December 18, 2002 9:12 pm - I've read one too many tirades from the chicken little environmentalist weenies who write in the local paper.  Simply put, they piss me off.  The combination of irrational thought and junk science make for a scary set of conclusions about our effect on the planet.  Even scarier is how they want to "fix" the problem and what means they would use to achieve their ends.  Be afraid. What's even worse than being lectured by a brainless tree-hugger is being lectured by a guy who mistakes European public opinion for profundity.  Sorry, but what brilliant thinking has come out of that place besides beautiful art and tasty foods, most of which was invented centuries ago?  Are we to admire them for the countless wars and myriad atrocities?  Should we copy their hapless political system, one which is even worse than ours?  How about that robust economy they have going?  Anyone for double digit unemployment?    In any case, I respond in the paper to one such numbskull who dresses down the unwashed American masses for not blindly agreeing with enlightened Europeans on global warming.
		Michael Northrop's global warming harangue is more of the same from the sky-is-falling crowd.  We are supposed to swallow whole the idea that the earth is warming (an unproven theory), that man's activity is responsible for the warming (pure speculation), and that London will become an underwater world because of it. This last one is a doozy.  One would think an island nation that believed Mr. Northrop's predictions about human-induced catastrophic flooding would immediately enforce draconian measures to stem the flow, yet apparently they won't even start enacting legislation for another three years!  Some crisis. Ironically, Northrop buttresses his argument with tales of economic decline in tourism.  If he thought heavy rains would hamper the tourism industry, he might ponder the economic consequences of the authoritarian schemes needed to keep people from burning fuels necessary to keep a modern economy humming, not to mention the simple act of staying warm during the winter. But all of this is surely lost on a socialist dreamer.  It might come as a surprise to elitist Europhiles like Thornton, but most Americans don't give a hoot about what the snobs across the pond think.