Political Cortex: Rush Limbaugh, Global Hoax

Friends

The Agonist
Media Matters

Rush Limbaugh, Global Hoax

By Bill Hare
08/01/2009 03:14:42 PM EST

It is not enough for Rush Limbaugh to continue his steady torrent of outrageous, over the top statements in the realm of American domestic politics. He remains adamant about entering the world arena in the vital area of climate change.

Last week Limbaugh, in addition to taking various swipes at President Obama, returned to what has been a favorite topic of his for years, the subject of global warming.

Once more Limbaugh emphatically proclaimed that the issue involves charlatanism and not science, and is something being whipped up by zealots determined to instill panic in the world community and advance their own selfish agenda.

His steady revelations about global warning being a hoax is reminiscent of what occurred during the 1992 Rio conference. While scientists and political leaders of the world community were meeting on a subject they deemed critical for survival of the planet another conference was being held in Nevada debunking what was occurring in Brazil.

A badly wrinkled, white-haired woman was pictured by television cameras sitting at a desk signing up delegates. She tartly proclaimed, "The nuts are all at that Rio conference."

As the woman denounced the absurdity of the Rio conference on global warming she puffed on a cigarette. Clearly to this woman the famous U.S. Surgeon General's report linking smoking effects to lung cancer constituted more scientific gibberish. This was something not worth her attention.

The Nevada conference debunking global warming was understandable, as was the response of a woman who flayed those attending the Rio event as "nuts" and would almost assuredly, had she been asked about her apparent relish for cigarettes, have responded with the familiar smokers' refrain of "If you're gonna go, you're gonna go."

Debunkers through cohesive response seek to dodge potential negative scientific consequences by denying existence of facts they seek to avoid. Rush Limbaugh has built an audience consisting of such individuals, those who create their own junk science to avoid confronting reality and do the same through creating junk politics to deal with what they deem discomforting policies and events in the national and global communities.

Five years ago in the World Scientists' Warning to Humanity, 1,600 of the world senior scientists sounded an unprecedented warning:

"Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at serious risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms."

The December 1997 Climate Summit in Kyoto, Japan generated a call to action from a prominent list of signatories representing the most impressive body of scientific minds ever assembled.

The list of Nobel laureates focused largely in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Physiology included names such as Americans Glenn T. Seaborg, Hans A. Bethe, and Stanley Cohen, Switzerland's Georg. J. Bednorz, the United Kingdom's John W. Cornforth, Germany's Paul J. Crutzen, France's Jean Dausset, Belgium's Christian R. de Duve, Taiwan's Yuan T. Lee, Italy's Rita Levi-Montalcini, Denmark's Ben Mottelson, Canada's John Polyani, Sweden's Bengt Samuelsson, and South Africa's Desmond Tutu, the last named internationally renowned human rights figure being a Nobel laureate in the Peace category.

Representatives of prestigious national and international scientific academies included the Bolivian Academy of Sciences, Chilean Academy of Scientists, The Royal Society (U.K.), Russian Academy of Sciences, Royal Society of Canada, International Council of Scientific Unions, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, Cuban Academy of Sciences, African Academy of Sciences, Third World Academy of Sciences, Max Planck Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nigerian Academy of Sciences, Royal Netherland Academy of Arts and Sciences, Finnish Society of Arts and Letters, Italian National Academy of Sciences, Estonian Academy of Sciences, Russian Academy of Sciences, and U.S. Academy of Sciences.

This list includes some of the individuals and groups that consider global warming to be a grave danger to the world's existence. They are pitted against Rush Limbaugh, formerly a hospital nurse in Sacramento, California and latterly national talk show host based in Florida.

Does Limbaugh possess the scientific credentials to match the forces elucidating a totally different global warming view?

Perhaps the biggest tragedy of all is that Limbaugh is surely not a big enough fool to believe that he holds the answer on global warming while the world's most eminent scientific minds are delivering packaged hokum.

His posture on this and other issues reveals someone who plays to a highly ignorant gallery that prefers to remain in the dark regarding major scientific and political issues facing the globe.

Meanwhile Limbaugh chalks up millions of dollars by appealing to an estimated 30 million listeners per week delivering an "ignorance is bliss" message.

Years ago Norman Mailer called Richard Nixon "the Einstein of the inert" due to his successful appeal to those individuals that the ultimately disgraced president called "the silent majority."

As an "Einstein of the inert" Limbaugh leaves Nixon far behind.