For years many of us believed the Nobel Peace Prize could not possibly be debased any worse than it was when Shimon Peres and mass murderer Yasir Arafat were honored for plunging the Middle East into an endless cycle of terrorist aggression against Israel and for putting Israel’s very survival in jeopardy.
Of course, there have been others whose receipt of a Nobel Prize stood truth and justice on its head. Bishop Desmond Tutu, an inveterate Israel-basher and apologist for anti-American dictators, was a winner, as was Jimmy “Israel is an apartheid state” Carter.
(No wonder that for years now Israel’s Loony Left has been trying to nominate the Grand Old Man of Israeli self-haters, Uri Avnery, for a prize and Israeli communists have promoted terrorist accomplice Tali Fahima as a possible Peace Prize laureate.)
But the decision to grant a Nobel Peace Prize to Al Gore for his environmentalist hysterics and pseudo-scientific posturing must surely rival any earlier absurdities.
Gore, who was defeated in the 2000 presidential election despite his effort to steal it by demanding a recount of ballots only in Florida’s Democratic counties, is also the guy who claims to have invented the Internet. He has reinvented himself in recent years as a groupie of radical environmentalist nuttiness.
It seems that whenever countries get too rich and comfortable, their chattering classes start wringing their hands over the environment. It is part of the price those countries pay for not having more serious national problems and challenges.
Global Warming has become the leading pseudo-cause of those who practice recreational compassion – individuals looking for a cheap way to impress their friends and neighbors about how caring they are.
Global warning is the cause celebre of moral posturers – except when they are warning us about the dangers of global cooling (and there are many who still do that). They discover thinning ice shields in the polar regions – except in the areas where it is getting thicker. They chant the mantra that America’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol is what’s behind the warming and the hurricanes.
Of course, if the earth really is getting a smidgen warmer it has nothing to do with humans. Mars is getting warmer and its ice caps are melting a bit. Gore will no doubt attribute that to selfish Republicans as well.
I have always thought the idea that humans can change a planet’s climate is a striking example of megalomania. A more believable take on planetary survivability can be found in last week’s Torah portion, about Noah and the rainbow.
While there is doubt as to whether global warming is even taking place, there is no doubt at all that if it were for real, humans would have nothing to do with it.
The global warming hysteria ignores the many benefits and positive aspects of global warming. Even those who are convinced beyond a doubt that it is occurring agree that slightly warmer winter nights are one of its prime manifestations. Since my heating system does not work very well, I would welcome warmer winter nights. No one knows how a warmer climate affects rainfall, but it is likely to cause more of it, and that surely is good for Israel – and the British certainly would deserve it.
Ever since the first shrieks about global warming were heard, I have been checking the beaches of Haifa, hoping to see a visible sign of some rise in ocean surface levels. Alas, not even a little bit of change has been evident. But seeing as there are so many benefits to be had from global warming, I think it behooves all of us to do our parts to create more of it.
First, if the ice pack over Greenland really does melt, that might be a nice place to create a Palestinian state. The terrorists could undergo career reorientation and take to cod fishing. They could even throw grenades at the whales, if their politically correct friends on the Left won’t object.
I can also see numerous benefits for the world from any rise in ocean surface levels. It would solve most of the problems of the Middle East. Flooding the Gaza Strip with ocean water due to rising sea levels would surely stop the Kassam rockets. Now that’s something worth buying an SUV for.
True, some other areas might be inundated. But what is wrong with Ramat Aviv being under some nice seawater? The leftist yuppies in the upper floors of their buildings would not be affected and would get capital gains on their oceanfront property. The others could simply relocate and make aliyah to biblical Eretz Yisrael, getting new homes in Gush Etzion, Efrat and Ariel.
Elsewhere, rising sea levels would erase such leftist California strongholds as Venice and Santa Cruz. The hills in Berkeley where the employed professionals live would be safe, but the Berkeley lowlands, where the radicals posture and protest, would be eliminated. The more I think about it, the more I like the idea!
Israel is so small that it cannot be seen on most global maps. Even so, we Israelis really should be doing more in order to hasten global warming. Cutting taxes on imports of SUVs would be a good place to start and would also lower the traffic fatality rate.
So let’s do our part to hasten global warming. A Nobel Peace Prize may be in it for us!
Steven Plaut, a frequent contributor to The Jewish Press, is a professor at Haifa University. His book “The Scout” is available at Amazon.com. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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