28 Oct 2005 Global Warming Joke of the Day

Peyton Knight writes to say:

An actor, a daytime talk show host, and an activist all get together to discuss “one of the most important issues facing all of humanity.”

That’s it.

Funny?

Well, it would be if it weren’t so sad.

Yesterday on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Leonardo DiCaprio joined former Environmental Defense activist and United Nations Earth Summit architect Michael Oppenheimer to hype — what else — global warming. According to Leo DiCaprio, recent hurricanes and tsunamis are a harbinger of worse things to come.

Right after a segment covering the problem of sex offenders who prey on children, Oprah gracefully segued:

So there is another frightening problem affecting our world, the whole world, that I believe we all need to know about. Have y’all noticed something’s going on with the planet? Have you — really? Haven’t you felt that something’s going on? OK. The deadly hurricanes were my wake-up call. And I know a lot of other people are wondering if these extreme weather patterns that we’re having have something to do with something else that’s going on; global warming, perhaps. Why should you care? Well, you’re about to find out. Leonardo DiCaprio is here to share some of his thoughts on an issue that he has been passionate about for quite some time.

Now, if Ms. Winfrey is concerned about global warming and the hurricanes it supposedly spawns, and she really, really wants her disciples to care as deeply about it as she does — can’t she find someone more credible to make her case than a Hollywood actor? Someone like, oh I don’t know, perhaps the director of the National Hurricane Center?

On the heels of similar chicken-little scaremongering spewed by Barbra Streisand last month, NHC Director Max Mayfield put the lie to any actors eager to play the part of meteorologist.Mayfield said:

Hurricanes, and especially major hurricanes, are cyclical. We’ll have a few decades of really active hurricanes, and then inactive periods, followed by active periods again.

So I think that this activity that we’re in can be explained without invoking global warming. The bad news here is that we are in this active period, and the research meteorologists tell us that it may last another 10 or 20 years.

For his part, Leo DiCaprio showered Oprah with gratitude for providing him a soapbox to wax misleading:

Well, first of all, I want to thank you, and I’m sure every environmentalist around the world would thank you a thousand times over for bringing this topic up on your show, because it’s something that hasn’t really gotten enough attention in the media nowadays.

Now, while a thinking person would certainly understand Leo getting the science and the facts wrong on global warming, keeping up with current media is something that should be well within his grasp. Though it apparently isn’t.

A Google News search for the term “global warming” brings up 7,490 hits. I’d say it’s getting enough media attention. Moreover, judging by the biased, left-leaning type of media it’s getting, Leo should be quite pleased.

Ms. Winfrey then aired various excerpts from a new drama — er — “documentary” cleverly titled “Global Warming,” which features Leo, Oppenheimer, “Seinfeld” co-creator Larry David, and of course, Oprah herself. After admiring herself on the screen, Oprah remarked:

So, you know, I look at this and feel it. You know, I don’t know a lot about it. I mean, I’m here to be educated by you and Dr. Oppenheimer.

Kudos to Oprah for at least acknowledging her ignorance of the subject.

She may “feel it” — but she clearly doesn’t get it.

And since she doesn’t get it, what is she doing on a documentary about it?