Global warming conspiracy

Pretty old, I know, but I like this. Opening paragraphs:

Thanks to greedy environmentalists and corrupt scientists, the world is in the grip of a dangerous mass delusion that driving cars and using electricity is causing global warming. Unless these mendacious “experts” are stopped, the leaders of some of the globe’s biggest economies will pour trillions of dollars into useless schemes that exist merely to feed the enviro-industrial complex. Only a few (American) voices speaking out against a dangerous (European) orthodoxy can save us from global chaos.

If this sounds like the plot of a thriller, it’s because it is: in Michael Crichton’s latest bestseller, State of Fear, environmental groups grow so fat on middle-class guilt over pollution and the destruction of small furry things that they fasten on the alarmist theory of global warming, or climate change, as a means of screwing even more money from gullible donors.

Some more:

The sceptics also claim - sometimes justifiably - that there are inaccuracies in some of the computer models. But when these inaccuracies are corrected, or overtaken by another study, the sceptics keep talking about the old model. And if that doesn’t work, there is always a conspiracy theory to fall back on.

"The heat is on" by Fiona Harvey, FT Magazine, 2 Jul  (subscribers only). Some hostile responses here and  here.  To go back to the article:

[Crichton] e-mailed: “(Sigh) Remember Y2K? Went on for years. One news report, one group after another weighing in on the coming perils. With what result? The ultimate human cost was not trivial: people sold houses, pulled out of the financial markets, moved to higher ground. And all for... nothing at all. Now, when nothing occurred in 2000, the explanation was that thanks to the foresight and extended effort of all the organisations behind the panic in the first place, the desperate situation was averted. And so it will be with GW [global warming].”

Surely the point of the sceptics position, though, is to stop efforts to avert the disaster.