19 Sep 2005 Katrina, Global Warming and Honest Disagreement

Husband David, The National Center’s VP, is debating Wayne Madsen in newspapers across the country on the question: “Are climate-change advocates wrong to blame Katrina’s fury on man-made global warming?”

David said, yes, they are wrong; Wayne Madsen says no and blames President Bush: “…the Bush administration’s six years of hostility to international efforts to stem the effects of global warming are now, as predicted, drastically affecting the coastal regions of the world.”

Mr. Madsen also claims many of those who are skeptical of his view on global warming have essentially been bribed by “handsome grants and honoraria from the oil and coal industry and affiliated ‘non-profit’ think tank like the Cato Institute.” In light of this smear, quite typical of those who are intolerant of dissent from the global warming alarmist orthodoxy, allow me to volunteer that the National Center for Public Policy Research received less than one percent of its funding from fossil fuel industries in 2004 and, so far in 2005, has received zero funding from such industries. And, as may go without saying, neither David nor The National Center have received funding from The Cato Institute, which really is a genuine non-profit — no quotation marks required.

Addendum: Duane at The Other Club writes to say:

The theories of the watermelon alliance do not demonstrate correctable, or even notable, human contribution to global warming.

For Madsen to blame Bush is at fault is outrageous, since the Clinton-era Senate voted 95-0 against Kyoto and since even if President Nixon had adopted it, it wouldn’t have made any difference, by Madsen’s best allies’ own figures.

It’s Bush’s “hostility” that caused Katrina? Heh. It’s Madsen’s hostility that paralyzes his brain.

Duane Hershberger