TheAgitator.com
In Which Liberalism Falls Off the Edge of the Flat Earth…
Tuesday, June 1st, 2004I want to thank Radley for the opportunity to sub in for him while he’s away fighting for our right to deep fry chocolate. I’ve been particularly interested lately in the ways that reform-minded liberals, in their zeal to protect us all from the apocalypse they’re convinced that current human action is causing, are deceiving the public to gain support for radical restrictions on our lives. The latest bit of propaganda comes from the environmental lobby, which is using the new movie The Day After Tomorrow, a sci-fi story of a sudden violent climate shift, to convince us all that we’re doomed.
MSNBC says that the most sudden climate change scientists can conceive would still take several decades to occur. The Australian reports that the movie’s science is “so absurd that even the hysterics in the US green movement reportedly feared audiences would laugh it out of the cinema,” but that “it will certainly frighten university students and schoolchildren” who have been “assiduously prepared to be frightened.” The Arizona Republic describes the science as “much like when the Professor on Gilligan’s Island designed a fusion reactor using only coconuts and Mr. Howell’s after-shave.” Even the New Yorker, long a refuge of liberal thought, dismisses the silly premise of the movie as more likely to harm the level of debate about the environment than to help it. Moveon.org, however, calls The Day After Tomorrow “the movie the White House doesn’t want you to see” because “an unparalleled opportunity to help people do something to prevent a climate crisis.”
I understand the urge to bring issues of conservation and better management of natural resources to the forefront of our political consciousness, but it’s just dishonest to use a premise you and all of your allies admit is false–that environmental protection measures are necessary to prevent imminent catastrophic danger–to advance your political agenda. Scare tactics do move people; that’s why they make such good drama in movies. But people who try to influence the political process are, as they so often like to tell us, beholden to a higher moral standard than just getting the most money from the most consumers. They have a responsibility to tell the truth, and not to use propaganda that they admit is not representative of the real facts to get their message across. Preying on our basest fears is not an ethically sound method of political activism.
Moveon.org is not, to be sure, representative of the core of liberalism in the U.S. It has, however, become a significant source of political information and mobilization for many on the left. And it is troubling that a group whose mission is to counter the dishonest propaganda of mainstream politics would stoop to pandering and misleading the public to advance its agenda. But then, I guess I should stop being surprised by now.
(cross-posted at The 50 Minute Hour)
This is where genuine libertarians are at a painful and distinct disadvantage. Members of both major parties (although more prevalently on the left) are more than willing to not only change principles issue by issue, but to do absolutely anything to advance a cause they’ve attached to, whether the action is morally sound or not. Look at Michael Moore. Look at the way that the Constitution isn’t even involved in debate about most federal legislation. Look at the shameful name of the group fighting to keep a ban on institutionalized racism off of Michigan’s ballots, “By Any Means Necessary”. Look at Rush Limbaugh. There are almost endless examples of behavior like this. It’s horribly sad, but it’s the way of most of the world.
Matthew, you’re absolutely right. This sort of extremism is, I believe, the primary cause of political inactivity and disinterest by most reasonable people. They are just tired of the bad behavior by radical partisans with no real interest in real solutions to real problems. We need to stop listening to the loudmouth nonsense and use what sense we have to do what’s right.
Putting moveon.org’s ludicrous comments aside, what troubles me about this movie is that it further re-inforces the “common knowledge” of society that global warming is an issue. Take, for example, James Berardinelli’s review of the movie (http://movie-reviews.colossus.net/movies/d/day_after.html). In the review he states (emphasis added):
“But who expects realism from a movie like this, anyway? The central disaster is just an excuse for the impressive effects work and the paper-thin character development. If it focuses some attention upon a real problem – global warming – then how can that be bad?”
The problem I have is that what I’ve read shows that global warming is NOT a “real problem”. I don’t claim to know that I’m right, but I do claim that this issue is far from settled. This is a topic that is constantly being debated in scientific circles. There is certainly no definitive answer to this, although some would like to think so. Both sides of the issue recognize that there is a definite warming trend, but as for this being a problem, that is still very controversial.
I don’t hold the movie makers at fault at all. I just wish the people commenting on the movie had a better understanding of the issue instead of simply accepting the position of global warming being a “problem” as fact.
