A real scientist takes on just one aspect of Al Gore’s propaganda masterpiece, An Inconvenient Truth, the part about mosquitoes:
I am a scientist, not a climatologist, so I don’t dabble in climatology. My speciality is the epidemiology of mosquito-borne diseases. As [Al Gore’s] film [An Inconvenient Truth] began, I knew Mr Gore would get to mosquitoes: they’re a favourite with climate-change activists. When he got to them, it was all I feared. In his serious voice, Mr Gore presented a nifty animation, a band of little mosquitoes fluttering their way up the slopes of a snow-capped mountain, and he repeated the old line: Nairobi used to be ‘above the mosquito line, the limit at which mosquitoes can survive, but now…’ Those little mosquitoes kept climbing.
The truth? Nairobi means ‘the place of cool waters’ in the Masai language. The town grew up around a camp, set up in 1899 during the construction of a railway, the famous ‘Lunatic Express’. There certainly was water there — and mosquitoes. From the start, the place was plagued with malaria, so much so that a few years later doctors tried to have the whole town moved to a healthier place. By 1927, the disease had become such a plague in the ‘White Highlands’ that £40,000 (equivalent to about £350,000 today) was earmarked for malaria control. The authorities understood the root of the problem: forest clearance had created the perfect breeding places for mosquitoes. The disease was present as high as 2,500m above sea level; the mosquitoes were observed at 3,000m. And Nairobi? 1,680m.
The brazen lies of the totalitarian left are mind-boggling. But how long can they keep pushing lies and ignoring the truth before the whole global warming establishment collapses? If we had a press willing to explore real inconvenient truths, the collapse would have come years ago.
I guess it’s a bad sign when the thing that bothers me isn’t so much that a former Vice President lied to our faces, that lie affixed forever in media for future generations to verify, but that if I were to call him out on that lie in an argument with an environmentalist, the environmentalist would insist that I was the one who was misinformed, or not understanding the data, or in the pocket of the oil companies, or anything else but definitely not right where Gore is wrong. Most definitely not that.
“The brazen lies of the totalitarian left are mind-boggling.”
It’s what they do. Systematic lying is a technology for them, something Orwell outlined nicely in his works.
They will keep lying until the current lies no longer serve. Then, the current lies will magically disappear and they will re-write history in a different way.
The only recourse those who believe in the truth have is to keep telling it, keep throwing truth into the face of lies, and to keep opposing every creeping instance of tyranny with what freedoms we still have.
Plus, the government has been destroying minds in public schools for decades. First, destroy the capacity to think critically. Second, destroy the concept of self-esteem and couple it with a sense of entitlement. Then, they’ll believe the first thing they hear, even if it’s a lie, and cling to it as truth. They won’t know how to critique it. When you tell them they’re wrong, they don’t examine the evidence, they get defensive and dismiss you out of hand. Battle won.
@Roger
Unfortunately (catastrophically, actually), we’re now a 4th generation into the dumbed-down America, and the America of moochers and do-gooders. The generation that was the last to come through America’s public school systems prior to the deliberate dumbing down is about 45 to 50 years old, which means that more than half of voting-age citizens are products of the entitlement/dumbed-down/socialist system.
I weep for what once was, and the knowledge that like any great society, America is now doomed.
For awhile at least, baby boomers will outnumber the younger set. I don’t think appealling to the boomers will be very fruitful. But appealing to youth could be very rewarding for if they are young enough, they still have a desire for knowledge. That’s why ARI’s books for teachers program, and giving subscriptions to the Objective Standard and passing out copies of The Undercurrent is so important.