When I was the political reporter and weekend anchor at WISN TV, the CBS affiliate in Milwaukee, John Coleman was our weatherman. He was s strong conservative and was known for his sense of humor. One time it had rained for 30 days straight. Coleman said if it rained on the 31st day he would produce the weather forecast standing on his head. It rained. He did it. Another time the camera opened on a wide shot of a blindfolded John Coleman throwing darts at a dartboard labeled "Hot," "Cold," "Snow," "Rain," "Sunny," "Cloudy," "Fog," "Drizzle" and so on. He had had a string of days when his forecasts had been erroneous. John said "Well, this probably is as good as my forecasts these days." Coleman went on to be the weatherman on "Good Morning America" for seven years. He began the weather channel with his life savings. He subsequently has forecast the weather in New York and Chicago. Today he says his retirement job is weatherman for KUSI in San Diego.
In a remarkable speech before the San Diego Chamber of Commerce, Coleman was very serious about global warming as the consummate fraud. He began by saying that we should give credit where credit is due. There is, he said, an intrinsic connection between Al Gore's campaign for global warming and $4 per gallon gasoline. "It comes down to....the claim that carbon dioxide in the exhaust from your car and in the smoke stacks of our power plants is destroying the climate of planet earth. What an amazing fraud; what a scam" He then recited Gore's dire warnings. "The future of our civilization lies in the balance. That's the battle cry of the high priest of global warming, Al Gore and his agenda driven disciples as they predict a calamitous outcome from anthropogenic global warming." He said Gore, with a preacher's zeal, sets out to strike terror into us and our children and make us feel we are all complicit in the potential demise of the planet.
"Here," said Coleman, "is my rebuttal. There is no significant man-made global warming. There has not been any in the past, there is none now and there is no reason to fear any in the future." Coleman went on to say that the climate of earth is changing. It always has changed. But mankind's activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces."
Coleman explained that through history the earth has shifted between two basic climate regimes: ice ages and what paleoclimatologists call "interglacial periods." He said for the past 10,000 years the earth has been in an interglacial period. That might be called nature's global warming because what happens during an interglacial period is the earth warms up. The glaciers melt and life flourishes. "Clearly from our point of view, an interglacial period is greatly preferred to the deadly rigors of an ice age...Mr. Gore and his crowd would have us believe that the activities of man have overwhelmed nature during this interglacial period and are producing an unprecedented out of control warming."
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As with Senator James M. (Jim) Inhofe (R-OK), Coleman makes the case that indeed we may be in a period of global cooling. He said the data is so overwhelming that even the UN had to acknowledge it. So now the best thing proponents of global warming can do is to suggest that global warming is taking a ten-year break on account of the absence of sun spots. "If this weren't so serious it would be laughable" Coleman quipped. He went on to discuss the science behind global warming. He has dug through thousands of pages of material and examined complicated math and looked at complex theories. "The bottom line is this. The entire global warming scientific case is based on the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the use of fossil fuels. They don't have any other issue, Carbon Dioxide, that's it." At that point he tells Gore and the UN's intergovernmental panel on Climate Change, "Your science is flawed; your hypothesis is wrong; your data is manipulated and may I add your scare tactics are deplorable. The earth does not have a fever. Carbon dioxide does not cause significant global warming." From there Coleman presents the scientific data to prove his case.
It is a remarkable speech. It is posted at www.kusi.com/weather/colemanscorner/19842304.html Thank God Coleman is in a position to tell the truth. He says younger weathermen are afraid to speak out lest they lose their jobs. Young scientists are similarly afraid of losing research grants.
He blames the media for wanting a crisis and thus reporting pro-global warming stories. But when 31,000 scientists refuted global warming a month ago the media hardly mentioned it. He said that compares to 2,000 pro-global warming scientists on the UN climate change panel who claim that the issue is settled. Coleman said when he and others made a presentation at a New York conference of climate change skeptics the audience was limited to 600 people. Every seat was taken. After his remarks were posted on the Internet, he received hundreds of e-mails and calls supporting his position. "No, I am not alone. And the debate is not over." Colman concluded by saying, "If Al Gore and his warming scare dictate the future policy of our governments the current economic downturn could indeed become a recession. Drift into a depression and our modern civilization could fall into the abyss. And it would largely be a direct result of the global warming frenzy. "My mission," Coleman ended, "in what is left of a long and exciting lifetime, is to stamp out this global warming silliness and let us all get on with enjoying our lives and loving our planet, Earth." Godspeed John Coleman.
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