Global Warming “Refugees in the Antarctica!” Why Nobody Believes Anything Anymore

I have remarked previously that too often, scientific studies are actually ideological advocacy tracts in disguise. Or, a scientific study is misreported without the nuance contained therein by media toward the same purpose and effect. Or, a study one day says A and the next day on the same topic says Z. Or, the most radical notions are embraced by our betters among the intelligentsia and media, and treated as fact when it is really mere wild speculation. Or hyped for political impact, etc., etc. Even the most patently ridiculous assertions are reported respectfully if it serves the overarching ideological purpose--as when CBS and MSNBC swallowed whole the claim by a clear crackpot that global warming caused earthquakes.

And often, this unbelievable garbage is sponsored by big corporations. Case in point:

Refugees are moving to Antarctica by 2030, the Olympics are held only in cyberspace and central Australia has been abandoned as too dry, according to exotic scenarios for climate change on Monday.

British-based Forum for the Future, a charitable think-tank, and researchers from Hewlett-Packard Labs, said they wanted to stir debate about how to avert the worst effects of global warming by presenting a radical set of possible futures. “Climate change will affect the economy at least as much as the ‘credit crunch’,” their 76-page report study said.

I think also that we have such information overload that advocacy has grown increasingly strident just to break through the white noise. How else explain this idiotic statement:

“We still have the chance to alter the future,” Peter Madden, head of the Forum, told Reuters…”Historians of the future may look back on these as the ‘climate change years’,” he said. “They will either look back on our generation as heroes or view us with incomprehension and disgust — as now we look back on those who allowed slavery.”

Yes, there is a mild disclaimer that the scenario is just what might happen, but that is utterly belied by the slavery comment.

This is the real anti-intellectualism. Normal people look at these kind of things and see buffoonery. Yet, the grant money keeps pouring in from all directions.