It’s just a freakin’ movie. If you want facts watch a documentary.
I liked the movie The Day After Tomorrow, despite the large leaps away from reality.
I also understand that donkeys do not talk and thus could enjoy Shrek 2. Amazing thing, the imagination…
Supergenius and Tim K –
I don’t think Amy’s point is that the movie is not real. I think the point is that Moveon.org would like people believe that it *is* (or at least could be) real, and that it is all Bush’s fault.
Good post, Amy.
I had hoped that all the stretches of the imagination were going towards making the point that “it is beyond our capability to reliably predict the effects of global warming,” an honorable goal IMO, but one at which it failed miserably.
If I were “The White House,” I’d encourage people to go out and see the movie, and laugh at the idiots who are behind this nonsense.
Unfortunately, the *possibility* that a serious problem *might* exist gets lost in all the rhetorical hysteria on both sides.
It’s just a freakin’ movie. If you want facts watch a documentary.
Michael Moore makes documentaries, and thus your statement is ludicrous.
If you want facts, be there when they present themselves to you.
Last time I checked, Michael Moore wasn’t the only documentary filmmaker on this planet.
i aint seen the movie, but i do know it can not possibly be any worse than INDEPENDANCE DAY. I believe that films like INDEPENDANCE DAY, which might encourage the american public to believe they can liberate the world, pose an infintely greater danger to world peace and prosperity. I mean, obviously, where do you think Bush got his iraq idea from?
Global warming starting up a new ice age – funny.
When you boil water in a pot, does the handle develop a layer of ice?
You scoff at Independence Day, but when the aliens come and start destroying us, you’ll be glad that I kept my mid-90′s Powerbook so that I can load a virus onto the mothership.
Coincidentally, is the best documentary ever made.
Jeff Goldblum is insane. Everyone knows the best documentary ever made was QUEST FOR FIRE!
Global warming is a misnomer.
Global climate change is the correct phrase.
Who knows what is going to happen when we change the makeup of our atmosphere? Some people make predictions, others shoot them down. Others still say that whatever we do, we can’t undo what we’ve done. You can say, who cares, we’re part of nature, it’s natural climate change, but really, do you like the climates on the planet as they exist today? Because I’m not so sure changing our atmosphere will not change them. Yes, if the gulf stream stalls, which it has in the past, there will be great consequences, including possibly a new ice age.
I’m sure if volcanoes started spewing gases and fumes into our atmosphere at pre-historic levels, we would see a host of scientists and engineers trying to figure out ways to stop or reduce it. So now how is trying to limit or reduce our CO2/methane expenditure any different from that?
trekkies and the one about the dude builiding the anit-grizzly bear suit are the best documentaries ever made.
is it warmer… – not here ;-)
Have you given any though to the fact that human activity just may be completely irrelevant?
CO2 is probably the most pathetic greenhouse gas that ever existed. Water vapor, far more abundant, (look up and see clouds of that stuff) has a far greater effect on our climate than CO2 ever will.
As a source of methane and CO2 lowly bacteria can out-do all of us put together, not to mention the odd volcanic eruption, etc.
We can spend crazy amounts of money and time fighting our weather, but shouldn’t that money be put towards beneficial use instead (i.e. one with observable results)?
Besides, it ain’t climate change, it is global warming. The pseudo-scientists were proclaiming that the globe would warm, up for years.
Now that there is no evidence of it present, the ‘climate change’ mantra has been adopted for obvious reasons: any type of weather can be proclaimed to be different than what went on last Tuesday, somewhere else,…perhaps.
If it rains, the climatologists will say that it shouldn’t have rained, if it shines, well it shouldn’t have shined, all along proclaiming that something is wrong with the weather. Well, nothing is wrong with it. It changes all the time.
human activity irrelevant?
yes, that of course is a thought. a nice happy go about your day thought. but then, take a look around at the world we live in. we’re not irrelevant.
we’re extremely ignorant, in fact. we barely understand how our planet works, and yet we tamper with it in ways we don’t or can’t comprehend the results of.
Swiss Re won’t insure businesses without that don’t have global climate change protocol’s or programs.