The American Spectator : Henny-Penny Discovers Feet of Clay

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A Further Perspective

Henny-Penny Discovers Feet of Clay

It's that time of year again.

"How's Global Warming doing this summer?" I said cheerily to Henny-Penny, founder and Recording Secretary of The Holy Order of the Sky is Falling.

H-P: You needn't be so flippant. The Eastern half of the country, not to mention all of Russia, is sizzling. It's just as our Pontiff, Al Gore, predicted. If we don't cap and trade carbon emissions the whole planet is in peril. Fortunately, his wonderful film, An Inconvenient Truth, is being shown on many college campuses so we are getting the word out.

Me: Speaking of your pontiff, I'm reminded of something Ronald Reagan once said: "It's not that liberals don't know anything; it's that they know so many things that aren't true." Did you know that a British court a few years ago ruled that An Inconvenient Truth cannot be shown in U.K. classrooms without materials that point out its inaccuracies?

H-P: Inaccuracies. What inaccuracies?

Me: The film claims that a study showed that melting Arctic ice caused polar bears to drown. In fact, the study showed that a particularly violent storm caused four polar bears to drown.

H-P: That's just one minor item.

Me: Try this. The film suggests that Global Warming could stop the Gulf Stream, leading to an ice age in Europe. They found this to be scientifically impossible.

H-P: The judges must be Global Warming deniers.

Me: No. They just went over the film with a fine-toothed comb. For example, it claims that rising sea levels have caused some South seas islands to be evacuated. The court concluded this was a false claim.

H-P: There's no question that Greenland's glaciers and Antarctica's ice sheet are melting.

Me: The film would like us to believe this will happen very soon. The evidence is that it would take thousands of years for Greenland's glaciers to melt and in Antarctica the ice is actually increasing.

H-P: Well, we certainly know that Global Warm -- er -- Climate Change caused Hurricane Katrina.

Me: The British court found it was "not possible" to attribute such a single event to Global Warming.

H-P: You can't deny that Climate Change is threatening the loss of some species and causes the bleaching of coral reefs.

Me: It's not I who denies this. The British court found no evidence to support either claim.

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About the Author

Peter Hannaford was closely associated with the late President Ronald Reagan for a number of years. His latest book is Reagan's Roots: The People and Places That Shaped His Character.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (22) | Leave a comment

Redstateboy| 8.9.10 @ 8:33AM

Bravo!!! Yet I still believe I was the first to refer to Al Gore as "Pope" of the Church of the Man Made Global Warming. I love the Reagan quote. Oh! how true!

Louis Jenkins| 8.9.10 @ 8:59AM

Indeed Mrs. Henny Penny. The sky if falling. All down around Gore's ears.

gypsy| 8.9.10 @ 9:02AM

I wonder what Henny Penny thinks of the Gore mansion and his private jets? Typical "progressive" : a stuck up rich boy who's never once had to live in the real world, and thinks all the rules are for them there "little people"
btw, how much "progress" do they make when they are marching us backward into tyranny?

Stan Redmond| 8.9.10 @ 9:58AM

Come on now, cut the Goreacle some slack. He buys carbon offsets from himself and sells indulgences to asuage the carbon guilt of important celebrities.

David W| 8.9.10 @ 11:50AM

I overheard a pilot (who flies corporate-type jets) say that Al's jet was a very dirty jet (I assume the comment didn't refer to any kind of rubdown Al was trying to get from his masseuse).

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.9.10 @ 9:20AM

Peter,
I'm sorry, but while you are making jokes... billions of dollars have already been wasted in so-called "green" tech. And the wheels are still grinding away wasting tax money on it.

The one example...the Chevy Volt. Another...the new lightbulbs.

Have any of you columnists ever tried to total up the tax-money already wasted?

Dan Hirsch| 8.9.10 @ 9:28AM

C'mon Ol Tex,

Is there a quicker way to get a fool off the stage than to laugh him off?

Slows down his posse, too!

Nolite me conculcare!

Ken (Old Texican)| 8.9.10 @ 10:39AM

Dan,
I can't be as relaxed about this. The year following the release of his book was the time to laugh.
Now he has lots of big dogs invested in his schemes. They don't like loosing millions $$ and worse... they don't like loosing face. They will now push this mess...to their dying day... at our expense. Yes, they seeded millions but we taxpayers are stuck with billions.

