - as I've said here before - to believe that global warming can actually be fought, as if one can stop a natural process without seriously, negatively disrupting the environment and life as we know it.

We hear a lot about how, never in recorded history, have temperatures ever been this high, sea levels rising this much, and so on and so forth. But, ah, what about un-recorded history? You know, the - what is it, now - four billion years or so of Earth's existence?

I'd like to hear about how the dinosaurs contributed to global warming 100 million years ago.

Wait, didn't global warming do in the ancestors of the denizens of "Jurassic Park"?

You bet it did - other than evolution into birds, a major theory of how the "terrible lizards" died out or disappeared is that a meteor struck around what is now the Yucatan peninsula, causing volcanoes to erupt on the other side of the planet and with little doubt sending waves of flame around the world in such a way as to scour the planet of most of its life.

A cosmic weapon of mass destruction, plus molten hot lava, clouds covering the planet and ash raining down upon it, solar heat checkin' in but not checkin' out...yes, all of that would significantly contribute to the greenhouse effect, and cause the globe to warm.

Move up 65 million years, and I bet you could posit a theory that global warming was a major motivation behind Marcus Brutus's plot to assassinate Julius Caesar. Oh, and ah, I have it from reliable sources that the Romans didn't crucify Jesus - that was global warming. The Black Death? Global warming caused that. The Earthquake of 1906 that devastated San Francisco? Duh, global warming! The Russian Revolution? Global warming. France succumbing to Nazi Germany in 1940? Global warming brought the French army to its knees. Vietnam? Global warming.

That horrible situation on the second rock from the Sun, the planet Venus? Global warming! The Greenhouse Effect! Well, that's actually true. And though we can't be blamed in any way for the sad state of Venus, just you watch - one day, someone, probably on the far left, will try and find a connection.

I'm pretty sure they'll blame the Israeli occupation.

Again, for what seems like the umpteenth time, I don't discount the evidence of human contributions to global warming. I don't deny that humans have since industrialization cavalierly polluted and wrecked the environment, a significant amount. I won't challenge that.

But I will challenge global warming activists who try and shift the blame for global warming and the greenhouse effect to humanity alone from the forces "of Nature and Nature's God" (to quote the Declaration of Independence) that have been at work for much longer than humanity has had anything within the realm of description worthy of being called "civilization". Give credit where credit is due - share the blame. Display some honesty on the issue, not just demagoguery.

So long as the people who are the chief advocates of "fighting" global warming are the same people suffering under the delusion that Iran seeks nuclear power for peaceful purposes only, they will lack moral authority and moral credibility in my eyes. This will remain my position even if the world ends, and even if Al Gore ends up running for the White House and winning the 2008 presidential election.

By the way, before you get to thinking I'm totally anti-Gore, the inconvenient truth - for some people, anyway - is that I did vote for him in 2000, and NOT just because he had a Jew running with him for VP. The past is the past, and right now, I don't like the way his environmental message is being propagated.

"Jerome"

P.S. Why is it that at the Academy Awards, the actors and actresses who are presenters tend to do a horrible job on the little skits of pithy banter written into the show, yet directors and producers like Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese often do a better job of "acting" than many nominees for acting roles when they're on stage?

The people normally behind the camera come off as classy (genuine), whereas the people getting paid the big bucks to act in front of it come off as corny at best - or just plain bad at worst (contrived, fake, overrated). You ever notice that? I'd say the actors should become directors, and directors actors, but not all of 'em can be like Ron Howard. And the films probably wouldn't be as good.

Then again, maybe they would.