If I chose to take a brief section from Franklin Delano Roosevelt's first inagural address, it wouldn't take much time or effort to change this...

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself..."

...to this...

"Fear is the only thing we have."

The notion is nothing short of ludicrous, but this is precisely what the global warming denial sound machine (pun intentional) recently did to a recording of Al Gore, as was brought to my attention by A Siegel.

We'll be talking about it live tonight and you're invited.

A stumbling point for me in the practice of Buddhism is optimism.  I do not do optimism.  My thoughts on optimism parallel Ambrose Bierce.

Optimism: The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong... It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.

I am particularly prone to pessimism (realism) when it comes to the response of our species to climate change. In reading the parable of the Burning House from the Lotus Sutra, I am tempted to wonder (which is as close as I come to hope).

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues its deceptive campaign tour to fight any meaningful efforts to deal with Global Warming.

In short, the Chamber of Commerce is falsely asserting that it is impossible to do anything meaningful about Global Warming in the near term, that tomorrow's technology is the only answer to today's urgent problems, and that we must drill and mine our way to even more use of polluting energy.

In short, the USCOC is pursuing truthiness, by distorting the issues, rather than truth.

In short, the USCOC is fighting for a path that would recklessly endanger the future for America, Americans and humanity.

Amid last week’s terrible ructions in air travel, will no one point out the part of all this that is most politically and socially significant?

No, I am not referring to the stunning levels of ineptitude, revealed by the FAA -- a story that has grown commonplace, under a regime that relentlessly undermines professionalism at every turn.  Although it is meat for passing headlines, the real story is something more insidious. And politically devastating, if the public is ever finally roused.  

Would this state of affairs ever have come to pass, if society’s elites had reason to care about the health of modern commercial air travel?

Global Warming "Deniers" and "Skeptics" trot out any and every true item in twisted truthiness discussions that are neither true nor truthful.  With areas getting more snowfall and uncertainty over data (after all, how many penguins are sitting and checking the thermometer every morning?), "Antarctica is cooling" has been a frequent denier/skeptic truthiness line to try to sidetrack substantive discussions about Global Warming/Climate Change and what to do about it.  

Well, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words. This one, aggragating ten years of data, is worth far more:

Thank you NASA.

So, at the end of the day, how effective was Heartland Institute's Black Hole of Denial in New York City?  Well, one way to judge is via the media performance.  As DeSmogBlog notes:

Mainstream media seem to have caught up with climate change denial (caught up with reality, really), just in time to humiliate the assembled "sceptics" at the Heartland Institute's 2008 International Conference on Climate Change.

This week, New York City is playing host to an international conference on climate change different from any other that has gone before. The people convening it, and those making presentations, are all self-proclaimed "climate skeptics." And here is the purpose of the conference, in words taken verbatim from the invitation letter sent by the sponsor, the Heartland Institute:

The purpose of the conference is to generate international media attention to the fact that many scientists believe forecasts of rapid warming and catastrophic events are not supported by sound science, and that expensive campaigns to reduce greenhouse gas emissions are not necessary or cost-effective.

In other words, it's a media event designed to promote a fixed point of view with a negative agenda of opposition.

That, ladies and gentlemen (of the media especially) is not a "skeptical" agenda but a denialist enterprise.

This diary was suggested by two recent pieces on abrupt climate change: Joseph Romm's piece on Salon.com (The cold truth about climate change), and a paper in the journal Risk Analysis which was seized upon by columnist John Tierney in a column for the New York Times: "Global Warming Paradox"?  I discuss these articles in order to suggest that there is a general state of denial as regards the social and economic causes of abrupt climate change, thus to suggest that therein lies the discovery of social and economic solutions.

(crossposted at Docudharma)

Oh, the violins are playing, the tears are flowing.  Rush Limbaugh chose to headline with a false paper proving that Global Warming is a Hoax. (For a moment, one must imagine that James Inhofe's heart was beating ...)

UPDATED: Spoofer revealed:  Low Carbon Kid. Extracts in diary.

Today Al Gore Jr. has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize as co-winner with the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. This being one of the few times in the last decade that an American has won the prize one would expect that nearly all of America would be rejoicing the same way that we tend to obsessively count our Olympic medals like a miser.

Oops... we did just lose five of those last week didn't we?

Anywho, it appears that not everyons is that happy for Albert.  Just this morning the Fixed News and the Right-wing have begun their attack not just on Al Gore, but on the entire Nobel Peace Prize process claiming that it's all biased, political and anti-Bush because recent winners have included Mohamed ElBaradei of the IAEA (who told Bush there we're No Nukes in Iraq and Bush - well - didn't listen) and Jimmy Carter (who has said that for foreign policy Bush is the Worst President Ever because like - He Is!).

For a contest these guys weren't even involved in, they sure are sore losers.