Not only that. We could have spent the money on nuke plants and already have cut our trade imbalance in half....plus haing put hundreds of thousands of men to work building them.

No... in my mind the time for laughing is long gone.
Sorry

Redstateboy| 8.9.10 @ 9:40AM

Ole' Tex is absolutely right!! What about that blasted Ethenol Subsidized Industry!! It'd fold like a Cheap Card Table if we yanked our Fed. tax dollars... and what has it done? Can we Quantify the ROI? Can we quantify how much Imported Oil we DID NOT need to import because of it? Is an Ethenol mixed blend Safe for our engines - will we find out that Engine life was shortened because of its use? Personally - I ONLY Gas up at a Non-Ethenol Station. Has Ethenol Production Truly had a Negative impact on domestic Food prices?
These are questions the Lame Stream Media Will Never seek to learn and inform us of.

JamesSchielein| 8.10.10 @ 8:41AM

RedStateBoy,
Take a look at this:
http://corncommentary.com/2010.....rs-credit/
or here:
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t.....5wCiKc_GyA
There is all kinds of literature out there on the real return of utilizing ethanol---if you want to look----and if you don't want to just keep spewing non-sense.
Did you ever ponder the fact that when the food companies blamed ethanol for price increases when corn shot up to $8.00/bushel, there have been no corresponding food price decreases when corn fell back to $3.00/bushel?

Alan Brooks| 8.9.10 @ 10:25AM

Don't know about global warming.
However I admire Gore for helping to get the two American journalists released from Kampuchea, er, I mean, North Korea; it was Clinton who did the good deed, but I remember hearing somewhere that one of the captured women worked for Gore-- so you know he had something crucial to do with springing them.

Nate W.| 8.9.10 @ 12:02PM

O.J. Simpson helped some kids through his non-profit giving...doesn't mean I admire him.

Alan Brooks| 8.9.10 @ 7:29PM

Well you have a point there.
But I only wrote above that I admire Gore for his humaneness, not that anyone else ought to.

like, Ty Cobb was an a**hole-- but many baseball fans admire him.

Pete| 8.9.10 @ 11:26AM

I know this has been done, but I can't help it. As Mr. Gore knows, opposition tends to "stiffen" when you "massage" the data.

dw| 8.9.10 @ 12:24PM

Gore, Frank, Dodd, Obama have and are doing more to ruin us than the Soviet Union ever did.
Do they live to lie or lie to live?

Dr. Frank| 8.9.10 @ 12:39PM

One thing Mr. Gore has neglected to realize is that as he has aged he has packed on several pounds. this increaces exertion on ones body which culminates in production of heat. (He is fat). Also with the aging comes clouding of eyesight, hearing loss, which could accound for his beliving in the enviroment being shrouded in gasses. ( he is passing gas and don't hear it.) Poor old fat bastard. Now as far as cap n trade.. He can't help himself, being born into politics with a silverspoon in his mouth he belives he deserves to make money off the backs of the small people. Besides he still belives he was cheated out of the presidency, and so has a ax to grind. My advice to Gore is, get a pair of glasses, hearing aid, some prozac, a job for money. Then if you want a prostitute, get one, but don't expect a massuse to substitute.

Cuffs| 8.9.10 @ 2:02PM

Global warming a failure??
No no no--Gore has collected millions of dollars
hawking it. Do you really believe he will stop
now?
He should make himself useful by seeing to it
there is enough caviar at the Cacun conference;
they ran out in Copenhagen! Now that WAS
a crisis!

Rick Z| 8.9.10 @ 2:26PM

.... Albert Gore did NOT invent the Internet.

.... However, Albert Gore DID invent Global Warming.

Martine22| 8.9.10 @ 2:40PM

Look out Cancun. One crazed sex poodle coming your way.

Al Adab| 8.9.10 @ 5:05PM

What is really interesting is that most Paleo-archeologists believe we are overdue for another period of glaciation, read Ice Age. Some actually think any man caused warming ( possible but unproven) may be putting off the inevitable freeze up.