The New Flat Earth Society By Doug Patton February 12, 2007 After scoffing in my last column about the ridiculous Nobel Peace Prize nomination of former Vice President Chicken Little (aka Al Gore), I really had no intention of wasting any more time or thought on the issue of global warming for the foreseeable future. But then columnist Ellen Goodman weighed in with her arrogant opinion, and I just couldn't let it go. Wrote Ms. Goodman: "I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future." Well, Ellen, I would like to say that you, Al Gore, and all your friends in the Global Warming Cult (hereinafter known as "GWC" or "The Cult") are now on a par with the Flat Earth Society. It was once conventional wisdom that the earth was a flat disk around which the rest of the universe revolved, and off of which any vessel would tumble if it sailed too far in any one direction. Likewise, today's GWC has so successfully dominated the debate on the issue of global warming that it is now conventional wisdom to believe that it is the greatest threat facing humanity. If all rational people believe it, the argument goes, then anyone who doubts it must be a heretic. As her primary evidence that the case is now closed on the issue, Goodman cites a recent report from the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which unequivocally blames global warming on human activity. As if we are to believe anything that comes out of the United Nations. Polling by the Pew Research Center shows that global warming is number 20 on the average person's list of policy priorities, far behind terrorism, tax cuts, crime, morality, illegal immigration and 15 other issues. Of course, Goodman's irrational explanation for these attitudes is to blame the Bush administration and "its favorite media outlets." (Liberals, of course, have no favorite media outlets.) Goodman refers to the gaps between what she calls "Republican science and Democratic science," and is amazed that "23 percent of college-educated Republicans believe the warming is due to humans, while 75 percent of college-educated Democrats believe it." She calls James Inhofe a "Big Oil Senator," partly because he is from Oklahoma. But his biggest crime was that he dared to contradict the conventional wisdom of The Cult by describing the UN report as "a shining example of the corruption of science for political gain." Goodman also attacks the American Enterprise Institute, which she claims has received $1.6 million from Exxon Oil "over the years," for offering $10,000 to scientists who would counter the IPCC report. (Isn't it interesting that liberals don't think Saddam Hussein was collaborating with terrorists, even though he was offering $25,000 to the destitute families of suicide bombers, but they are more than willing to believe that reputable American scientists would risk their professional credentials for a paltry $10,000?) But Goodman's flimsiest argument comes when she tries to explain why the average person has a different set of priorities than the elites in The Cult: she believes we are psychologically paralyzed. "It may be, paradoxically," she tells us, "that framing this issue in catastrophic terms ends up paralyzing instead of motivating us." Quoting author Ross Gelbspan, she continues: "When people are confronted with an overwhelming threat and don't see a solution, it makes them feel impotent. So they shrug it off or go into deliberate denial." What psychobabble! Al Gore, Ellen Goodman and the rest of the Kool-Aid drinking GWC are truly the new Flat Earth Society. They are so brainwashed about the "conventional wisdom" of this issue, it never occurs to them that the real reason most Americans believe global warming is less of a threat than zealots flying airplanes into buildings could just be because common sense is more highly prized on Main Street than it is inside the Beltway or in the halls of the UN.